The Last Laugh..
From what I see on TV, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has an eye for humour. He has shown himself to be someone adept in coming up regularly with carefully constructed tautologies, beautiful contradictions and amazing absurdities.

The latest from him beats all his previous ones for the simple reason that it has the "last-laugh" ring to it.

As some people find it ultra-fashionable to call these days, Victory changes everything. Whatever it changes or doesn't change, it does give the victors a chance to have the proverbial "last-laugh". Now they can say whatever they feel like, not thinking about criticism of any sort.

Rumsfeld yesterday announced, with his usual wry smile on his face, that he never believed that American troops could find the WMDs! He said, never ever, did he think or say that the troops could find what the UN inspectors could not.

There was silence in the press room. Well, if you thought someone was going to jump up and say, "Holy Heavens, that was what we were telling you all the time, Mr Rumsfeld!" - wait! He had an add-on to his statement.

He said the troops' job was not to locate the WMDs but rather to locate those Iraqis who knew where the WMDs were!

One sure way of solving a problem, is to eliminate the problem. Say that the problem does not exist. Rumsfeld is playing a prolonged variation of the same game. Shifting the target. Keep a target and if looks like you wont get there, say that, that wasn't my target in the first place, and continue as things come along.

As a wonderful next step in this gambit, let me suggest this to Mr Rumsfeld -

"As you all know, the aim was never to locate the WMDs, but rather to locate the Iraqis who knew where the WMDs were. Our war time intelligence reports tell us now, that all the Iraqis who actually knew that, have died in the War!"

Check-Mate!

"Oh, how unfortunate for you, Mr Secretary!!", let us all reply, nodding our acknowledgement!

-Untitled-
If you think somebody is being unfair to you, just let them be..
For one of these days, they will get bored of being unfair, and start being fair to you, just for the heck of it..

:-)

That One Talent!

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide,
Lodg'd with me useless, though my Soul more bent..
...
John Milton, On his Blindness


GH Hardy, in his book "A Mathematician's Apology" argues about how the "gifted" people of this world, once they realize that they have a "gift" or "talent" should pursue it and achieve whatever they can in their lifetime. To quote,

"If a man has any genuine talent, he should be ready to make almost any sacrifice in order to cultivate it to the full."

He presents his case in a safe manner, telling us that the majority of people cannot do anything specifically well. So this is not applicable to them. But for those who clearly have a gift, Hardy urges them to pursue it to their best.

Only economic necessity and age, according to Hardy, are plausible excuses for not pursuing something that one can do exceptionally well. He has pretty harsh words for those who miss out.

"... (it) would be silly if he surrendered any decent opportunity of exercising his one talent in order to do undistinguished work in other fields. "

I have met a lot of people with little talents doing what Hardy calls "undistinguished work". Ask me, I would say in most cases, it is indecisiveness more than anything else that makes them do what they do and not pursue their talent.

It takes a bit of courage probably, for the sheep to not follow the herd. And the sheep doesn't have it. :(

Agree to Disagree - The Conflict Equilibria..
Realization dawned, finally!

Looks like conflict, disagreement, argument, debate and if I exaggerate a bit, War, are all part of an equilibirium. Trying to achieve everlasting peace or trying to get an everlasting consensus on any matter should be a really challenging task simply because we are trying to disturb an equilibirium(which has always proved to be tough). And worse still, is maintaining that consensus over a period of time!

If I had known this a year ago, I wouldn't have probably allowed an argument on Gandhi get nasty. I was primarily responsible for that!

A couple of months ago, I wouldn't have demanded to know who is fair and who is not in this War on Iraq.

I am really disappointed with myself, for I failed to recognize this simple equilibirium. Or maybe that I did know that it existed - but just that I kept forgetting it in the heat of argument. Passion seems to be the main culprit! :(

Whatever it might be, better late than never. Now, I can peacefully participate in all arguments with a mentality to retain this equilibirium. Because consensus is an "excited state" and even if it is attainable, it will take a lot of energy to retain it in that state.

Not that I don't want challenge - just that I have realized a fundamental truth!

Exaggeration..
'Tis a rule of manners to avoid exaggeration. - RW Emerson

You can call this an ego-post! But even though it is about me, I would like to assume that I am addressing a generic behaviour rather than a personal attribute!

I have been (and am) accused by many of my friends for committing the sin of 'exaggeration'. And so I am going to dwell on this subject a bit here. In a way, this place has been nice to me, because it gives me freedom to drive home my arguments without counter-argument disturbances, until atleast the time when the comments start trickling in! :-)

Of late, people have tended to call my exaggerations - 'lies' sometimes. They have accused me of bending 'facts'. And I thought it was time for me to appeal to my audience (whoever that might be!) and make a case for myself. Put forward an apology, so to speak!

At the outset, let me tell you that I exaggerate naturally. I don't do it knowingly - but it has been a part of my natural communication. I assume this aspect of my communication never came to me from anywhere, but was part of me, always. And that is one reason why I took time to think about it and this post is a result of my pondering.

One justification for my exaggeration is simple - I am honest! Both towards the subject and the listener. And that is precisely why I exaggerate, inspite of whatever Emerson has to say about it!

When I see a beautiful painting, or travel through great piece of scenery, or hear a pure form of music, or watch a great sportsman perform, or read stimulating poetry, or listen to a great man speak great thoughts - I am enthralled.

And when I have to communicate the same to someone else, honesty forces me to make him feel the same way I felt when I experienced whatever I experienced. The listener has not experienced it and is getting second-hand information. I consider it my duty to transport him into the situation that I was in. What do I do? I exaggerate!

I am the reporter - and the reporter cannot be the artist. And since the reporter cannot reproduce the work of an artist - all he can do is take the help of adjectives and report it in an exaggerated fashion. That for me, justifies the job of the reporter!

Careful readers might point out that this argument, that I have put forth for appreciation, might not hold good for denunciation. Denunciation - in most cases - might be personal and if I carry the same principle to it, it might look unfair toward the subject.

I would have to agree with them. The reasons for exaggeration here, are more subtle than what has been put forward above. I do have them - but as thoughts, not as words as yet.

And posting them in here requires not just words, but carefully constructed sentences. So you might have to wait, if you care...

Figure and Ground..
The following piece of information reached me again, today.

The Yuki tribe in Northern California have a number system that has a base 8. The reason for this, is that they count 8 with the fingers of their hands. That is, they dont count the fingers - but the spaces between fingers.

This was a fascinating piece of information for me, when I first came to know about it. And I am just typing out whatever I know - as related to this concept or principle or whatever you might call it.

Some pictures of MC Escher have the same element in them. A beautiful piece of "mathematical art" wherein he conveyed one meaning in the foreground and one in the background. And importantly - both meanings distinct from each other.

Escher had mastered this art. You can see the same principle in many of his paintings. For more on Escher, you can go here.

We can see this element in many other art forms.

Theater or Drama, for example. How many times have we seen a one-sided telephonic conversation on the screen wherein the audience, ideally, should be left to assume and interpret what is happening at the other end. In Indian movies, mostly the audience is abused, by the speaker repeating whatever the other end speaks. However, if the artist wants to be cryptic, he can just leave it as one-sided and we have another example of figure and ground! The ground isn't visible readily, but is left for interpretation.

There is a discussion about how this same concept arises in the music of Bach in the book Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter. In fact, most of what I have written here is inspired by what I read in that book.

Hofstadter goes on to extend this same concept to explain Kurt Godel's theorem on the Incompleteness of Axiomatic systems. I can't write much about it because of the obvious lack of insight or understanding I have on the mathematical part of it. All I could do here was to jot down whatever I knew or could relate to from what I read!

Thanks for the attention.

Mr. Swaminathan, it is Sunday again!
I have been reading Swaminathan Aiyar on and off for some time now. What he has said here has forced me to write about the way he approaches this war issue.

Just because he is not worried about calling himself a cynic, does not mean he is not one. If you read the above article, you will understand how he has successfully evaded delivering an opinion on a critical issue just by sticking some mathematical and historical arguments together!

There isn't much you can dispute or argue about in the whole article. It is just his way of saying 'a table is a table'. You can't really deny anything. But when you think from the "why" angle of it - that is "why did he actually say all this"? - the best reason you would probably come up with is that "It was a Sunday"! Come every Sunday, he has to write one article. And this time, it happens to be this!

Let me take a vote here! Who doesn't know about Darwin's "Survival of fittest"? If you raise in "Me!" to the above question, then you have hell a lot to learn from that article of Swaminathan Aiyar.

So he goes..
"A victory will doubtless unearth evidence of Iraqi biological or chemical weapons, and ridicule will be heaped on Hans Blix, France, Germany and the UN Security Council. The new regime in Iraq will condemn Saddam as a mass murderer, and the world will nod agreement."

So does he feel that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction? Does he have an opinion on whether Iraq possesses those weapons actually matters? Before we think along these lines, the next lines follow..

...if the war goes badly for Bush, moral attitudes will be very different. Suppose thousands of US soldiers and Iraqi civilians are killed, and that terrorist reprisals on US cities with biological weapons kill thousands more. I suspect the US public will turn against Bush, and blame him for unwarranted deaths in an unwarranted military adventure..

Duh! Okay, so what's your point?

This is more and more Aristotle syllogism! When I start out in the morning for a long walk, I always know the following..

"It will rain or it will not rain"..

I think you need to tell something more if you think you deserve to get published!

THE FINAL!
It is time for the final!

Here are some random tips that I have in mind for the Indian Team. The captain needs to decide on all of these and the best thing I could do to pass it on to him, was to publish it here..

* Play Parthiv Patel!
* If you win the toss, bat first!
* Play Dravid at number three; Ganguly at number five;
* Tell Sehwag to play natural in this one game. Take the pressure off him!
* Beware of Andy Bichel!
* Convince Srinath to go round the wickets to Gilchrist - first ball, every ball!

Thats all I have for the captain.

And I am really not surprised that three of my four predictions for the cup have failed, outright! I have never been good at it, for that matter! :-)

Logic for semifinal clash..
A friend of mine today questioned the logic for semifinal clashes in tournaments. Usually, if the semifinalists stand 1,2,3,4 on the points table, 1 vs 4 and 2 vs 3. He questioned this saying that this takes the fun out of one of the clashes in the semifinal. Even though 2 vs 3 will be a good contest (speaking in expected terms), 1 vs 4, in all probabilities will be one-sided.

He said if you wanted to make sure 1 should get to the finals - you could very well not have semifinals and have finals - straight between 1 and 2. Whats the point in having a semifinal and taking the fun out of one game, he argued.

He said, for better contests - 1 vs 2, 3 vs 4 is ideal. But because this will eliminate a better team one stage before, we should avoid that and have 1 vs 3 and 2 vs 4, instead.

I did give him a convincing argument against his format and he finally accepted to the current format. And the explanation I gave was simple enough, I thought.

But just want to know if there are other thoughts.. What do you think?

For the records, I am totally unaware of any mathematical facts involving tournaments, when I say all this.. So if you give me any, I will blindly accept.. (after considerable thought! :-)

Bhagwan..
I hear thats what they call Sachin in the Indian Camp these days..

Bhagwan..

Apt title, I would say... Cricket writers have tried many adjectives.. And were found wanting.. This one's simple.. And complete..

If there is one thing that opposing bowlers have to learn - it is that when you take Sachin on, you do that first and then talk about it..

Whoever has gone to press before the actual battle have suffered..

Caddick said he is going to test Sachin with bouncers.. He bowled once.. Four runs resulted.. He tried another.. The ball was thrown out of Kingsmead, Durban.. He didnt try any more..

Shoaib Akthar talked to pressmen more than to his teammates, one felt.. He realized talking is different from actually confronting the Master - and he did that in ONE OVER!

I am a major fan of Akthar too.. For pure pace.. That he finally did take the prized wicket - however tired Sachin was at that time - is just a pointer to the quality of game we had yesterday.. Shoaib taking Sachin was good for the game.. The battle's still on..

"Throughout this campaign there has been a look in his eye, the sort detected in Viv Richards before a final. Sachin means business. A mild man, he realises the time has come to leave his mark upon cricket's most prestigious tournament."

Says Peter Roebuck. Maybe yes. Maybe he has decided that it is time for him to leave an indelible mark on the World Cup.

I would consider myself lucky if that's indeed true - for I lived and watched cricket at this time..