A Free Thinker's Ride on Sam Harris's Wall

Hi Sam, I hope that you are doing well. I have read al most all of your significant articles and your books, namely, "The End of Faith" and "A Letter to a Christian Nation". So far, I have only been a passive reader of your work. And despite the fact that I am a Muslim, I enjoyed it. It gave me an alternative view on religion. An alternative view on how other human beings can look at religion. The answer to why I read your books is rather complicated and has many factors. But the most compelling answer to this, in my point of view, is that I have lived in Europe for quite a few years and the way the European society normally functions and the way the people are is often times extremely impressive. The people are good natured, honest with their work and candidly welcoming and despite all of this the countries are secular and people are mostly agnostic or atheistic. This is impressive. I wonder why an average European atheist is so nice. Nice to the extent that he normally doesn't know anything bad. This drew me closer to your book titled "The End of Faith" around last year this time. I found it extremely well written and thorough. In the book you have a special chapter titled "The problem with Islam" which is also extremely well written and the excerpts from which can be found elsewhere on the web. I have to admit that even though I am a Muslim, I cannot completely argue about the portions of the book firstly because my knowledge about the Quran is limited and secondly because you have raised some logical issues in it that require special attention to detail by a learned and an unbiased person (possibly an Islamic scholar) who has specialized in Islamic studies. I also have to admit that after reading the book, I, for the first time, not only understood atheism but also seriously considered it. This is to say that I had to ask this question to myself again and again that, is there really a God? a divine force who has created the universe and the life? Or stated simply, Is Allah really the God or just a mythical figure. I remember that I was in Copenhagen around that time trying to look for a postdoc position in a nice Danish university.

After having lived in Europe and after having studied and worked there for a while I believe that religion is not necessarily required to organize the society. Actually the way things have been, it is not required at all. Human beings, if they have a will and desire to improve things, can self-organize themselves and their surroundings.

What is the importance of religion then if people can live their lives by having good morals otherwise and can live peacefully? The need to having a religion becomes superfluous if people can get everything they need in their lives by the virtue of a good social order AND if there actually is no God. This last bit is something no one is sure about. Surely, as a religious person (like a Muslim or a christian or a Jew or a Hindu) cannot give the proof of existence of the God he or she believes in, an atheist cannot give a proof of the non-existence of God either. A religious person can only argue in favor of his existence by presenting the signs of his existence as portrayed in the religious texts. Similarly an atheist can only argue in the non-existence of God by possibly using scientific methods as tools. The end result of this is what we are seeing; a war of ideas, words and weapons on every level of the human society. For instance, your blogs are extremely heated up by the continuous bashing of Islam. Similarly,  in various places in the Muslim countries there are uproars against the USA.

Religion, however, is only important if what religion claims to be or have is actually true. Stated more specifically, and that too about Islam, is that, Islam is the true religion of God (or Allah, to be more specific) IF AND ONLY IF what we know about Islam is in reality true. and IF AND ONLY IF the God (or Allah, for that matter) actually exists and IS not an invention of the prehistoric Arabs or people of the middle-east. 

How can we know that? The answer is that it is not a very simple project to undertake. Nobody has ever seen God. And whether there is an afterlife is only known to the dead, with whom we cannot communicate. 

To this end, to satisfy my curiosity about this matter, I further investigated on the Internet to try to know anything I could about a possible afterlife. I came across your lecture titled "death and the present moment". In this lecture you say that we live in nothingness once we are dead. That mind is run by the brain and mind ceases to exist once the brain is dead. That we are as good as a dead animal once we are dead. That is to be dead is as if we were never born. That further intrigued me to research on as to what really happens once we are dead. I came across these ideas about "near death experiences" and "out of body experiences". I am not going to go in to the details regarding the nature of these experiments but the crux is that there is a certain part of the "self" that exists even once we are dead. The guys (who were normally western researchers) inferred that there IS an afterlife for the dead human-beings. 

Having said this, this does not mean at all that there is a God. Or even if there is one, that Islam is the true religion of God. This does not simply imply that. What it implies to me is that the existence of God is an all time open question the answer to which has not been found yet by so many scholars, scientists, and philosophers. 

This, however, does imply that there might or might not be a God. And if there is one, there might be a true religion and hence a true word of God. The consequence of thinking like this is that both the religious people as well as the atheists should soften up a little bit on this topic and try to adopt alternative approaches to addressing this problem. For instance, adopting the scientific method is a really good option. So, for instance, you may appoint a PhD student in your lab to develop a thesis "Is there really a God?" (jokes aside). Burning Holy scriptures and mocking religious figures (like Muhammad (PBUH) or Buddha) only creates more unrest in the society.

I think that a very viable option for you, and I seriously recommend that you do it, is to engage in open dialogues with religious (Islamic) scholars. I think that this is very important that you ask openly and honestly, on the media, various questions related to the verses of Quran specially where the God has demanded to kill the infidels. This is extremely important for the society to understand as well. So, for instance, you can challenge an Islamic scholar of your choosing to come to CNN or BBC, for instance, to address your questions. This would otherwise be very interesting for the general education of masses.

I like your work on free will. I will have to spare ample time to read and understand it.

On Negative Thinking!

It wasn't the chemistry, it was the thought patterns, instead, that had had him bury his head in the hot sand of real-life for the past one decade. The doctor convinced him, through examples taken from his own mind, that it had to be straightened out, instead of the brain. This came as a very pleasant news for him after all. The Chemicals would now be replaced with exercises... mental exercises, as he was told, demonstrated and taught. "You will have to practice these exercises daily", he'd said.

He'd developed a negative image of his apparently mal-functioning head since long, oblivious of the fact that it was not the brain that was faulty, instead, it was self-created perception that was wrong. Life had been very tough for him due to this. Despite the fact that he had enjoyed all the material luxuries one could afford, he had to struggle a lot. The stifling feeling that anything that may emanate from his mind may be inherently flawed, had affected his performance negatively. He had lived as if he had been trying to swim the river upstream. He had lately started figuring out that while (al most) half of his mind would function spontanelusly, the other half was always dedicated in monitoring the first half. This had snatched spontaniety and creativity of his collective mind significantly. Added to this was the misery that he had become dependent on chemicals to get rid of the side-effects of such a delapidated mindset. He wanted to get rid of this ever existing state of mind now. He no more wanted to live with a collective mind that was a mere captive of itself. He would rebel, he had decided, and get the things in the right order. And he was adamant. Thus, the new doctor.

"You will be very successful in life", the doc would tell him convincingly time and again, "provided that you think positively." He would tell these same lines to all of his patients, whispering hope and belief in their ears. As if all were mentally retarted. As if all suffered from the same disease. The deadliest disease, that plagued the mindsets of the whole human race i.e. negative thinking.

Darwinism!

Darwinism is an excellent manifestation of the concept of "survival of the fittest". The problem, however, is that it does not teach you how to be fit. What further obfuscates the matters is that Darwin's successors effectively teach humans how to be misfit.

The Questions on top of the pile!

I have two very important questions, but I would like to go with the preamble first.

Given the current political upheaval in Pakistan, the US would be willing to deal with Sharifs as well, provided they play with the rules. An analysis about pakistani political options has been given as top stories today in Dawn. This is no surprise. As a matter of fact, US is somewhat fed up, tired and drained due to sustained warfare; it needs a break. There is an increasingly growing antiwar sentiment within the US as well; please read of the suicide epidemic. If this happens (that US packs up or soothes up its policy) it will give a lot of breathing air to Sharifs automatically: they pose to be right-wing Pakistanis, and US would be leaving for its own reasons, the latter may always be used by the Sharifs to create some kind of an epic about them.

1) Given this the most important question that should be asked from Sharifs is that what EXACTLY is their stance on relations with the US now and when they come to power. The decision boundary regarding this has been very foggy, this will turn out to be very intricate when the fog shed. However, the Sharifs should “educate” the people precisely as to what their view is about being anti-US or pro-US, from various vantage points, for I think that from deep inside Sharifs ARE pro-US. This is the most important question that stares any Pakistani politician i.e. How will they align their foreign policies with the WEST.

2) I have a very strong notion that the new recruits into the PML-N are once again completely inept donkeys. i) What are their criteria for distribution of tickets for elections. ii) how do they propose to bring about a democratic change with their donkeys given that an average army officer has a reasonably good BA from PMA, how do they propose to put the ARMY back to the barracks with their donkeys?

Adil Raja

To Expect Effectively

Pakistan does not have a single problem; there are myriad of them, and each of them is gigantic. To name a few, education, medical, poverty, jobs, social issues, injustice, politicians, army etc etc. and above all the people and their grossly unrealistic expectations.

The biggest problem in Pakistan among all is that people waiting in the hope of some Messiah to arrive and solve the problems in a blink of an eye. This problem alone is enough to fail the country. On practical grounds, moreover, the masses fail to convey their wishes and desires to the elected/about to be elected members. There more emphasis on flaunting some affinity with a politician in any possible sense.

Given this problem alone, Pakistan is around 300-500 years behind where the West stands now.

In order to demand a right one has to know about the right first, and to know that, the meaning of the latter has to be known. Here, on one hand as the people are fed up of dictatorship (as they are possibly told to be), on the other hand the meaning of democracy in grossly misunderstood. The meaning of democracy possibly tantamounts to having a military ruler dethroned. At the same time it is known to few that the top bidders to the throne of Islamic Empire of Pakistan have their children's destinies entwined to the political parties they head.

Here the psyche of people of Pakistan is of particular interest. People are very "icon-o-philic". They love huge figures. Once they love someone, they will remain loyal forever; defiance is not an option, no matter how many times their own trust is betrayed. And ever-lasting love ensues from a mixed feeling of fear and a severe inferiority complex.

It sounds as if rest of the problems pertaining to Pakistan are here to stay for a long time, as long as the people as a whole dont learn to expect in the effective manner.

Political Psyops

AA,
Given the ample space available for scribbling articles, under utilization of the blog, plenty of free time and a political upheaval in the country, I shall use Psyops to litter my political thoughts.

Pakistan has now become the center-stage of geo-politics. And as George Friedman quotes in his famous book (the name of which is skipped here for the mere reason of brevity), the end-game of WOT shall be played there. It is definitely scary. However, do we owe a thought to the very problems the country faces? Or is it all futile. I guess I should unwind my brain of the domestic issues first.

The Postcard

San Marcos-- Venice Italy

The Pics

A scholarly conference is not much better than its program comittee

Some general guidelines for guaging the worth of a conference would be something like:

1) Its relevance i.e. How relevant is it to your research area. Some conference just invite everyone and do not have specific goals.
2) It reputation. For instance everyone in the area of communications networks would know the worth of getting a paper published in IEEE Infocom or ACMs sigcomm.
3) A major and often over-looked factor is to have a look at the Technical Programme Committee of the conference. This is very important and the candidate should have a look at the members in the TPC before actually submitting. Once again, two conferences might have almost the same king of TPC in terms of whether whcih institutions have representations in them. However, one conference might have more seasoned researchers than the other even though they belong to the same universities.

A one slide Tutorial!

I had to make a presentation on my work on GP. Just to explain the basic GP, I thought that maybe it'd better to make a small diagram. Clueless for a while on as to what to do, I came up with the picture shown above. I really find it both funny and interesting as an explanation of "How GP Works". I find this picture to be quite comprehensivly describing how it all works out. Not only it eases the explanation of a GP cycle to researchers, it can also evoke some interest in this field among youngsters. I hereby publish this picture as an open source. Evolve it as per your wish. If by any chance you end up making some interesting changes to it then kindly do let me know.

Regards...

Evening!

Hi all, it is almost evening here. And it persists like this for a while because the twilight zone is a bit bigger where I live. This a beautiful picture really and was shot by alina as she was using my camera like a machine gun that day.

About Psyops

Hi all,
So although the blog has been named psyops. It really hasn't got to do with psyops. I just didnt have a good idea on as to how should I name my brain child so I named it quite randomly (conditionally still) as psyops.

The same would goes into it; all random stuff. Just like what u r reading now. Though, I might come up with some cool ideas later on during the process of writing.

More often, I would still like to write general things about life such as attitudes, feelings, morality, emotions, emotional intelligence etc etc. as opposed to the more technical (or academic so to say) stuff such as mathematics, statistics, programming, DSP or the likes. And I think I would come up with simple ideas (thoughts). At the same time I must say that it is the simple things of life that are more important (and charming at the same time too (maybe)).

The Entry!

Salam,
I have been wondering since a long time now that there should be medium through which I could voice my thoughts to people with convenince. I think that I have found the place. And sometimes, as it is the case with the poets, one is looking for someone who could listen. And it is quite funny though that u r even willing to pay a price sometimes but u dont find the appropriate ears.
This seems to be a fine idea i.e. blogging. It seems that I have a whole world to talk to. Irrespective of whether someone is listening or not, it atleast provides me a dumping yard for my quite random, bizarre and sometimes not so healthy or charming thoughts.
So my name, as u already might know, is Adil Raja. Currently I am based somewhere in Europe. But I belong to somewhere in Pakistan.