The Significance of Insignificance

``Mention this to me, mention something, mention anything and watch the weather change'' — from the Tool song `Disposition'

In an earlier post, I mentioned that a person's belief in something changes with time. A person's idea about something is influenced heavily by what he/she experiences and/or observes, how ever evanescent it may (appear to an observer to) be.

Is this why we often use quotations to get our point across? Is this why optimism is such a good thing? Is this why, sometimes, we get angry so easily? Is this why laugh so easily? Is this why ``perfection'' is considered so important? Does this not seem very similar to the butterfly effect?

Thinking of this in a different way, the apparent insignificance of something makes us think ``it'' not being there or ``it'' happening (if ``it'' is an event) would not have made a difference. However, a plethora of other things are there are because of ``it''. Ofttimes, it is very hard to acknowledge the importance of ``it'', unless we see something tangible that comes as a explicitly direct consequence of ``it''.

Of course, what is explicitly direct for one person is not so for another. What is tangible to one person is abstract to another. This is probably because the sets of ``it''s the persons in question have come across are different. Thus, what is meaningless to me maybe most profound thing to you.

``What is pornography to one man is the laughter of genius to another'' — David Herbert Lawrence

The influence of the seemingly trivial changes our perception. It changes the context in which we see other things, some of which may again seem to be trivial. The second set of things act similarly and influence the third set of things, and so on. Perhaps this is why everyone is unique. Perhaps this is why history is so important. Perhaps this is why all of us are so similar and yet so different.

Some Questions about Culture

• What is wrong with following `western culture'? 
• Do we not have the freedom to choose which culture we follow or not follow, the way we have a freedom of religion? 
• Why can we not choose not to follow any `culture' and live life the way we want to live, without conforming to any existing culture? 
• Why is `not having a culture' looked down upon? 
• What does `has/have no culture' mean?
• Why must we embrace `our culture'?
• How do we decide which culture is `ours'? Why can we not use different criteria for this decision?
  

Unity

``The unity of everything. One idea/concept/thing to explain everything, so that everything makes sense. That's what we want, isn't it?''

This was my blog's caption for about two years. At the time I was convinced that life would be much easier if everything had the same explanation. I almost wanted a single explanation. Now I wonder, why does there have to be a single explanation? Why can there not be a different explanation for everything? Or, why can not be such that some things have explanation one, others have explanation two, still others have explanation three and so on?

Several modern physicists are after a theory of everything. They want to unify all fundamental forces (electromagnetic, weak, strong and gravitational) into one force. This does seem to be an instance of the same tendency which makes us want to have `unity'. Personally, I do not think I fall in that category - I neither want, nor do not want unification, which is the reason for using the pronoun `they'. I just want to learn about the forces the way they are and not they way some physicists want them to be. For all we know, there may be several other forces, which we do not know of, besides the four we know. Why should there be only one force? Why four? Why not five hundred and two? Why not ninety million, forty seven thousand, three hundred and seventy four?

Some of us humans are obsessed with our culture/religion/traditions. Some of us think that our `way' is the best way and everyone should adopt it. There are some who try to enforce their `ways' on others. It would seem that this is a manifestation of the same quest for `unity'.

I always believed in the idea of `United Earth'. I look at nations as narrow boundaries dividing humanity. I blame these boundaries for things like wars. I thought all humans should have one common language (maybe I still do), in addition to their ethnic/regional language(s). Is there much difference between this idea and the idea of the Spanish Inquisition? Are they not the same idea, albeit in a different form?

Why do we like to find patterns? Is it not because we want less diversity? So that it is `easier' for us to remember? So that it is take less storage space? It is not easier to store one equation, than an infinitely large table of numbers which satisfy it? But then, do all the numbers satisfy a single equation? Sometimes, yes, sometimes no. But that does not change our obsession with trying to fit equations to sets of numbers. Is this not an example of the same infatuation with unity (or at least reduction of diversity)?

I am quite obsessed with symmetry (which is quite natural for a person who loves physics). Again, am I not trying to reduce diversity? My fixation with mirror symmetry would explain my prejudice against several forms of clothing (including, but not limited to saris, shirts with breast pockets one only one side, trousers with hip pockets on only one side and asymmetric skirts). I do not like wearing a watch because that would mean wearing a watch on one hand and nothing on the other. Fortunately for me, I happen to be reasonably ambidextrous. I wonder what I would have done if I was not.

I guess we humans have an innate dislike for diversity. Perhaps this is a result of us not having infinite memory, both in our brains and our data storage devices. Maybe this is also caused by our inability grasp too many ideas. It seems to be impossible to overcome this intrinsic aversion to diversity.