The impersonator (a poem by firstcomet):

Divided by a fine line to the left and right,
Right and wrong; caught in a fierce fight,
Fight to the end of time; the time was tight,
Tight and tense, in his fist he held the light,
Light in hand, he marched like a knight,
Knight he might, but on the side of the night,
Night, confused, when the devil is your guide,
Night, the imposer of the eternal plight,
Plight, the pestilent snare, hard to decide,
Decide to resist and to endure or to abide,
Abide by the rules or to sail against the tide,
Tide so wide, hopeless to ride or to push aside
The night had changed the rules of the fight,
Right was wrong; his mission was to hide,
To hide, the secret collusion of the night!

.to continue

What I learned my first semester at MIT

1) Being humble; there are always smarter people around.
2) Not being ashamed of doing psets all weekend long.
3) I'm not granted anything; I have to earn it.

How do you know how much your worth is?

Why do I even bother to know anything at all? I know things because I need those information to survive. So, I like to think that I worth more than all that I know. And that I need to know more, to protect that essence that I consider worth the effort of knowing more.

So, I cannot think I worth any less than the highest worth I can associate with any object. Since otherwise, that piece of knowledge won't serve the purpose that my knowledge is supposed to serve.

Thus, knowing my worth is contrary to the whole purpose of knowing! It follows from the fact "the concept of quantitative worth is relative" that I have to grant infinite worth to others, as well.

Low!

Low, high, it doesn't matter, I don't know why?

Good points!

http://www.eharmony.com/singles/servlet/partner-articles?id=1

http://www.eharmony.com/singles/servlet/partner-articles?id=2

Emotional Bankruptcy and Beyond!

This conversation spawned as a result of a Facebook status:

A: "Emotional bankruptcy" is not as bad as it sounds: Shared memories + oxytocin result in attachment and fondness, which is typically followed by copulation and excess secretion of dopamine (good stuff) in the frontal cortex. Now, in females oxytocin has to be combined with estrogen to function properly. Josephine in Fitzgerald’s novel was probably going through a period of estrogen deficiency and consequently when the guy (I forgot his name) kissed her she couldn’t form a pair-bond. There is no need to panic! A period of rest and proper dieting will bring her back to the stage and she can go on with her egotist lifestyle. Meanwhile, she can invest in her other assets and potentials. And as for the spectators, they should put on their favorite music:“Softly, deftly, music shall caress you, hear it, feel, it, secretly posess you …”

B: (4-month later) First "love" is undefined, but given that, I still don't know if chemicals are all that account for a feeling of love. However, I don't doubt if they are the main reason for attachment.

A: I’m no longer a big fan of iconoclasts! Mainly because, they strike me as unimaginative and unconstructive. So, me not a fan of me!

Secondly, ideas that have practical utility in a laboratory setting are not necessarily useful for the “social life”. For example, “reductionism” and “analysis” may not be the best approach to understanding/enjoying a good poetry, a good company, or a tasty meal for that matter!

Third, the second point makes sense in the light of the following fundamental contradiction of human life: “before becoming a good human, one has to learn what it takes to be a good animal.” In particular, the older one grows the more this point becomes obvious.

Finally, saying “love is undefined” is like saying “air is undefined”, which is both true and false. It really depends on your “mode of description”:

It turns out that air roughly (by molar content/volume) contains 78% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.038% carbon dioxide, trace amounts of other gases, and a variable amount (average around 1%) of water vapor.

On the other hand, air is a medium in which birds fly, butterflies hover, willow trees dance, the falling yellow leaves roam, and the winter storm scourge the gentle skin of Sharbat (the national geography Afghan girl [1]). It cannot be grasped (literally), nor can it be seen!

I’m sure you heard this joke about the similarity of air and sex:

"Why is air a lot like sex?
Because it's no big deal unless you're not getting any!"

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharbat_Gula

"There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know." --
Harry Truman

Halloween!

It seems like the bitter taste of the past encourages victims to victimize others, so that the world of humanity will never be deprived of bitterness. Bitterness breeds vulgarity the same manner that love breeds beauty and the cycle continues indefinitely.

It reminds me of the vampire stories where the victims of the vampire bites are metamorphosed to vampires. The story invariably concludes with a bloody battle between the hero of the story and the vampire-head who defiantly blasts towards the outer space, not to be seen till his next encounter with a feeble soul....

Yet another cycle! Where is the hero in man?

A tribute to a lonely butterfly (a poem by firstcomet):

Here I am all alone by myself;
With only the quiet now by my side
And it makes me feel alright!

Those back and shoulders that were so tight
Start to relax and grow wide
And my worries begin to subside

The city framed by the window sash
The distance portrait of a forgotten brash
The dance of the curtain on the wall
And my response: a spontaneous sprawl!

Suddenly I see a little fly who came by to say Hi
I can tell she was flying for a while
I would say for at least a quarter of a mile

But then quickly she turns around and says good-by!
I wonder why she bothered to stop-by?
In a blink of an eye I jump and grab her by the thigh
Out of the window, the garden flowers and the blue sky
Good-bye my friend, the lonely butterfly!

The age of maturity

Transforming from the casual chatter to the serious reflectionist. From a wholesome observer to the skeptic reductionist. Commuting while sitting and dining while walking!

Imagine: students with notebooks in which class notes expand from the front to the back and their poetry in the reverse order. At the end of each semester their class notes encounter their poetry to proclaim the advent of a liberated civilization!

Beyond A Troubled Mind (firstcomet listens to a friend):

To all who posses the earth:
Beyond your borders, you are a homeless kid who cannot find her mother
Beyond your borders, you do not understand anyone and no one cares either

To all who posses a house:
Beyond your house, your privacy will be violated
Beyond your bedrooms, you are no porn star!
Beyond your bathrooms, you are not a rock star!

To all who posses a business:
Mind your own business!
Beyond your business, it's not your business!

To all who posses any matters:
Beyond your possessions, you are the beggar!
Beyond your possessions, it is the "Mine" of others and nothing else matter!

To all who posses a belief:
Beyond your beliefs, you have nothing to believe
Beyond your beliefs, you are lost like an autumn leaf

To all who possess a culture:
Beyond your culture, you have no culture!
Beyond your orient culture, you are disoriented
Beyond your dear culture, your wild-fruit-basket is punctured

To all who posses a friend:
Beyond your friends, you are lonely and deserted
Beyond your friends, you are the most stranger of all

To all who posses youth:
Beyond your youth, your back gets as round as a circle!
Beyond your youth, you are an old star with no audience
Beyond your youth, you are an old prophet with no follower

To all who posses life:
Beyond life, you are corpse of bad odor
Beyond life, no-one can bear you for a moment

To all who posses a troubled mind:
Beyond your troubled mind, there is a beautiful mind!
Hold on to your troubled minds!
Hold on patiently to the pain of rejection
The Day of Beautiful mind will come!

Beyond Other Things:

Beyond a glass of water, there is a bottle of beer
If you have it, you'll have no fear!

Beyond a bottle of beer, there is a glass of wine
If you have it, you'll stop the whine!

Beyond a glass of wine, there is a bottle of champagne
If you have it, you'll start a new campaign

Beyond love there is reason
In the reason, you'll find your prison!

Beyond darkness there is light
Both being the same for the one with no-eyesight!

Beyond the priests there are the laymen
The only difference, their acquaintance with the hymen!

Beyond human there is the saint
With no fault, he is like a pale paint!

Beyond your daily routine, there is an exciting life
Which you can easily destroy by getting a wife!

Beyond sitting on your butt there is an adventurous ride
Which one to choose? I let you to decide!

Summer 2005 --S&S N.

So fragile!

Oh, the wings of that butterfly
So fragile, marred in a blink of an I!

Yesterday vs. Today

Yesterday we were, and today we are! This is the will of the goddess among
the sons of the goddess; what is your will, oh sons of the monkeys?

--Thoughts and Medications, Kahlil Gibran

Go explore! (firstcomet)

A man is sitting behind his chair
Wondering and pondering about his future
Recalling past memories of despair
And that which life had made his share
Those tangled days in pestilent snare
And when he thought it wasn’t fair
He took the chance, since he was so dare
He climbed his way up to the the frontier
With chin up, full of honor, like a cavalier
But life was one cruel racketeer
Since he witnessed innocent’s tear
Everywhere he went found no genuine cheer
One day a voice summoned him: you my dear!
As the voice neared he felt a sudden fear
He lost his rhythm and tumbled on the floor
When he pulled himself up asked what’s it all for?
This absurd décor and the suffering galore
The voice lowered her tone and replied: it’s a metaphor
It’s about finding your own tune, writing your own score
Then she pointed at a door and said go explore
It’s the time for you to soar and to forget the yore
May soon you find your amore!

MORAL PSYCHOLOGY AND THE MISUNDERSTANDING OF RELIGION

http://edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt07/haidt07_index.html

As a religious refugee from Iran who experienced decades of systematic prosecution and oppression under the name of religion, I believe if Haidt had the slightest idea of how the life of minority groups under "beehive" social systems look he would have been more careful in his assessment of such systems:

"The beehive ideal is not a world of maximum freedom, it is a world of order and tradition in which people are united by a shared moral code that is effectively enforced, which enables people to trust each other to play their interdependent roles. It is a world of very high social capital and low anomie."

In such societies it is not the "maximum freedom" that is at stake, rather the most fundamental human rights. What he means by "people are united" is in fact a euphemism used to describe the condition of individuals yielding to the will of the authority and under the yoke of group loyalty. This analysis can go on and on …. The article strokes me as naïve!

"The best test of a civilised society is the way in which it treats its most vulnerable and weakest members."

Mahatma Gandhi

Belgian sheep and the Eskimo dog (firstcomet)

Ticktock, ticktock, ticktock; it’s 11 o’clock
Sitting in my room; in view is the Boston city block .
The music is on; listening to Johann Sebastian Bach
My ad-lib solution to the homework seems rather ad-hoc!
I want to throw a rock at this city of fog
Then I change my mind and start singing a song:
The Belgian sheep and the Eskimo dog chasing round my coffee mug!
I take a moment off and write this quick note on my blog;
Oftentimes writing is the right drug in the absence of kisses and a hug!

Spiritual Solutions to Economic Problems

Concerning your question regarding the Bahá'í principle of "spiritual solutions to economic problems", below is some excerpts/summaries from an article that I found online (of course, there are different levels of description):

1) Inducing a desire for social change and a sense of empowerment:

"Creating a desire for social change and instilling confidence that it can be achieved must ultimately come from an awakening of the human spirit."[1]

2) Creating a sense of unity and common destiny in small communities. Note that, any group/community needs a unifying theme to bring them together (in this case, their common faith):

"Thus, Bahá'í efforts in the field of social and economic development generally take the form of grassroots initiatives carried out by small groups of individuals in the towns and villages in which they reside. As these initiatives evolve, some grow into more substantial programs with permanent administrative structures."[1]

Note that, Bahá'í faith is the 'second most widespread' religion in the world [2]. So, they are in a fairly unique position to undertake such initiatives in a larger scale (maybe not capital-wise but community-wise).

3) Spirituality can bring about Philanthropic doings and philanthropy can enhance spirituality:

"…the application of spiritual values such as justice, trustworthiness, and generosity will enhance material well-being, while material resources and advances will make possible new avenues of spiritual endeavor that will promote cohesion and unity of purpose within and across societies."[1]

I believe in a just and equitable society everybody will be happier; not only the poor but also the rich.

4) Consultations (there is a considerable amount of literature in the Bahá'í teachings regarding the principles of effective consultation):

"Experience has shown that consultation is an indispensable tool that enables communities to sustain and modify development initiatives and thereby contributes to self-sufficiency and a higher quality of life."[1]

These methods are meant to complement and facilitate other social/economical development plans. One of the main principles of the Bahá'í faith is the harmony of science and religion. So, I imagine they should appreciate any input from the scientific community!

Looking back into my own life, it is much easier to be an iconoclast than to
invent and enact new solutions to world's problems!

[1] http://www.huttbahai.org.nz/default.aspx?Page=125

[2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/gloucestershire/faith/2004/03/bahai_naz_ruz.shtml

the other side of the Milky Way (firstcomet):

Beautiful things, beautiful people and beautiful smiles
Innocence and the promise of a domesticated civilization
The blue sky, the green ocean, and those twinkling eyes
The northern breeze and the sweet fragrance of your hair

Was it me or the world wasn’t quite ever fair?
Because when I found those colorful feathers in the air
I wondered whose diligent hand they did prepare!
But then I saw that ascending desperate bird in the air
Who fluttered too far with those wings which were impaired
Why was she fleeing away; wasn’t it just another sunny day?
Maybe she was running away from a dream that had gone astray!
But then she was too far away and the sky was turning gray
So I whispered: see you on the other side of the Milky Way!

The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences

http://pascal.iseg.utl.pt/~ncrato/Math/Hamming.html

A question that I have been entertaining recently concerns the hypothetical limitations imposed upon us by our Faculty of Reasoning. Is it possible that Science with all of its utility result in a dogmatic viewpoint that blinds us to some alternative forms of knowledge?

Taking the Aristotelian viewpoint of the divinity of principles of logic makes me to believe that logical thinking and chains of reasoning are the closest link to reality. On the other hand, considering the evolutionary argument for the formation of principles of logic makes me to reconsider my seemingly rigid assumptions regarding the nature of the very reality we strive to make sense of via logical reasoning.

Hamming notes the way we perceive of the nature is directly affected by the kind of glasses we wear. So, does a purely logical interpretation and examination of natural events only empower us to have a better conception of reality or may it also limit us to glimpse what could lie beyond!

The downside of diversity - The Boston Globe

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/the_downside_of_diversity?mode=PF