The Conquest of Happiness

Conquest of Happiness is a very interesting and a wonderful book by Bertrand Russell. Bertrand Russell was one of the most prominent intellectuals of the early twentieth century. His major domains were philosophy and mathematics. However, this book is about life. Particularly, the book lists many tips and tactics for acquiring happiness in life and for developing a happier and a more content personality. Apart from its contents, the book is also very well written and is a good resource for anyone willing to improve their reading comprehension of the English language. There are many good examples in the book through which Russell has tried to persuade his readers to live with a simpler lifestyle. The book also gives a reflection of the simplistic mindset that Bertrand Russell had.

The most interesting thing about the book is where the author gives and example regarding struggle for survival. I do not remember the story verbatim, but it somewhat goes like this. Russell gives the example of a businessman living in a big city such as London. He spends most of his time with his work. He is so much workaholic that he hardly has time for his spouse and children. He leaves home early in the morning and comes back much late at night. On work he spends most of his time devising strategies in order to beat his business rivals. This is how his life goes on. Russell suggests that if you ask such a man on as to why he works so hard? The usual answer would be that he has to struggle for survival. Russell argues that this is not struggle for survival. Russell then gives an example of two friends stuck on a wrecked ship. Everyone except them has died on the ship. In order to feed themselves to stay alive they have eaten up all the corpses. Their plight is now such that in order to remain alive one of them would have to eat the other. This, Bertrand Russell argues, is struggle for survival.

There are many other interesting things in the book and avuncular advice to his readers for achieving happiness. For instance, Russell suggests that achieving happiness is not a one day endeavor. Rather it should be acquired over time and should be considered as a lifetime goal. Among other things Russell also argues that one should never feel guilty or remorseful from the point of view of having committed a sin. Although Russell asserted that he would explain his rationale somewhere latter in the book, as far as I remember he did not do it.

Overall the book is very nicely written and despite the fact that it is very old, it is still very much relevant for everyone to read.

Stratfor

Many people try to understand the world affairs through various sources such an news, newspapers, gossip and conspiracy theories. This normally leads to more conspiracy theories. People end up having either no understanding of the reasons for things happening around the world or they develop a foggy view of affairs at best. This lack of objective development of opinions can be further obscured by cultural conditioning. For instance, many people in the Muslim world would presume that the U.S. has a hand in the recent chemical attacks in Syria, while being oblivious of the ideological humanitarian struggle that has refrained the former from going to war or attacking the latter in response to the chemical attacks. Although, at least apparently, the two phenomena are quite orthogonal. Indeed, the way things are understood can be painful and ridiculous. It is a pity! Similarly, one may wonder what, for instance, the Europeans actually think about the role Russians have played in averting any possible air, or whatever, strikes. Indeed, there could be many misunderstandings.

Startfor addresses such misconceptions and misunderstandings very effectively through its weekly geopolitical analysis reports. Stratfor, as the name suggests, is a syncronym for strategic forecast. It is a Washington based think tank. It covers almost any situation in the world that may have any significant impact on the geopolitics of the world. Irrespective of whether it is an economic situation arising in Europe, a military situation raising its head in Afghanistan, a hurricane that may affect American trade or a political handshake in China that may affect the export of toys elsewhere and its consequence on global economy, Stratfor tries to explain that through its own vantage point of objectivity. Overall stratfor is quite objective in its treatment of various issues it picks. Stratfor can also be quite blunt and surprising in the way it explains a situation. It appears that the major objective of Stratfor is to talk about ulterior motives of nations.

The most noteworthy thing about Stratfor is the way its CEO, George Friedman, writes about any geopolitical situation. Apart from the content about the matter, the articles are interesting to read in their own right. That means that apart from his choice of topics, the way he writes is quite inspiring. Usually he starts off with a random phrase or a thought and then slowly builds his argument in the light of examples, limitations and lessons from history. The choice of words and the structure and flow of article keep the reader engaged till the end of the read. And the most fascinating thing is the way he ends his discourse.

Machine Learning

Machine Learning by Tom M. Mitchell is the first text book for students who aspire to learn the subject of machine learning. It presents detailed and easy to understand illustrations of various concepts that are used in the field of machine learning. These include, necessary topics concerning probability and statistics, artificial intelligence, neural networks and evolutionary algorithms. 

The best thing about the book is its illustration of feed-forward, back-propagation, multi-layer perceptron (MLP). The good thing about it is that the underlying mathematical concepts are explained in a layman friendly manner. One learns techniques for computing partial derivatives and the chain rule for differentiation for the first time in high-school calculus without having any apparent and significant practical benefit. Their utility becomes clear when one reads and understands how the MLP works. More precisely, Mitchell explains how partial derivatives are computed with respect to the weight coefficients at every step of the MLP so as to guide the gradient descent algorithm to plunge into some locally or globally optimal solution. Similarly, Mitchell shows the significance of applying the chain rule to derive weight coefficients at every layer and node of the MLP with respect to the input values at its first layer. The whole explanation is quite fascinating and exciting.

Mitchell also introduces and covers the complicated topic of evolutionary algorithms in a very nice way. Initially various concepts surrounding genetic algorithms are introduced in a lucid manner to make the student comfortable with the subject. Mitchell then illustrates genetic programming. Other important and interesting algorithms are also discussed. For instance, coverage of the famous simulated annealing algorithm is quite interesting. The book is an excellent guide for any student who has began to learn machine learning. 

Fatwa on Terrorism and Suicide Bombings

During the last ten days of this Ramadhan I managed to treat myself with a thorough and complete read of the Fatwa on Terrorism and Suicide Bombings. The fatwa is written by Shaykh-ul-Islam, Dr. Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri. Dr. Qadri is an eminent Muslim scholar and his book is an attempt to guide Muslims in particular, and rest of the humanity in general, on as to why terrorism is wrong when seen through the central teachings of Islam. The book is more or less 450 pages long and contains narrations from Quran, hadith and examples from the conduct of early Muslim rulers and caliphs. The central aim of the book is to address the confusion that lurches within the minds of young Muslims viz a viz terrorism and jihad. According to Dr. Qadri the current intensity and magnitude is becoming a great cause of atheism in the world. Another reason is that the wave of terrorism that has persisted for more than a decade has been a great cause for bringing disrepute to the Muslim Ummah in general and Pakistan in particular, where Dr. Qadri  is originally from. He argues that while majority of the Muslims condemn terrorism in all forms, a minority of Muslims give it a tacit approval. It is worth remembering that Dr. Qadri was one of the first Muslim scholars who condemned the world trade center tragedy extremely vociferously.

In almost the first three quarters of the book Dr. Qadri has argued against terrorism and rebellion in a painstaking manner. In reality, this portion of book is dedicated to arguing against internal rebellion within a Muslim state. The matters concerning rights of non-Muslims living in Muslim countries have also been discussed thoroughly. Dr. Qadri argues that devout Muslims should not revolt against their unjust rulers even if they are unjust, cruel and tyrant, as it is forbidden. On the other hand, they should acquire lawful and constitutional means for getting their matters resolved by the state. Dr. Qadri argues that the people who abandon peaceful routes, such as adoption of democracy or a peaceful constitutional struggle, and rebel against the state are outlaws and should be dealt with severely accordingly.

Dr. Qadri also argues that according to the central teachings of Islam it is the duty of the Muslim state to protect the rights of the non-Muslims who live in their country. It is the duty of the state to provide security for their life, family and property. They should have proper privileges to practice their religious chores while not coming in conflict with the tenets of Islam. 

The last part of the book is dedicated to Muslims living in non-Muslim countries. Dr. Qadri argues that Muslims living in non-Muslim countries should abide by the rules and regulations of the country they reside in. Muslims should not become a source of mischief for the country they reside in. Instead they should pray and wish well for their country of residence. 

In order to strengthen his argument regarding the conduct of Muslims living in non-Muslim countries he quotes the classical event of migration of early Muslims to Abyssinia (modern day Ethiopia). He quotes that the early Muslims who migrated to Ethiopia were received well by the Negus who was a Christian. The Negus treated them with humility, honor and respect. In return Muslims who lived there were also extremely loyal to the Negus. So much so that in one of the conflicts of the Negus with one of his rivals the Muslims prayed to Allah for his victory and even vowed to help him in time of need. Dr. Qadri argues that such should be the conduct and intentions of Muslims while living in non-Muslim countries. 

Dr. Qadri ends the book by suggesting a few peaceful alternatives to violence and unrest. For instance, he proposes Muslims to acquire modern education, make effective use of print and electronic media to convey their concerns, stage peaceful demonstrations and rallies, and learn from other societies about how to live and coexist with peace, harmony and nonviolence. Every Muslim and non-Muslim should read this book. 

Long Time No See

I remember having written my last post during the month of Ramadhan. It has been more or less 40 days I did not write anything on this blog ever since. But this does not mean that I did not wish to write. Writing is fun! My last post was about Shaykh-ul-Islam, Dr. Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri. I wrote about him in the context of his new book concerning his fatwa on terrorism and suicidal bombing. After writing about him the next thing I wanted to do immediately was to grab his book and have a read at it. And that is precisely what I did. I read the book. But I fell short of writing a review about it, as that is what I wanted to do also. 

The book is very nice and argues extremely against all forms of terrorism from an Islamic perspective. I believe that every Muslim and non-Muslim should read it. I had a few other ideas in my mind about writing too. These included, for instance, to write about topics such as consciousness, free will, geopolitics and more book reviews etc. In fact I had made a list of topics I had wanted to write about. Reiterated, writing is a lot of fun! The reason why I stopped writing was that I wanted to give myself a break and contemplate on what I really wanted to do for future. The reason why I did not write a review about the fatwa is a bit obscured in my mind and I also do not understand precisely why I did not reflect on it. But I suppose I did not write about it because I think that by writing about it I am only trying to coax a humanity that does not really care about such things. Specially given that what is happening in the world around us on a daily basis. More precisely, given that what is happening in Afghanistan, Syria and elsewhere and given also the role of global powers in such affairs, I feel that people concerned and involved in such affairs care less about such literary efforts and more about their own ulterior motives. I nonetheless feel that everyone should retire for a while , though, from whatever roles they have in their wild pursuits and try to reflect on consciousness and other aspects of life and/or afterlife.

But who cares what a book writer has to say or a blogger has to write on peace specially when the stakes are too high. But how high are the stakes really?