Once there was a wise teacher who had a greedy student in his class. Although he was bright, he was greedy, and he had a hard time getting out of this habit. Unlike nowadays, in those days teachers used to teach everything from knowledge to attitudes which can shape the route of generations to come. Hence, the teacher did not give up on him. He thought of doing a trick. Picking up Corn. He walked with the student to a corn field and told him to walk into the corn plantation. Forwards, until he sees the biggest corn. Once he sees this, he has to pick this up and, if his corn is the biggest, he would be rewarded. And he cannot come back to pick up whatever he has left on the way into the field. Rules were simple, and off he went. Rules: He has to move forward looking to pick up the biggest corn. He cannot choose his corn on his way back. He will be potentially rewarded if he wins with the biggest corn. Off he went into the field. To find the biggest corn, and surely, he came back with a Fairly medium size of a corn, definitely not the winner. And the teacher asked, is that the biggest corn that you saw? The boy said, no teacher, there were many other larger corns I have seen along the way. Teacher: Then why did you pick up not so much big of a corn? The boy: Well, as were the rules, I had no choice to pick up when I come back, so when I move forward, I always thought, this corn is big, but what if this is not the biggest? I should find a bigger one more forward, surely more often than not I found a bigger corn, but at some point, I came to the end of the cornfield. With no more corn to pick up, I chose the last one. I know my greed had failed me. Optimal stopping problem - and answer Before moving onto the philosophical insights, if you want a quick answer to such a question, when should the boy have stopped looking for big corn and picking up instead, the answer is 37%. The boy should have assessed the sizes of the corn 37% of his journey and after that if he finds a bigger or equally big corn, he should have picked it up. This is mathematically answered question of optimal stopping. And if you ask me why, I will say, because that is proven by mathematically. We do not have to learn deep theorems of why that is so. But, more importantly where and when we should apply the rule. Following are few case scenarios where you can use the 37% rule. Imagine you are looking for a property to by. You have six months to move out from your current place. How are you going to do this? You cannot wait until the last moment. The answer is 37% roughly two months, you look for places and assess them. After that you buy whatever the next best option you are getting. Imagine you are looking for a partner, have ten years to go. And you can date, maybe one person per year, and get to know few per year, So, maybe for three years, you can try and pick up the best one from fourth year. I know it looks harsh on the first three. Roughly they have no chance if you stick to this rule. But on the other hand, if you are mathematically oriented you have no data to compare with before three years. So, you may not agree with this yet, these are only facts. I am not asking for you to become a inhuman machine. Similarly, you can apply this to any difficult choice you have to make over time. On being content Now, let's move from case scenarios and look at life. I think more than the mathematical probability of optimal stopping, this story teaches us about life. It is about being satisfied with your choices. Sometimes we have to be content early. And even the 37% rule proves that fact, 37% of something is fairly too early to be satisfied. We sometimes cannot reach the maximum we want. But, if you are satisfied with whatever small achievement you have made, you would be happy. Being too greedy can make you unhappy failure at the end, if the life is like picking up corns in a field. (read happiness paradox) Would you agree from morning till night everyday what we are doing is picking up corns? What biggest corn have you picked so far? Are you happy and content with it or looking for more still? Thank you for reading: Picking up corn, Optimal stopping problem or being content.

In modern days learning is a fundamental skill for anyone who wish to become successful in any career. From early student ages we were taught that to become more successful we need to concentrate more on our task at hand. I can remember I used to train, or at least practice some meditation in order to help myself to concentrate more on studies. It was hard! Outline: Introduction - the problem What is focused mode of thinking and diffuse mode of thinking? Benefits of diffuse mode of thinking Maximizing Study Efficiency: using Focused mode of thinking in our studying Maximizing Study Efficiency: using diffuse mode of thinking in our studying Imagine the following Scenario. Imagine you are studying, math. It is hard right? After a while tackling with a problem, you will feel tired. And you would not want to continue. But initially, you stated with high level of motivation. You wanted to continue with a six-hour study session. Now after a half an hour six hours seems to be overwhelmingly big task. Even after taking a break, you would not feel like coming back to the same problem. You would want to give up. What does your mind would do in this scenario. Definitely it is not going to come back. You have lost the battle and mind will distract itself with Television, social media or some other tasks. Now after years into my career, I learn that that was really not necessary. My mind wondering away from the book was actually not a problem at all. If you find your mind wonders away from the text, like mine, keep on reading you will find some answers to why. It is recognized that thinking happens in us whether we liked it or not. Thinking happens every time even if we study or not. So, what is the difference, why is it hard to study, and studying feeling overwhelming? Understanding focused mode of thinking and diffuse mode of thinking? During studying we tend to do a focused mode of thinking. While in relaxed mode, we do a diffuse mode of thinking. As you have guessed focused mode of thinking is energy consuming, and it gets us exhausted in few minutes. Diffuse mode of thinking on the other hand is like drifting clouds over the sky. It carries on without any exhaustion. Often when we study, we count our success by measuring how much material we covered and how much we understood. However, this mental process has its own limits when we use our focused mode of thinking. How can we get maximum use of these two modes? What other differences are there in these two modes? Focused mode is more creative, as it has access to different information from the past. Our brains do not store information in a single place. It is usually all around. Remember you had light bulb moment when you tried to find an answer to a problem. Often or not, these light bulb moments happens when someone is in relaxing mode. Really speaking Thomas Edison, himself who made this light bulb, knew how to tap into diffuse mode of thinking. Nowadays we try to fill our lives with distractions when we have the opportunity to find out what our minds will provide if we are able to listen to it. you will find more on diffuse mode tips down below in the article. In focused mode, We are thinking in a small context, trying to understand a concept or memories a concept, solve a problem. It is energy consuming, hence tiring. It is like trying to solve a maze while you are inside the maze. In diffuse mode, We are relaxed, particularly not thinking about anything but we are getting on with our lives and there are plenty of unrelated things come into our mind than what we are currently studying. Often, we label diffuse mode as bad, and waste of time. However, there is another school of thought which gives more value to the diffuse mode of thinking. Benefits of diffuse mode of thinking It is argued that diffuse mode of thinking allows us to be more creative, and during this state we can access the background knowledge and make connections to existing knowledge to new ones. If you know about blooms taxonomy and higher order thinking, you will understand that the power of diffuse mode of thinking is allowing us to create connections with existing ideas inside our brain. This is very helpful in providing us higher order thinking skills. Namely, analyzing, evaluating and hypothesizing. To put it into an analogy It is like looking at a maze from above from the sky, then trying to solve it like a flatlander on the surface. It is like having 3d vision in a 2d. world. Maximizing Study Efficiency: Understanding the Focused and Diffuse Thinking Modes Using Focused mode of thinking Focused mode of thinking is efficient when distractions are less, hence try to minimize distracting activities during this period of time. Try avoiding background music if it is distracting and do studying in a dedicated place with similar non-distracting environment, if you cannot find a library. (Why we get hooked, by smartphones) Find out the duration of your focused mode can go on. If you start to feel tired during focusing that is time to stop. Rather than continue. It is not a race against your brain. When it needs time out, it needs time out. Once you find out the duration of your study period, focus on the time. You can use a pomodoro techniques to do this. Advantage is you will get away without feeling overwhelmingly tired before next study period. There will be feeling of accomplishment even if you do not complete the dreadful math problem you are working on. (On Pomodoro and growing trees) Using diffuse mode of thinking in our studying Taking breaks. During study sessions, it is important to take breaks and relax. This allows our brains to into a slow gear and wonder with the new information. Allows time to settle down and make connections. Let's imagine you are stuck at some point in the text, or feels it doesn't make it stick, that is the best time to break the cycle and fall back into relaxed mode. You can start in a different section of the text and come back to the difficult part later. More importantly you can write down the topics of new concepts you learned, keep it a small piece of paper in your pocket. When you are relaxed later at your coffee, or even during a walk, just have a look at your paper and think about it. It doesn't mean you carry your work everywhere. But you will understand how much you have learned and not learnt if you do that. Embrace silence. Sometimes even in diffuse mode of thinking, distractions can be a problem. I would suggest silence will help. Think of it as a form of meditation. Watching the mind. As our minds contain all the information you gathered from the past, it always outputs something. So, to find out its output it is necessary to stop the process of input and try to listen to it instead. More on being silence is found here. (Embrace Silence to empower mindfulness) following video by Barbara Okley on diffuse mode of thinking. Where she described how she learned mathematics, how Thomas Alva Edson used to sleep during his thinking and tap into novel ideas using diffuse mode of thinking. In summary: Focused mode of thinking is about concentration, diffuse mode of thinking is relaxation. Diffuse mode of thinking is creative, and it can combine our previous knowledge with current knowledge to help with higher order thinking. In simple steps you can tap the power of diffuse mode thinking to enhance your study. Thank you for reading. "Maximizing Study Efficiency: Understanding the Focused and Diffuse Thinking Modes". You may also like to read Focused attention as a distraction, magician's trick Who is the best teacher of all times?

Once at a junction, I spoke with a color light. Red and green were happy yellow had a complaint. 'I'm tired of being compressed in between, the Mighty Red and Green' he said. 'No time to shine no escape. Purpose is clear path is laid, For red and green there's a future ahead Back and forth passing the message. I'm stuck here forever until I age.' London is full of color lights. There would be ten color lights for a stretch of a mile. I was looking at these the other day on the bus when I remembered a little game I played back at home. YOu guessed it right. Its a mindfulness game. Mindful driving game. Unlike here in the foreign land, I used to drive a lot back at home. Often alone, often at night. Sometimes I notice I am too much wondering in my mind when I drive. Often unnecessary unwanted things. More often I find out that I did pass through certain towns certain stretches of the road without even knowing it. I would realize this only when I come back to reality. The train of thoughts seems to be of in a fast pace. So, I decided to focus on lights. Yes, red lights. The mindful game was like this. During the drive I am going to notice red lights. Thats all I am going to do. So, When I decided, to notice red lights, guess what happened. I noticed red lights. Oten more than before, and when I noticed red lights, I was mindful. There was no thinking involved. I did not think "Oh beautiful red light, Bright red light, dim red light etc." Of course, thoughts come to mind. Yet I ignored them. I just noticed light and accepted it as it is. This way I could drive with a blank mind for longer stretches and felt as fresh as and a Suttle satisfaction as well. Try it next time. And comment what you have noticed. Or Do you know a better way to mindful driving? How would you drive mindfully during the day? Don't tell me you listen to music. Thank you for reading color light complaint How to be mindful driving. You may also like : What is time? a novel way to understand. Golden hours rush (poem)

It sounds stupid right? But I think you may have done the same. Imagine you hear a nice song. It finishes in three minutes. It is nice when I hear it and leaves a void when it's finished. What would you do? Listen to it again? Now when I think about it, I can see that is not very uncommon thing to happen. We all do that, in a DJ party, in family gathering music party, we request the same song. I had once or twice decided to go beyond listening once or twice. As you all know, if you have read my posts in the past, I like to challenge myself, this time a little experiment. Outcome of listening to the same song? So, I listened to the same song, for a one day. (maybe more than one day) following are my observations. Music is something I like, this song is nice, I can hear it all day- those were my initial thoughts. You know the feeling right? That sensation, when you hear your favorite song for the first time, you do not want it to finish. After few times hearing it, I started learning the lyrics, I could sing it (ha ha, not like a professional) If you are into learning, from a new skill to anything, repetition is the key right? Obviously as you guessed it my mind got bored after some time, I needed a new song, this one I know, it ruminates in my mind now even when I am not listening. What is wrong with me? Kept going on, sometimes until I feel like nauseated, of the same rhythm I loved so much in the beginning. Now after so long, things have settled, and when I think back and listen to the song, I feel like I am bringing back good old memories with it. And I feel like I can listen to the same song again, all day. I have learned enough not to trust my mind. At least on the above. Does this sound familiar to you? After all, listening to the same song is the only thing that we do repetitively. It may be a relationship, your good old job, maybe something you had to eat all day, and the same old route you take. Maybe you are exhausted like me listening to the same song life plays at us day after day. What is the solution? I can give you some solutions following traditional pathway of question -> solution. But please do not ever forget to question the question. That is where a real solution can be found (read - question is a missed opportunity to question) Let's not make this a missed opportunity. Following are my suggestions: Do not believe that would be happy listening to the same song in the beginning in the first place. Bring some variety, learn the lyrics, try to sing it, maybe that will keep you going. (at least Queens knew this when they produced Bohemian Rapsody.) If you are vomiting or sick, please please change the song. You must take care of yourself for the sake of others and you. If you pass the test, listening to the same song, one day it will generate a good outcome, this can motivate you now. Again, don't trust your mind. It changes over time. What about the fact that they say, "Repetition is the key?". Does this mean we should carry on boring tasks until we learn it? The flow state by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Obviously, this is not the case. Although it is repetition is the key there should be a balance between your level of skills and the challenge. If you are too skilled and doing an easy task repetition will just make you tire yourself into boredom. But if you are pushing your boundary a little more with each repetition, then there is a window for improvement. However, you have to be very careful not to give challenges impossible to do. If that happens there will be over-exhaustion and anxiety as which is counterproductive. Finding this sweet spot between degree of challenge and level of skill is difficult. This is the main idea of the "Flow" the world-famous book by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi In summary: There is some sweet spot of balance between skill level and challenge so you are having optimal experience. Otherwise listening to the same song is boring and tiering. Thank you for reading: Have I learned anything listening to the same song? You may also like to read: To catch the happiness before it hides. (A poem to think about)

I had the opportunity to visit the wisdom of the retired not once, not twice, but on multiple occasions. And this is the peep into the 'retirement' that all of us with Jobs, are wishing for. Maybe you are far away from it, maybe you are closer to it. But for everyone this will provide insights. Retirement Problems - physical health First of all, a true account from a retired. According to this person, he expected no more problems in retirement. However, he noticed that there are new set of problems which come in the retirement. You are at your latter part of your life. Although your mind is sound, the body is not, and it will start to fail like an old car. Some problems are mendable, some are not. Things you take granted today can be challenging in retirement. Things like walking, hearing even peeing. No need to talk about the eyesight and sleeping. Retirement Problems - Mental health For someone else, it may be the other side. Although there is reasonable function in the body they will deteriorate with mental health. There can be loneliness, and depression combined with dementia, slowly we will start to lose the connection with the world as we know it. These are inevitable and everyone knows diseases are just the beginning of the end. Retirement Problems- financial On top of this your financial capacity will be reduced. As long as you are saved some you will be saved. Often this is not the case for most of us. We might need additional help, from everyone around us. Once independent now depended on will be the new normal for the retirement. Of course, with proper planning we can avoid trouble. But as you see not everything is avoidable and nobody can predict the future. Even the covid pandemic hit hard on elderly and it is a fact retired are more vulnerable a population. So, the retirement is not without problems. You just trade new set of problems to old set of problems. So, when can I truly rest? When can I retire? Better attitude for retirement. When I think about the problem, I noticed that it is wrong attitude to look at life. It seems life is always with problems. We cannot expect 'retirement' as a true rest. Instead, we should look at retirement just as a transition from your 'work' to 'retirement job'. I am not a destroyer of your happiness if you are planning to retire next year. Instead, a better way to look at this problem is knowing how to 'rest'. First, we need to understand what a rest is. Rest is a space physical and mental for us to heal from the wear and tear. Imagine this as a time to turn off your mental machine. For someone it may be sleep, or a vacation, a run or a walk. Type of rest depend on the individual and the personality. For someone like me being an introvert silence and being closer to the nature with mindfulness helps to charge the battery of life, so I can come back strongly to make others happy. To make you happy writing this article. I suggest you look at your life and identify things, places and people who or whichever made you feel rested and supercharged. Maybe you can write them down. Welcoming Rest, in place of retirement. Next step is to stop yearning for retirement. Like I said, it is so far away for most of us and not so fancy for most of us. There is a fair bit of chance that I would never see my retirement at all. Instead, we can replace the retirement with "Rest". A rest is a good little achievement you can do. You can do Rest today. You can even Rest now. If you close your eyes and be mindful for a couple of minutes, it has the power to make you feel good. It doesn't have to be fancy like retirement. If you include plenty of rest into your life, that is all we can expect from life. You would not agree with me today. I suggest you come back to this article once you are so tired of the rat race. And remember the important message. Do not retire, instead Rest. You can never retire, that is an illusion created by our society. But you can rest, even when you work hard today, or even when you're "Retired". When you rest properly you will never be tired, so you have to retire. Truely speaking you can be retried while you are awaiting your retirement. Some people call it work life balance. I would say it is just life. Life is work and rest. Life is problems and silence. Life is craving and satisfaction. Life has two sides, always trying to be hanging onto one is impossible. So, after some time of resting, eventually you will feel the need to 'rest the resting'. In summary: Retirement has its own problems. Physical mental and financial Instead of retirement we should aim for resting. If you are yearning for your retirement, I suggest you are tired and invite you to have a rest, because true retirement only happens when you exhale your last breath. Thank you for reading you may also like to read: Root cause of all problems Eskimos and demodex- home sweet home.

I first learned the term a paradigm shift when one of my chemistry teachers talked about this in high school class. He also introduced the term metacognition. More than chemistry he used to teach about things, things about life. This was one such thing. He gave the following example to illustrate the fact. What is a paradigm shift? Imagine you are walking home. You take the same bus route day after day from your workplace or school to home. This is common right? You fall into the same routine, and you will just fall into same pattern of thoughts day after day while in the bus. Usually places pass by without even being noticed until you reach your destination. Now imagine one day your bus route changes due to some construction, or wreckage of a bridge the bus had to take a long route. But on this specific day you will see a different neighborhood and you will start to notice things you have not seen before. This is a paradigm shift. Now imagine this time it is not the same bus, but you have chosen to travel on the top deck of a double decker bus. Still if you haven't done before you would see same junctions, same shops with a novel perspective. And those routine patterns of thinking will be replaced by new data and new ways at least for the duration of the travel. Does this mean thinking outside the box? I would not say so. It seems to have a deeper meaning than just thinking outside the box. It is more like the change which occurs when you have a thinking outside the box. In this article I talked about viewing the world from top of a tree. Now even after years of having not done that when I walk in a park or even outside in a bus stop, I can imagine myself being on top of a nearby tree and I can see myself doing what I am doing. So, because of the previous experience, now my internal structure has changed that I have this new way of looking at the world. The paradigm shift is like a major change in a way we look at the world. Paradigm is a pattern of thinking. We will look at more and more examples to understand this. Everyone knows the earth is round. Yet few hundred years ago people believed the earth to be flat. But once Galileo Galilei developed the telescope, he gathered more and more data to show as evidence that earth is spherical. As we could see, other celestial bodies, like planets and their moons. Finally, when Ferdinand Magellan travel all around the world without falling off the edge to eternity, people started to see the true nature of a spherical world. But all these data are indirect right. It was not until we start to travel far into the space, with our cameras and telescopes and look back on the earth, when had this amazing view of our round planet earth we are sure of i. Now even a five-year-old boy knows the earth is round. These kind of paradigm shifts occur in every part of our science. It may be quantum physics, it may be DNA structure, it can be even a people's movement to stop the war. Once a paradigm shift occurs the way we look at the world changes, more often permanently. I can give you some simple examples from the modern-day world. Steve Jobbs did it with his introduction of iPhone. Elon musk did it with introduction of private space Race and green energy. Definition of paradigm shift. Paradigm shift is a change in a pattern of thinking in an individual or a community, often with some strong hold. formal definition in Merrium webster an important change that happens when the usual way of thinking about or doing something is replaced by a new and different way. The term paradigm shift was coined by the American physicist and philosopher Thomas Kuhn. He described dramatic changes in pattern of thinking in scientific world as paradigm shifts. Are paradigm shifts always good? This is not true either. It is good when new knowledge makes us reach one step closer to truth if at all something is there as it is. But paradigm shift can occur in a bad pathway if the facts are not true or misguided into a society. So, it is utmost importance that we do not follow the heard blindly but think for ourselves. It takes courage to think alone. So, under each paradigm shift there is underlying creativity and 'Thinking outside the box.' Natural paradigm shifts. Natual paradigm shifts will occur. They can occur in Geological scales or in individual level. Imagine the world where we had the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing in Japan. once this happened, the world changed. Even heartless political leaders came to their senses for a good couple of decades that we put forward an agenda that something like that should not happen in the future. Death of a loved one or an illness, a separation can cause someone to shift their perspective on life. Some change their lives for the better. Some change their life for the worse in lines of depression or suicide. So, we have to be careful that when these events should occur. Near death experience is one such occasion which has the capacity to change thinking patterns. How can we use paradigm shift for our advantage? To change the way, you think about the world you have to give yourself more opportunities to be creative. Then when it is time, a paradigm shift will occur naturally. Even if it doesn't it won't do no harm as new experience on world is going to help your relief your stress. So, following are my simple advice to make it happen a paradigm shift. Imagine you are taking the same bus to come home every day. Why don't you change the route, you do not have to wait until the road is broken until you do this. Imagine you are very friendly with people, why don't you try to spend an afternoon alone with yourself. Imagine you are a big fat introvert like me. Why don't you start a blog so you can connect with people and start listening. Imagine you are greedy, why don't you spend a good amount from your next salary to donate for charity? Have you ever tried eating on the floor? Did you ever try to spend a week without the television or the phone? Did you try to quit smoking once in a while? Let's say you are not talented to draw, have you tried to draw a cartoon? I am not saying you will be a master cartoonist. But the idea is to see the world differently to get away from the monotonous routines of life. A paradigm Shift, thinking about Hiroshima bomb incident. (following is a paragraph from the book from what is time to illustrate a fact) Imagine when we talk about the Hiroshima bomb incident. The picture of the gigantic mushroom cloud comes into our mind. But if time has no instances, we cannot talk about the Hiroshima bomb. It would be meaningless. There is no specific point in time which can be pointed out as the Hiroshima bomb incident. Hiroshima bomb incident, It is not the plane that flew with the bomb over Japan, It is not the release of the bomb. It is not the travel of the bomb through the air. It is not the impact of the bomb on ground. It is not the detonation. It is not the explosion. It is not the nuclear blast. It is not the shock wave. It is not the collapse of the buildings and the clouds that followed. It is a collection of every one of these events. But if any of these events cannot be considered the Hiroshima bomb incident, is there anything to be labeled as such? Thank you for reading What is a paradigm shift.

Well, I asked the question from few different people, and these were the answers I have got. How would you answer the question? I asked a tired chemistry professor Why do birds Fly. he said, because they can. And I was not satisfied. So, I asked Richard Faynman. He was kind. He thought about it and spoke. "Well, I can give you easy answer or I can give you a longer version of it. Easy answer is the force generated by the flapping of wings of the bird is enough to lift its weight against gravity and the forward thrust generated is more than the resistance. So, they fly, my boy that is how an airplane fly. That is how we build our airplanes to mimic the nature. But, if you truly want to know how birds fly, I will say fundamentally it is due to interactions of four forces of nature, Gravity: The force of attraction between masses. Electromagnetism: The force between charged particles. Weak Nuclear Force: Responsible for radioactive decay and neutrino interactions. Strong Nuclear Force: Holds the nuclei of atoms together. That is all there. Anything you see happening is happening due to these interactions. Not only this, you ask this question and I answer the question because of these forces. You and I live and die due to same reasons. Then I asked Robert frost. Why do birds fly? He said, birds do fly in search of food, to get away from the enemy and to chase their partners. Birds fly when they are happy and when they are sad and when they are scared. Birds fly, as it is faster than walking. They do have feet after all so it's all about speed. Speed so they can survive in the wild against the odds of the nature. Against the cruel nature and its forces which try to engulf their lives all the time. Birds do fly so they can be above their prey to dart onto a fish or a butterfly or a bug in seconds to swallow it in whole. Birds do fly because they have higher chance of survival on treetops than on the ground below. And flying is easier than climbing to get there. Robert frost on nature. I asked David Attenborough Is it true? Why do birds fly is for their survival? He said, maybe yes. Maybe there is more. And he showed me a video on a baby eagle taking its first flight. How it first jumped from a branch to another. And like it had no choice, like it was born to do. Like because it can. Next was a big leap into the sky. And that was a beginning of a lifetime of flying. Then he showed me baby ducks fresh out of their nest on a tree top jumping off the tree to land on the forest floor, hearing their mothers' cries. Like they had no choice. He said to me. Of course they can, they fly because they can. And also, they fly, fly because they must, as it is essential to fly not to die, and to be alive. I asked a child why do birds fly? He said, I don't know. Do they fly? What is flying? and what is a bird? Is the eyes of the bird a bird? Is it wings make a bird a bird? Is it beak makes a bird a bird? Is all of it a bird? And what is flying? Is it flapping wings flying? Is it pushing up the ground flying? And why did you say it is flying looking at the still image of a bird in the sky? Thank you for reading Why do birds fly.

I was watching Neil Degrasse talking about time the other day and was thinking. Unfortunately, I cannot find the exact link to the video. However, argument is presented as following. Having written a book about time I immediately picked up the error in the message and I would elaborate more on this in the following paragraph. Introduction Neil first speaks of how wrong it is to measure time in revolutions of earth. Imagine we measured time relative to one revolution of earth. We can say our time is linked to arbitrary number of hours or even 24 hours. Once we do this, imagine the earth starts to slow down on its own rotation. And after some time, we would not know that in reality the 24 hours have increased. Instead for 24 hours now there are 25 hours, except that we would not know. So, what did scientists do? Instead of relying on earth's rotation they started to look at some oscillations of atoms. And linked this information to the definition of time. Do you see the problem in definition of time? If you haven't let me, explain, imagine due to some unknown reason the time taken for this oscillation of atoms change from a minute amount. Instead of a constant time, now we have a second which is larger or smaller than the previous second. And still there is no way we can get away from the problem, whatever yardstick we use, we will never be able to be absolutely certain the yardstick we use is not changing over time. This is an unavoidable fundamental error in our scientific method. I have discussed more about the role of philosophy in the era of science in previous article. Now if you are wise, you would not stop from there. You would ask further questions. What about measuring distance? and what about measuring mass? So, you would understand similar problems occurs in measuring the mass as well as distance. Similarly measuring anything you will see there is no way we can be sure about our measuring method at all. (Modern definition of second is used in the definition of meter and in turn in the definition of the kilogram, hence whatever the hypothesis we made about the second inherently attributed to modern definition of kilogram as well. Read about definition of kilogram here) Following is a paragraph from the book from the past to the future or What is time explaining the concept. Time beyond definitions. More Scientific views on time. Let's go back to the question. What is time? We are in the era of advanced science. We should be able to answer a simple question as above. However, we fail miserably. Is science wrong? That's why we fail? Answers to the question of time should lead us there. Let's analyze the definition from physicists. “Time is a physical quantity that measures the interval over which a change occurs. Time is related to change. It has no direction (is it linear or not?). It's only a magnitude, hence a scalar quantity.” If we expand on this definition, we can establish our current understanding on time. So, basically the science says, if you measure the interval between two events. That is what the time is. So, time is the measurement. If you look at the clock at the beginning of your reading, and deduct that from the clock's reading now, that is time. So, what is the tool which we use to measure this change? Time can be measured in milliseconds, seconds, minutes, hours, years, light years. And it is a spectrum, from unmeasurably small to unmeasurably large. Then how have we standardized our measurements? “One second is the time that elapses during 9,192,631,770 (or 9.192631770 x 109 in decimal form) cycles of the radiation produced by the transition between two levels of the cesium-133 atom.” The measure of time ‘second’ is defined by a physical change in nature. So the measurement tool itself is not absolute. It depends on an event that is observed. There is a caveat. We tend to forget the observer when we define a second. It's time to correct ourselves if one needs to understand, hence the following edited version. The second is ‘time the observer feels’, during 9,192,631,770 (or 9.192631770 x 109 in decimal form) cycles of the radiation produced by the transition between two levels of the cesium-133 atom. Now that is strange, isn’t it? Of course, it doesn't look scientific when put that way. But we can’t blame scientists. After all, anything which has significant bias is eliminated in science and handed over to philosophy over and over again. It all depends on how the observer feels. So, there is a flaw in definition, when it comes back to the observer. Let’s think there are two observers, and would they feel one second the same? Definitely not! As many observers there are, for each one of them, a second would feel different. If paraphrased above definition, time is a feeling between two events for an individual observer, him, her, or itself. Now we can look back at some of the above questions with this new definition and see if we can answer or explain some of these. It may not be perfect yet. But we can say, it is absolutely true when you say, ‘I didn’t feel the time passing so quickly when you are with me’. Or when you feel time slows down on your vacation to the top of the Matterhorn Mountain peak last year. But that truth is only relative to you. All the others will not agree, because time is relative, not absolute. Yet relative differences exist, and nobody can argue otherwise. Because time is observer dependent even by the definition of scientists. (although it was knowingly eliminated from the definition) In summary Problem of definition of time Time is defined in terms of a observed change in the nature. Which is observer dependent. As everything else is dependent on the definition of time, it seems a relative truth.

I was looking for my past the other day. I couldn't find it anywhere. I had memories of past. And other than that, there was nothing. Where is your past? Have you seen it lately? When I think about past, hardly I find any fanciful memories. Hardly any happiness retains from the past. Do you have the same problem? Let's understand this phenomenon with an example. Why we can't savor happiness from past experience. Happy memories. Imagine you had a great dinner last Sunday with a bunch of your friends. There was music, there were plenty of fresh food. There were great people whom you've met for the first time, and stories and everything you can imagine in a great party. Even the skies were clear, and weather was excellent. Like in a movie. If you haven't been to a party imagine a party in a movie. Imagine it was Summer Tomorrowland 2024, that you have been to. There was this great DJ music all around the night, with surrounded by thousands and thousands of energetic people. That is a once in a lifetime experience. Or if you are an introvert like me, you can imagine some quite time you had. Some far away hiking trail you have been to with your lonely self. With your backpack filled with essentials you go far away from the society and be closest to the nature. I can remember Once we went to a magical village in the middle of a jungle nowhere, even the jeeps had hard time reaching there due to so, damaged roads. We had two days to be in this village, just a few of my closest friends and plenty of nature and plenty of solidarity. The mountain range which surrounded the village provided Cristle clear streams with plenty of natural pools and water slides. You could drink water without any remorse as the pollution had not seen the valley ever since it was covered with the lush green forest. Do you know how I know it? Because I have been there and felt it. You would not believe that I did not remember my stressful job for a second of it. Not for a blink of a time I was stressed, and it felt like the barrier in the brain is no longer there that you feel like the nature itself. There was nothing to hide, nothing to protect. Such a pure experience. Imagine you had a similar happy experience, maybe with your partner, may be with your children, maybe with your parents or maybe alone. Replicas of mind? Now, back in the busy world when I think about it, I can recall what it felt like to be there. But the problem is that this is not the exact experience I had. I can imagine closing my eyes and being there, but my mind know it is just my imagination with my memory creating a new experience inside the room. When we recall some experience from the past that is not the exact experience, it is like a modeled replica of something. We can Understand this phenomenon with some art. Imagine you have been to see a famous art gallery, where there was the Portrait of the Madame Reclaimer, or you have just seen the Fifteen sunflowers in a Vass by Van Gough. How much do you think these paintings worth? In millions, right? But what about a replica. A replica of these paintings would look the same would even feel the same, but you can just own one for few hundred dollars, right? Why I feel sad about happy memories? Similarly, when we think about those past experiences, we had in the comfort of our home, they are not the same. They are only some cheap replicas made by our minds at this moment of time. So, essentially what happens is there will be a Gap created between these two. And often my mind is conscious about the lost value. Meaning my mind know, that this is not the real experience. So, I cannot find happiness when I think of such a memory, only sadness as my mind compares this vivid experience to the current situation I am in. And of course, it is painful when I think back about those good times I had. It is Suttle but it is kind of a small pain inside that I am not feeling that great currently. This doesn't happen of course if you are having better experience at this exact moment, however that is not the case most of the time. I am not complaining that this is bad. As if you think rationally this quality of mind is also doing good for me as I am able to forget about bad past experiences. We all have terrible experiences from the past. Imagine whenever you are reminded of a bad past experience that you feel the same dreadful trap again and again. It would become a horror dream, isn't it? This is what happens to some sensitive individuals in a phenomenon called, post-traumatic stress disorder. They experience the same tragic over and over again, which is not a cheap replica at all. And they would need help from a therapist to overcome these. What is my past? If we get back to the question now, we can try to answer what is my past? It seems what we see as memory is a cheap replica of past experience which is happening now. So, where is past? Is it in books? Is it in photos you have taken? Is it in videos that you captured? It seems not. The past seems to be destroyed moment by moment giving rise to a new continuation of the reality. There is not a drop of past you will find even if you look for it a thousand years. And the reality is the past is best described as an illusion of mind. Does this mean that we should forget about the past? It does not. Even if you tried you would not be able to forget, meaning, you will get these replicas from the past from time to time every day. The day you do not get these, you will be called that you have dementia! So, unless you want to be in a dementia I would suggest, not to worry about these. As these replicas serve the important function in understanding current situation. But what is this moment? Can we really live in now? Worrying about past. Inevitably if we truly understand the past. And we do our own experimentation to find out where the past is, we should be able to find out that the past doesn't exit. It is already destroyed. So, worrying about the past which is never going to come back is the most absurd thing a one can do. Having said that I may still regret as the mind often forget the fact that it is useless. learning from past. Similarly, when someone talk about learning from the past. It seems a good advice in the first instance. And I suggest asking the question how? How can we learn from something already destroyed and no longer there to see. Here I will summarize Where is my past? Whatever past experiences we had is just a cheap replica of our mind which is happening now. Past cannot be captured in photos, videos or even in memories. So, worrying about past and learning from past, are things that are good for day to day talking but has no real value in a philosophical world.

You may wonder, why you should or should not believe on anything I have written in the blog. Truth, is it doesn't matter. I just write as it flows from my fingertips. It's better than echoing it in the mind and disappearing. About myself. I am a surgeon. Somewhere doing surgery on real people. Still, I am. I haven't quit my job. But it can be there as a viable option in the future. We all have to quit the life at some point, so it doesn't matter when. In a way I am in a perfect position to look at life. Perfect position as I have seen inside outs of human body. I find it all look the same. So, here I am writing about some personal perspectives of life. In a cohort of many surgeons, I find myself belonging to a unique category as I have always seen the life in a different perspective. Ever since I used to climb trees to get away from my mother's bitter syrup. I have seen the world from a bird's eye view. So, I think writing it down would help you to understand that unique perspective. You may read more about Trees - on A tree top or the gentle Giant. Here In this article, I would give some of my personal experience on human body and mind. These are true accounts. No lies at all. Some you may find it disturbing. So, little bit of warning here as I have to exactly describe how I felt. After all there are plenty of people who have watched "The Saw" movie series or "The wrong turn" They are more dramatic as real life. In the morgue. I can remember going into the morgue. If you have watched any medical detective TV series, you have seen bodies on table and autopsy being done. It is not a good experience for most of students. It can't be right? There are no beautiful lady forensic doctors doing some autopsy on a nice table with white coats. That is a lie made by the film makers. In my experience it went like this. It was a gloomy place. Like a pig farm, (of course I have been to a slaughterhouse) smelly of formalin and other strong chemicals to keep the smell away. Yet, it was smelly. It is dark place with running water. Half of our medical group couldn't even physically stay inside as their bodies were rejecting the environment. They could not help it. I could feel myself nauseated inside. But We all saw autopsy being done. lessons from Autopsy. There were two bodies. One was a few days old swelled up body. Picked up from somewhere and brought by the police for the autopsy. I cannot exactly remember about the autopsy being done on this body except it was smelly. The second one I can remember another day. Police brought a lady who had jumped on to an oncoming train in a suicide attempt. Unfortunately, or fortunately, it was successful. I cannot remember the reason behind the suicide. She was a normal looking lady, in her twenties or thirties. Her skull was crushed by the heavy engine. And we saw the lethal wound had disfigured her head. Pieces of her brain was seeping through her cracked skull Just like and egg being crushed. Can you imagine she being, well and living on a one moment and in a matter of second becoming a lifeless body? It makes me wonder what my life is like. Although my body seems to be strong, our bodies are not strong against forces of nature. There is nothing I can see to be proud of this fragile body. The body we value so much, we train with exercise every day to make it strong. But if you fall 10 stories, that is exactly what you will end up with, a dead crushed body. So, when I see people jump from mountains and other places. I wonder they have ever seen this fragile nature of our body. In par with exercise, we should avoid a fall. Second, I have noticed is the body was not smelly. The body was not smelly at all like the first one, until they cut it open. Usually, every body is cut open inside the morgue and sometimes even the bowel is laid open to see contents. I can remember when her body was cut open some of the students ran away from the room as it was so bad. That was not the last time in my life that I have experience this phenomenon. We all look so nice when we are covered with our clothing and perfume. I am not at all against it. I like to look nice in front of the mirror. Yet sometimes I laugh at myself when I know what a nasty looking pile of garbage I am hiding inside this skin. What have you learnt about life? Is it all good and soft, nice and dreamy? Or is it just a delusion? I will end up here leaving you with final thoughts. Following is the exact point I wanted to emphasize in the book from the past to the future. chapter from the book what is time. Eight thousanders K2 is one of the 14 eight-thousanders, which is the second highest mountain in the world and second only to Annapurna 1 as the deadliest mountain. One in four people have died in attempts to summit this deadly pyramid in Karakoram range in Pakistan, which has given the nickname ‘Savage Mountain’, not for the faint heart. Each year a few mountaineers attempt at the summit of this deadly beast and risk their own lives. It is not a simple endeavor even for the experienced as they have to survive harsh conditions and deadly challenges even to have a view of the mountain as it is so far away from human reach. Summiting this mountain is considered a great honor, although even for the most successful they have only a few minutes to spend on top of the world enjoying mesmerizing views, as more time they spend enjoying their success the more they risk as climbing up is only half the journey. Death is more common, is honored, but each climber takes a gamble against nature. Sometimes they have to give up on lifelong friends on top of the mountain freezing to death as there is no way to help without risking their own life. An icefall, a slip of a foot, a change in weather and exhaustion can kill. Yet the hours spent in planning and challenges they face, what drives these brave men and women to conquer their fears? Are rewarded by the time that they spend on the summit. Why is it less rewarding when the challenge has less risk to life? Why does it have to be the K2 rather than the village mountain, or top of your house, or top of your table, or your feet? Who gives the value to the K2 summit? How many mountains do we have to climb? How many waterfalls do we have to see? How many lakes and parks do we have to visit? How many challenges do we have to face until we are satisfied? Biggest mountains are created by mind. Thank you for reading: In the morgue, a student's perspective. You may also like to read: Why can't google answer my question?

We all have seen horse races; it is one of the oldest sports, which was there since, ancient civilizations of Greek, Rome, Babylon, Arabia and Egypt. However, I would suggest horse races have been there ever since two men, started riding two horses' side by side, for the purpose of fun, for adventure and for survival. Where are we standing today in this fascinating sport, once which was a 'sport of the kings'?. We have different kinds of horse races, fast, slow and elegant. Flat racing, jump racing, endurance racing are a few. And we have opportunities to watch them on site, for the prestige and on television for the poor, and even read about yesterday's races on paper. Even if you are a mathematician, or a programmer you would have to solve a horse racing problem at some point in your life, and it can come as a google interview question. There are some captivating things about races, in general. Imagine when there is a race of eight horses, (or even more as in google interview question) how many winners you would get after the race? Obviously, what a silly question, one winner, second and third place right? Now, how many non-winners would be made by the racing. (This is not a question for betting on horses, as rules of betting are different than horse racing itself. Win, Place, Show, Across the board) There will be seven non winners, and five without any place. Now look at the jockeys and owners, as horses seem to be less affected by winning and losing. There will be seven unhappy jockeys. And we can always predict there will be more unhappy losers than happy winners each and every race. Even if it is a race between two people someone is going to be looser, so probability of unhappy Loosers in any race is 50% or more. More is more as most of the races involve more than two participants. Let's look at our lives. We are involved in races in our lives most of the time. In classrooms, there will be a race to the academic excellence, sports excellence, and so many others. Even art or music or creative writing has become competitions. Even climbing a wall or finding a cure to covid 19 becomes a race at right circumstances. And if we apply our inevitable conclusion of our horse race to these situations, we will have something to think about. There will be more losers and unhappy people at the end of every race. And of course, we asked the same question from our teachers when we were young, when we were crying when we couldn't win the chess game, the running game or the quiz competition. And we got our answer, that we have to learn to lose and endure the pain of losing as life is full of games. Life actually is all about games. What about not participating at all. Would it be a nice choice? Of course, When we choose not to participate, we will never win. We will never achieve fame we will never enjoy the price; we will never be remembered. But we would be guaranteed 100% that we will not lose and be heartbroken. I suggest we all should look back at ourselves, before stepping up for the challenge. Sometimes it is wise to run away from problems, how cowardly it may seem, because you are guaranteed, there will be no loss. Two boys went to the army, oh friends they were. One was brave, the other was cowardly. One fought hard, other couldn't fire the gun. One ran forward, while the other stayed in the drain. One was shot in the heart, Other played dead behind the enemy. And buried the brave, when the sun set in the west. Thank you for reading horse races and rat races. You may also like reading C++ computers and programming to life I wish I could be there (Poem)

Pyramids, represent ancient history of several civilizations of our ancestors, which are even stand tall today. There are many facts and figures and mysteries to be learn about these monuments. I would like to elaborate on few of these. We all know about #pyramids of Egypt, most famous are pyramids of Giza. However, there are pyramids all over the world, in China, in Peru, in Greece, in India. Why they were common in those ancient civilizations? Why pyramids? Truth is, they are even found in modern world, not as common as in the past, as we have changed our construction methods from piling up bricks to concrete, iron and metal reinforced materials. We can build tall structures without a wide base so; they often represent rectangular prisms nowadays than pyramids. So, pyramids were the obvious norm without such technology, for tall structures. Even today, the world's tallest Building Burj Khalifa in EAU, has some form of pyramid in its overall shape. Archeologists, historians and scientists still in search how these giant pyramids were built in the past, as it seems, carrying tons of weight up to even top of pyramids is unimaginable task without huge cranes and diesel-powered mammoth engines. Obviously, pyramids were built from bottom to top. Even in today tower construction starts from bottom to top; however, finishing is done from top to bottom. Otherwise, it would be a mess. Functional pyramids If we deviate from structural pyramids, we will see out there are some functional pyramids of our own specialty. In science, pyramids are used to represent different concepts. We may learn about, ecological pyramids, food pyramids for nutrition, Maslow's hierarchy of needs in Psychology, Blooms taxonomy in #learning, population pyramids and many more. After all it may be a triangular shape that we are looking at, but the idea is its three dimensional. While the bottom of the pyramid represents, larger volume and basic, top represents lesser in volume and more advanced. Blooms taxonomy Here, I would elaborate Blooms taxonomy from the perspective of a pyramid. Blooms taxonomy states that there are levels of knowledge that we can acquire. In the bottom of the pyramid, is represented by Knowlege and comprehension, (memorizing and understanding) Middle levels are represented by Application and analysis (problem solving, comparison etc.). The higher order thinking or the top of the pyramid is represented by the Synthesis and evaluation (making connections, grouping together and hypothesizing) Lower order thinking - Knowlege and comprehension, (memorizing and understanding) Mid order thinking - Application and analysis ( problem solving, comparison etc) Higer order thinking - Synthesis and evaluation (making connections, grouping together and hypothesizing) Message: If you are a learner, and if you want to excellence in your field, obviously you would need to be on top of your bloom's taxonomy rather than the bottom. As it represents more deep understanding of the subject. However, if we look at the construction of a pyramid analogy, we cannot do the top without doing the bottom. Or is it true? If you spend time in trying to understand connections in your knowledge and concepts that already exist to hypothesize, the bottom steps will follow automatically from our brain. If you have followed the arguments in this post, what I have exactly done is that. I have hypothesized, analyzed pyramids and the knowledge about them and made a connection between pyramids of other areas, not only the shape, but the construction process etc. There are many materials in internet that would teach us about blooms taxonomy application which can refine our process of thinking. Good luck hunting them! Thank you for reading : Pyramids, Oh mighty pyramids- Lessons from Blooms taxonomy You may also like : Phone addiction, how do we get hooked. bottlenecks of life