Tag: determinism

  • Traveling – in & out

    I borrowed the title of the post from a book I really loved – for exploring what travel could mean. Inward or outward, both of which I have experienced quite a bit this year.

    One step back. For the last few years, we have been taking two international vacations a year. That just fits our annual travel budget, and the leave calendar at work. But who doesn’t like to take vacays more frequently? So this year, we stretched to fit an additional vacation within India – to Mussoorie. This also came from a feeling that we were being unintentionally snooty by ignoring our own backyard these days. 🙂 (more…)

  • Know your mind?

    We had an interesting conversation the other day – four of us, with a 25% woman representation. From a bunch of directions, we finally reached #MeToo. While we all agreed on there being no excuse for a conscious man committing such acts, we did argue about a couple of points. One, our individual reactions to something that might happen in front of us, which IMO is subjective and contextual, and two, the responsibility of those who commit such acts, but were not in control of their mental faculties.

    The second is something that has intrigued me since I saw an excellent Malayalam movie called Mumbai Police. Yes, our titles are geography agnostic. 🙂 The movie was released in 2013, and since then, I have read quite a few books that approach the subject.  (more…)

  • Certain, simple frames

    I read an article recently on decision making, which among other things wrote about how instinct could beat analytical thinking. An insightful heuristic that I found in it was this – ..if you are in an uncertain world, make it simple. If you are in a world that’s highly predictable, make it complex.

    While the article focused on decision making in the business context, I could relate to it in the personal context. I see the world at large as an uncertain and complex place, and have spent a lot of time in the last few years trying to contain its influence on my own life. It has been an evolution. The expectations frame  I have written about does a fairly good job of reducing the variables, but it isn’t perfect. There are people and events that frustrate me, I sometimes lose my cool, and my remorse later doesn’t really change anything for anyone, including me. (example) (more…)

  • Free* Will

    *Conditions Apply

    The first documented appearance of the subject on the blog is in 2011, and I seem to have posted on the subject every alternate year, the last being in 2015. But it’s sheer coincidence and not really pattern following that led me to think, and write, about free will now.

    Across my life, I have moved from having a faith and believing in predestination (will of God), to being agnostic and believing in karma, to being an atheist and believing in the influence of luck (random chance) in all the plans I make. In the last version, the view is that my free will is dominant – I make my own choices which dictate my future and nothing is predetermined. The luck explains the good and bad out-of-ordinary things that change my future, but it is random. Karma stories are a forced narrative based on hindsight. (more…)

  • Choices & Happiness

    A belief system I strongly held on to for a few years was that we always have a choice. Absolutes most usually fail. Some life experiences later, it seemed to me that determinism made more sense. In an everyday life scenario, this meant that many a time circumstances are such that we don’t really have a choice.

    On a Wednesday morning, S, my Uber driver for the day’s commute called me. In very good English, he said that while Uber was showing 8 mins on my phone, in reality, he was 20 minutes away, but would try to reach as fast as possible. I wasn’t happy but finding another cab at 1X, I realised, would be a difficult proposition. S arrived about 20 mins later, and we started the trip. At 50 metres, he said that his mobile had switched off and I’d have to rebook. It irritated me because I had lost a lot of time already and would lose more in the process of making another booking and waiting for the cab to arrive. His other phone meanwhile, was repeatedly ringing, despite him cutting the call. He finally took the call and spoke in Malayalam, saying he’d call back later. As his phone was being switched on, he asked me to wait a minute so that he’d be able to take my booking. I did that, and after he gave me a go ahead, requested a cab. Turned out to be another driver, a few minutes away. This imminent waste of time irritated me further. S offered to drop me off where the other cab was. I declined, got out of the car and as I shut the door, said to him in Malayalam that if he didn’t know how to do this job, he probably shouldn’t attempt it.

    (more…)