Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Third Dimension | Learning by Proxy
In 1903, the Wright brother flew the first plane at Kitty Hawk. They were put into real-world use, a little more than a decade later during the First World War. They were not very strategically important in those days because they did not have much of a range or payload capacity. But by the time…
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Human Rationality
In mathematics, the transitive law states: x>y and y>z then it implies x>z The trouble with humans is that when it comes to making choices, they are not transitive at all! If you prefer coffee over tea and you prefer tea over hot chocolate does not imply that you would prefer coffee over hot chocolate.…
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COP Out | Learning by Proxy
2021 has been quite a year. On that note, did it not seem like all of us were just too happy to get rid of 2020 and get into 2021? The year is almost finished!! This year saw forest fires stretch from California to British Columbia in Canada. Thousands of square kilometres of forests were…
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Appeal of the Extremist
Would you like it more spicy or less? If you were serving 100 people and you kept asking the same till you have 50, who would like it spicier and 50 who would like it less spicy, you would have arrived at the mean. The normal distribution curve is considered the truth of life. Following…
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One Trick Pony | Learning by Proxy
In the 18th Century, a cavalry officer by the name of Philip Astley set up an amphitheatre to display horse riding tricks. This was the genesis of the modern circus. The horses used to be made to perform various tricks and amuse the attendees. Some horses could perform only one trick and came to be…
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Diglossia
I was recently reading a book called Wanderer, Kings, Merchants by Peggy Mohan who is a language researcher. The book summarises the rise of various Indian languages and the metamorphosis that they have undergone over the millennia. The first language to come to India was the one that was used by the Harappan Civilisation. It…
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AI for Good
One of the questions I often used to be asked was; Would AI cause joblessness? My answer always was, a hammer can be used to make things or destroy things. The hammer is not at fault, it is the user, usually, a man wielding the hammer who is at fault. AI will not cause joblessness.…
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Elections | Learning by Proxy
Elections are old; as old as democracy. The ancient Greeks and Romans who created democracy were amongst the first to elect their leaders. The first records of elections that still survive are from Greece in 754 B.C. In the early days of elections, a show of hands was often enough to make the election happen.…
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Work in Progress
We all are works in progress. We always have been; always will be. None of us is the same as the day before. Just like a tree which is never the same on a subsequent day as the day before. The trouble is that the change is hard to see. Have you ever woken up,…
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Wrong Lessons
Often the outcome of a decision ends up determining our assessment of the quality of the decision. What it also does is that it makes sure that we learn all the wrong lessons. In 1986 as the space shuttle program was reaching maturity, people were losing interest in the human spaceflight program. As public interest…
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