Life Is A Marathon.

 

This book is and isn't about running.

I really loved the exploration of the entanglement running has with the human condition and how the sport is a microcosm of life itself.  The author is a runner for sure and the book is about him running marathons but it parallels his marriage to a woman named Nataki whom he has been married for some 20 years or so. She isn't a runner and also suffers from bipolar disorder and the author does get honest about marriage and about mental health and about what he and his wife have gone through. It doesn't paint a picture such that running solves anything. It is a raw and honest look at what we do and why we do them and I would recommend this book to people even if they aren't runners. It's about commitment and endurance.

Love is sacrifice. To love is to put another person's needs ahead of one's own, to donate a kidney to a dying sibling, to skip a few meals for God, to (as the song goes) "climb the highest mountain ... only to be with you." The more we love, the more we are willing to sacrifice or suffer for the beloved. There's not much difference, if you think about it, between climbing a mountain to be with someone and running a marathon to cure cancer or bringing joy to a friend who used to run marathons before the accident. A person may choose to run a marathon for personal or even selfish reasons initially, but once he's neck-deep in suffering at mile twenty-four, he starts to think of others, because that's just how the human heart works. A runner who's neck deep in suffering needs the most powerful motivator he can find to endure the suffering he must endure to finish the race, and nothing motivates like love. Even the most competitive runners, the professionals, the Olympians- who may seem to race only for money, fame, and the thrill of victory, if you talk to them about their motivators (as the author has), will tell you they never run harder than when they are running for their family, their team, their tribe, their school, their god, or their country. 

There are so many things about running and life the author delves into this book that it is difficult to jot them down in a blog, his interpretation of "Real Runner" is something very striking to me. He says, 

All runners learn to be "real" runners. The definition of this term, however, is relative, not absolute. The runner who cannot yet complete a 5K without walking may define a real runner as one who can, and strives to do so. The runner who can already run a full 5K but has never run farther may define a real runner as one who has completed a marathon, and strives to do so. And so on. At every level, runners define "real runner" in such a way that it is just within their reach to become one, but only if they take the whole trip, giving everything they've got to realize whatever amount of potential they have. All runners who try as hard as they can to become the best runners they can be discover something in themselves the author described "real satisfaction that I've got the fire in the belly to dig deep and not fade away when the going gets tough" which heightens their self-image. All runners who try as hard as they possibly can to measure up, do.

The one thing everyone wants is to be happy. We seek happiness in all we do, however misguidedly at times. The most obvious way to go after happiness is to satisfy our worldly wants: to get the house we want, the spouse we want, the food we want, and the social media recognition we want. But this way never succeeds. None of us can create a world in which we have everything we want and nothing bad happens. Disappointment, pain, and hardship are inescapable.

 The other way to chase happiness is to change not the world we occupy but ourselves.  Fitzgerald says, "The happiest men and women are those who have become or are becoming, the persons they want to be. The folks among us who have consciously chosen themselves possess more strength and harbour less fear than do those who have everything they want (for now), and it is strength and fearlessness, not luck, that we need to face life's unpleasant parts. To become the person you want to be, you must first define that Person and then you must work hard to close the gap between your current and best selves. This work may take a variety of forms, but in my experience, none is more effective than running marathons."

 In the pain of a marathon, we learn who we are, discovering within ourselves both the weaknesses and flaws that hold us back and the strengths and virtues that drive us forward, which are different in each of us. To the extent that we keep going, finishing today's race and trying again tomorrow, we actively choose our strengths and virtues and reject our flaws and weaknesses. Over time, the good things in us grow as the bad things shrink, a process not unlike building muscle and burning fat. It is simply impossible to become a better person in one's own estimation through such a process and not at the same time become a happier person. 

My perspective after reading this book:

So can people really be addicted to something as challenging and uncomfortable as running marathons? I wondered. The answer to this question was all around me and within me too. Too much is made of human laziness. Yes, we are lazy. That's why 75 per cent of us don't exercise at all. But we're also not lazy. That's how we peopled every habitable inch of the planet within 85,000 years of first venturing out of Africa and how we landed on the moon a mere 15,000 years after that. George Mallory famously said that he climbed Mt. Everest "because it's there.' It would have been more accurate of him to say he climbed the mountain because he's human. There is an instinct within us as irresistible as our instinct to take the path of least resistance to set and achieve goals, to complete tasks, to test our limits and to discover what we are capable of. A person can become addicted to anything that brings pleasure, and achievement is one of life's most transcendent pleasures because it is attainable only by passing through pain and struggle, pleasure's antipodes. 

The marathon is a Mt. Everest for everyone a healthy challenge, universally respected, that rewards its conqueror with a sense of earned pride that, on the spectrum of life's satisfactions, falls somewhere between splitting the last log in a pile of cordwood and being the first human to set foot on the moon.

 

The God Equation

 

“A man said to the universe: “Sir, I exist!” “However,” replied the universe, “The fact has not created in me a sense of obligation.”

More than 2,000 years ago, the ancient Greeks asked a simple question: What is the world made of? In setting out to provide an answer using only the tools of logic and reason—and guided by careful observation—the Greeks set humanity on an epic journey spanning thousands of years to uncover the secrets and fundamental composition of the universe.

And as per usual, reading it has brought about that strange and terrifying sensation of awe*. Kaku recalls, at one point, about how an old teacher of his once told the class that ‘God so loved the Earth that he put the Earth “just right” from the sun. Not too close, or the oceans would boil. Not too far, or the oceans would freeze.’ He goes on to quote physicist Freeman Dyson who said, “it seems as if the universe knew that we were coming”;

for example, if the nuclear force were a bit weaker, the sun would never have ignited, and the solar system would be dark. If the strong nuclear force were a bit stronger, then the sun would have burned out billions of years ago […] Similarly, if gravity were a bit weaker, perhaps the Big Bang would have ended in a Big Freeze, with a dead, cold expanding universe. If gravity were a bit stronger, we might have ended in a Big Crunch, and all life would have been burned to death […] So the universe is one gigantic crapshoot, and we won the roll. But according to the multiverse theory, it means we coexist with a vast number of dead universes. 

 

If we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason-for then we would know the mind of God. 

The Greeks suspected that—behind all the complexity and apparent diversity of nature—the universe is composed of a smaller set of simpler elements that obey natural, rather than supernatural, laws. Since then, philosophers and scientists throughout the ages have sought the holy grail of all science—the long-coveted theory of everything that can explain the universe in its entirety, from the smallest subatomic particles to the largest galaxies and beyond.

This incredible story of scientific discovery and human ingenuity is the topic of physicist Michio Kaku’s latest book, The God Equation: The Quest for a Theory of Everything.

While not the first book to recount the history of physics, The God Equation does uniquely capture the central role of unification in physics. Kaku demonstrates how the major advances in physics have always followed the unification of forces and concepts, captured in beautiful, symmetrical equations.

The story of unification—like so many others—begins in ancient Greece, where philosophers made the attempt to unify nature’s diversity into a single, fundamental substance. Thales of Miletus, often described as the first philosopher, proposed that all matter was made of water, while his student Anaximander thought the substance was an indefinite material called Apeiron. Anaximenes, Anaximander’s student, identified the fundamental substance as air, while Heraclitus thought it was fire.

While ultimately off-the-mark, these philosophers introduced a critical idea: that hidden beneath the apparent diversity of nature is a single substance, and, further, that all physical phenomena operate according to natural, rather than supernatural, laws. This eventually led to ancient Greece’s crowning scientific hypothesis: the atomic theory of matter. The ancient Greek conception of an atom was, of course, very different from the modern view, but the idea that there is an invisible, indestructible substrate to reality that operates according to rational mathematical laws is the foundation for all future advances in physics.

As kaku wrote:

“So at least two great theories of our world emerged from ancient Greece: the idea that everything consists of invisible, indestructible atoms and that the diversity of nature can be described by the mathematics of vibrations [as established by Pythagoras when he discovered the relationship between musical notes and scales and the physical vibrations of strings].”

Unfortunately, the rise of Christianity put a stranglehold on the rational and mathematical investigation of the world for about 1,000 years. In fact, it was not until the 15th century Renaissance—or the rediscovery of classical learning and culture—that humanity would once again break free of the shackles of superstition to pursue the project of unification.

The reintroduction of classical learning—and the idea that humans could transcend the teachings of the past and make progress in knowledge—led straight to Isaac Newton, who took the principle of unification to the next level. Building on the work of his predecessors, Newton demonstrated, through his universal laws of motion and gravity, that nature operates according to precise mathematical laws and that these laws hold anywhere in the universe. In other words—contrary to the religious teachings at the time—there were not separate laws for the earthly and heavenly realms, but rather one set of laws applicable across all of space and time. It’s hard to imagine how revolutionary this idea must have been to those living in the 17th century.

Newtonian physics—the driving force behind the industrial revolution and the operation of all mechanical devices—unified all natural phenomena anywhere in the universe as conforming to the same mathematical laws and principles. At the time, it may have seemed that Newton had, in fact, discovered the final theory of everything. But as scientific knowledge progressed, problems with Newton’s theory would emerge, as Albert Einstein would later demonstrate.

The next major milestone in unification came with James Clerk Maxwell’s unification of electricity and magnetism. In formulating the classic theory of electromagnetic radiation, Maxwell was able to show that electricity, magnetism, and light are all manifestations of the same phenomenon. Once again, apparently disparate elements of nature turned out to be, in reality, unified under a single mathematical framework.

There was a problem, however. The twin pillars of physics at the time—Newton’s laws and electromagnetism—turned out to be fundamentally incompatible, as Albert Einstein was to discover. In brief, since the speed of light must remain constant (according to Maxwell’s equations), space and time cannot be absolute (as described by Newton’s laws). And so Newton—long considered the greatest scientist of all time—turned out to be wrong, or at least his laws were incomplete.

In resolving the paradox, Einstein introduced yet another process of unification: this time, the unification of space and time and matter and energy, as captured in the theories of special and general relativity.

It turns out that space and time, contrary to what Newton believed, are not absolute; rather, spacetime is a single four-dimensional property of the universe that bends and curves and expands and contracts, and it is this curvature that creates the illusion of gravitational force. The sun, for example, does not “pull” the earth towards it with the force of gravity; instead, the mass of the sun warps spacetime—like a bowling ball set in the middle of a trampoline—and the planets, including earth, orbit this curved path.

Einstein also set out the equivalence of matter and energy in the famous equation E=MC2 that demonstrates that matter and energy are two sides of the same coin. This explains, among other things, why the sun shines (some of the mass of the hydrogen gets converted to energy at very high temperatures), and how atomic bombs work.

But this isn’t the end of the story. Einstein would spend the rest of his life trying (and failing) to pursue the final project of unification: the unification of general relativity (gravity) with the most mysterious scientific branch of all—quantum mechanics.

This is where we stand today. General relativity accurately describes large-scale phenomena, such as orbiting planets and the expansion of the universe, and is responsible for technologies such as GPS navigation, while quantum mechanics is equally successful at predicting small-scale phenomena such as atomic motion and decay and is responsible for various electronic technologies including the transistor, the laser, the electron microscope, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

The problem is, while these two theories have been experimentally verified and are practically useful, they are also fundamentally incompatible, and present competing views of nature. Relativity, representing the force of gravity, presents a smooth, deterministic universe, while quantum mechanics, representing the three other physical forces (electromagnetism and the nuclear forces), presents a non-deterministic universe guided by the laws of probability and other counterintuitive laws that do not hold when scaled up.

We therefore find ourselves, as Kaku points out, in an analogous situation as the one faced by Einstein. As Kaku wrote:

“We saw earlier that around 1900, there were two great pillars of physics: Newton’s law of gravity and Maxwell’s equations for light. Einstein realized that these two great pillars were in conflict with each other. One of them would have to collapse. The fall of Newtonian mechanics set into motion the great scientific revolutions of the twentieth century.”

It seems as if history may be repeating itself. We currently have two great pillars of physics (relativity and quantum mechanics), and, since they are incompatible, it seems that one must fall if we are to ever achieve the next and final step in the unification project: the unification of all known forces into one mathematical equation—the God equation.

Kaku believes that we will eventually achieve this final grand unification and that it will be represented by some form of string theory, which replaces the point-like particles of particle physics with one-dimensional objects called strings. The vibrations of these strings are thought to account for all other emergent properties, including particle mass and charge and even gravity, thus providing a unified framework for all four physical forces. The problem is, string theory introduces an additional ten dimensions and, most critically, is impossible to directly test at the scales in which it deals. String theory therefore suffers from the following paradox: if it’s true, it’s too inaccessible to verify.

As Kaku admits, a particle accelerator the size of our galaxy would have to be built to directly test the theory. Still, he is confident that the theory can eventually be tested and confirmed via more indirect methods, or perhaps even mathematically.

The other possibility is that we’ve simply reached the limits of our understanding. Just as you can’t teach a dog calculus, perhaps we don’t have the cognitive or perceptual capacity to achieve a God-like perspective on the complete workings of the universe. After all, physicists know that dark energy—the mysterious force that drives the expansion of the universe but that we know very little about—makes up 68 per cent of the universe. Additionally, dark matter, which is equally mysterious, makes up another 27 per cent. So that means, everything on Earth plus everything else we’ve ever observed with all our instruments adds up to less than 5 per cent of the universe. It’s little surprise, then, that the theory of everything eludes us.

Kaku would point out, however, that decades and centuries can pass before the next great scientific revolution or between the proposal and confirmation of theories. Black holes, for example, were first predicted in 1783 by John Michell, but the first conclusive pictures of their event horizons were not produced until 2019, 236 years later.

String theory was first proposed only 60 years ago, in the 1960s. Perhaps we are still waiting for its confirmation. Some believe that, given the difficulty of directly testing string theory, we will be waiting indefinitely, but we should keep in mind that major scientific revolutions are rarely predictable.

We must also consider the following question: If we can’t test string theory directly, can we prove it mathematically, and, if so, does a mathematically consistent view of the universe necessarily correlate with its actual workings?

Alternatively, will some yet undeveloped theory unite the physical forces, or even demonstrate that either relativity or quantum mechanics is, in fact, wrong or incomplete, just as Newtonian physics was proven incomplete by Einstein in the early twentieth century? These are fascinating, open questions that are a long way from being resolved.

He Proved the Existence of God with 3 Scientific Proofs.

1- Cosmological Proof: Things move because they are pushed, that is something that sets them into motion. But what is the first MOVER or first CAUSE that sets the UNIVERSE into motion? This must be GOD.

2- Teleological Proof: Everywhere around us, we see objects of great complexity and sophistication. But every design eventually requires a designer. Who is the DESIGNER? This must be GOD.

3- Ontological Proof: God, by definition, is the most perfect being imaginable. But one can imagine a God that does not exist. But if God did not exist, he would not be perfect. Therefore HE must exist.

Kaku ends this book with these beautiful lines from Prof Stephens Hawkings. 

If we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason-for then we would know the mind of God.

 

 

BEHAVE

 

The biology of the behaviours that interest us is, in all cases multifactorial - that is the thesis of this book. Our behaviours are constantly shaped by an array of subterranean forces, most of these forces involve biology that, not that long ago, we didn't know existed.

Just by knowing someone, who's living in an individualistic or collectivist culture, there is some predictability. In an individualistic culture, when depressed people talk to a friend for relief, they're likely to talk about their problem, whereas in collective cultures they're likely to ask about a friend's problem. in an individualistic society, they live by guilt, in a collectivist, they live by Shame.

Let's review some facts. The amygdala typically activates when seeing the face of another race. If you're poor, by the time you're five, your frontal cortical development probably lags behind average. Oxytocin makes us crappy to strangers. Empathy doesn't particularly translate into compassionate acts, nor does refined moral development translate into doing the harder, right thing. In particular settings, gene variants make you prone to antisocial acts.

All this makes one mighty pessimistic. Yet the rationale for this book is that there's a ground for optimism.

Sapolsky's subtle humour and little bits of light-hearted sarcasm fill the book and make it fun to read. Let's do an in-depth tour of this book below. 

Robert Sapolsky invokes interest and curiosity right from the start - talking about how we are very conflicted in our beliefs – especially we condemn many acts of violence, but do support others. I have to admit I have many conflicts I am unable to resolve myself – such as the fact that I find very impressive the progress that science has made as detailed in this book, and yet I am very pained that much of this has come with cruel experiments on animals.

The organisation of the book is very logical – it traces an action from when it happens, to moments before, months/years before and potentially several years earlier in cases. Experiments show that there are several markers in our brain which light up, before we take any action. So the big question (which the book Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari explores as well) – do we really have free will? Do we have the ability to stop when the natural instinct kicks in? As it turns out, much of how we act is a result of a multitude of factors – events which have happened at any time previously - sometimes well in the past, our genes, environment, and many others, some of it still to be determined. This has extremely important implications for law enforcement as well.

There are excellent examples: eg: when you compliment a child on good work, telling them they are clever vs telling them they are hardworking invokes very different responses. While we appreciate empathy – the ability to step into and feel the others experience, empathy stalls action. Compassion is more effective. The discussion around how the brain responds to meditation are alluded to – though I think it deserved far more coverage. There are also other interesting lessons around how judges and juries decide punishment based on a number of factors which logic says should have no bearing.

The issues of “Us” vs “Them” is discussed in detail, and deservedly so. Our brain instantly associates some faces as “Us” and some others as “Them”. We develop this categorisation over time and this association is very strong in adulthood and near impossible to get over. While this is true even in animals, our behaviours are more complex. The “Us” categorisation could be based on country, language, religion, colour, and others. The natural tendency is to think in terms of aggregate labels rather than as individuals, accounting for much of our biases.

This is a big book, and one for which I should have taken notes. But I did not. Since there is a wealth of important information, I expect I will have to revisit the book again – when I feel I am forgetting its contents.

Categories are arbitrary. Humans like to divide things up: neurology or endocrinology? Us or them? Biology relates to everything physiological and cultural--there are no true distinctions. We live on spectrum of genetic variability and environmental pressure. Hormones do not control us, they enhance existing behaviors. Yeah, oxytocin makes you sympathetic... towards the in-group and can actually enhance xenophobia and tribalism. Absolutely nothing is determined about how you are going to behave.

The greatest crime-fighting tool is the 30th birthday. Frontal cerebral development does not mature until well into the mid twenties. Testosterones does not cause violence--it enhances violent proclivities. Environment is everything. Culture is everything. Did you grow up in an individualistic or collective society? The difference will literally shape the way your brain operates.

Clearly a reductionist at heart, Sapolsky overall has a sort of benevolence for humankind and with that, optimism despite our proclivities for cruelty and injustice. We can be good just as easily as we can be bad. Many moral and philosophical conundrums and stirred up in these pages but, wow, did I learn a lot from this brilliant man. If you don't have a fairly good science background, there will be some things about neuroscience, genetics and biology that might take a little conditioning first. Highly recommend.

How to avoid a climate disaster - Bill Gates.

 

It is highly readable and extremely practical, Gates sorts out the mess of data in concise terms without making the information feel like too much. Initially disconcerting, the first part of the book lays out the problem by merging hard facts with snapshots of possible futures. But then the book turns around and lays out exactly what we can and need to do, and the challenges we face in the process

Do you think that climate change is a hoax created by billionaires to control developing countries? How can a person with a high carbon footprint like Bill Gates, who took his own private jet ironically for the Paris Summit, talk about climate change? Bill Gates tries to answer many controversial questions like these and tries to give us solutions for avoiding a climate disaster through this book.

Here are some common complaints about Gates that try to convince people not to read a book they themselves haven't read - and the reasons they're full of crap.

1. Claim: He uses private jets and travels internationally.

Fact: Bill Gates has begun using sustainable jet fuel that is made from renewable and alternative raw materials in replacement of petroleum-based fuels. It is a clean substitute for fossil fuels. Extremely expensive, but the guy's a billionaire and can afford it.

2. Claim: He eats meat.

Fact: Yes, he still does. Occasionally. Mostly he eats plant-based meats. Is it bad for the environment? Yes, which is why he's mostly cut out meat, which is more than a lot of people have done. Give him a break.

3. Claim: He invests in the fossil fuel industry.

Fact: He had a small fraction of investments in fossil-fuel companies (the majority in renewables). He realized the reasons he shouldn't own stock in fossil fuel companies and in 2019 divested all of his direct holdings in oil and gas companies (he hadn't invested in coal in several years).

To avoid a climate disaster, we have to get to zero. 

The case for zero was, and is, rock solid. Unless we stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, the temperature will keep going up. Here's an analogy that's especially helpful: The climate is like a bathtub that's slowly filling up with water. Even if we slow the flow of water to a trickle, the tub will eventually fill up and water will come spilling out onto the floor. That's the disaster we have to pre-vent. Setting a goal to only reduce our emissions but not eliminate them--won't do it. The only sensible goal is zero.

 I like that he simplified things down to the CO2 budget of Earth (his 51 billion tons per year number), and breaks it out into its constituent parts by segment: manufacturing things: think steel, concrete, plastic; producing electricity; agriculture; transportation; and heating/cooling. And then he talks about how to address each sector. He takes a logical engineer's approach to the issue, mostly. He introduced me to an interesting concept while explaining energy production; the idea of the density of power production. He points out that it takes a lot more space to produce energy from solar or wind than it does from a natural gas-powered or nuclear-powered electric plant. It's a good point, but he doesn't consider the counterargument, which is that all that space on the roofs of all those big box stores, or for that matter, residential rooftops, is not exactly in high demand for other uses. And he doesn't spend nearly enough time on jobs, which could be a huge win-win for green energy.

Then he talks about "making things", mainly concrete, steel, and plastic, and I was surprised to learn how much CO2 this produces. He spends a lot of time on "green premiums", i.e., the cost to make carbon-neutral materials, which are interesting, because you learn how relatively cheap it is to do this with steel and plastic, less so with concrete. And much of the improvement in this area will stem from using carbon-neutral electricity, of course.

He talks next about agriculture and the need to reduce red meat intake, which in turn reduces cattle populations, which in turn reduces methane production. And methane is 28 times more potent as a warming gas compared to CO2. He makes a strong case for reducing red meat intake, which would be good for us anyway, and cutting meat intake in half could reduce global greenhouse emissions by about 2.5%, maybe more. He also shows how fertilizer causes problems, but he does not highlight the amazing progress made, and jobs created by large organic farms like White Oak Pastures in Georgia. A huge amount of food could be produced organically which would both reduce emissions from fertilizers and create jobs. He makes a pitch to stop deforestation and plant trees wherever possible, and I agree 100%. What needs more emphasis, in my opinion, is creating incentives for people to consume less, and to consume more wisely, because the traditional US consumption model for food cannot be sustained on a global level. Also, let's stop cutting the trees we have, especially in the Amazon and Congo.

He gave a classic example of Fossil fuel correlating it with water using David Foster Wallace's famous commencement speech. 

When Wallace gave a now-famous commencement speech at Kenyon College in 2005, he started with this story: There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys, how's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over the other and goes, "What the hell is water?"

Wallace explained, "The immediate point of the fish story is that the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about." Fossil fuels are like that. They're so pervasive that it can be hard to grasp all the ways in which they and other sources of greenhouse gases touch our lives. I find it helpful to start with everyday objects and go from there. 

Did you brush your teeth this morning? The toothbrush probably contains plastic, which is made from petroleum, a fossil fuel. If you ate breakfast, the grains in your toast and cereal were grown with fertilizer, which releases greenhouse gases when it's made. They were harvested by a tractor that was made of steel which is made with fossil fuels in a process that releases carbon and ran on gasoline. If you had a burger for lunch, as I do occasionally, raising the beef caused greenhouse gas emissions cows burp and fart methane and so did growing and harvesting the wheat that went into the bun. If you got dressed, your clothes might contain cotton also fertilized and harvested or polyester, made from ethylene, which is derived from petroleum. If you've used toilet paper, that's more trees cut down and carbon emitted.

Then transportation is addressed, which turns out to be one of the easier areas to fix, though it depends on solving the energy production problem mentioned above. Fundamentally, all transportation except long-haul air transport and sea shipment needs to be electrified, and fossil fuel consumption for sea shipments can be greatly reduced.Of course, we need to convert to electric vehicles immediately, and that covers a huge chunk of what needs to be done. I wish he had talked about shifting more freight from trucks to trains, but I'm nit-picking.

So, to sum up, I'm glad Bill Gates wrote this book. If nothing else, it brings renewed attention to the subject. It is a readable, only occasionally boring, book; all in all, not bad. I do wish he had made bold, precisely calculated proposals to solve the issues ahead of us, and I wish he had avoided self-promotion entirely because that's a bad look for billionaires. He makes an excellent point about investment to get to carbon neutral by 2050, i.e., 2050 is tomorrow in infrastructure terms. The big things we build today will still be in use in 2050, so we need to choose wisely now, not in ten years.

When we have a fact-based worldview, we can see that the world is not as bad as it seems and we can see what we have to do to keep making it better. When we have a fact-based view of climate change, we can see that we have some of the things we need to avoid a climate disaster, but not all of them. We can see what stands in the way of deploying the solutions we have and developing the breakthroughs we need. And we can see all the work we must do to overcome those hurdles.

My favourite three lines from this book

“There are two numbers you need to know about climate change. The first is 51 billion. The other is zero. Fifty-one billion is how many tons of greenhouse gases the world typically adds to the atmosphere every year.”

"Remember that we need to find solutions for all five activities that emissions come from: making things, plugging in, growing things, getting around, and keeping cool and warm."

“The countries that build great zero-carbon companies and industries will be the ones that lead the global economy in the coming decades.”

Walking With Nanak.

 

A painstakingly researched book about the founder of Sikhism. Nanak always maintained that he was far from being a holy man and that it was just a misconception that people had about him. He was an ordinary devotee in search of religiosity; the purpose of his life, Nanak said, was not to spread his message but to understand the message of different religious and spiritual traditions. Nanak would often question the dogmas related to religions. In the modern era, nobody has walked more than Nanak.

 

In the era of religious bigotry and frivolous idolatry, it is refreshing to read a book which is beyond sensationalism, myths, and miracle. What Haroon Khalid has conveyed in the book is the human side of Guru Nanak Dev Ji's life along with his teachings to society.

Nanak vehemently spoke against organised religion, and yet today, the religion that is attributed to him is one of the most prominent organised religions in the world. He abhorred the concept of associating miracles with religious personalities, but today, his biography is nothing but a list of his miracles. On his deathbed, he appointed not his son but his most loyal student as his spiritual successor. Nanak did not want his legacy to be based on kinship but on intellectual and philosophical heritage; however, only a couple of successors down the line, the institution of guruhood became a family affair, with all the gurus coming from the same family.

Unfortunately, the sad reality is the great partition of India and Pakistan not only displaced and destroyed the lives of humans from both nations it also left many old institutions and religious monuments to ruin. As mentioned many of the Guardwara's left on the Pakistan side of the border have been abandoned or not looked well after which has caused it to become destroyed from within. Also, a lot of them have been vandalized too or are dens and shelters to druggies, thieves and bandits. This surprised me and also made me feel sad that the nation couldn't look after these religious monuments. However, for the ones that are still being used many of the Sikh Temple custodians have it pretty rough because they are forced to live in poverty and get little to no funding from the government. It's a sad reality to see that an imaginary border constructed by suited men in a room somewhere in 1947 can have everlasting effects on its people, architecture and religion.

Also exploring the histories of all the subsequent Gurus after Nanak, the book traces the story of how an unorganized spiritual movement (started by Nanak) evolved into the institutionalized Khalsa of Guru Gobind Singh. Through the journeys of all the Gurus, the book describes how Nanak the poet became Guru Nanak the saint.

THE KNOWLEDGE ILLUSION

 

Cognitive science is the study of human intelligence, the search for the magic ingredients that allow people to perceive. Steven Sloman focuses on the impact of community and society in the creation or enforcement of knowledge or illusion of knowledge. Sloman and Fernbach see this effect, which they call the “illusion of explanatory depth”: People believe that they know way more than they actually do. Best exemplified by how little we understand everyday devices, like toilets, zippers, and cylinder locks.

This book has three central themes: ignorance, the illusion of understanding, and the community of knowledge. We have no illusion that the lessons we can draw from our discussion are simple. Those lessons are decidedly not to reduce ignorance, live happily within your community, and dispel all illusions. On the contrary, ignorance is inevitable, happiness is often in the eye of the beholder, and illusions have their place. The point of this book is not that people are ignorant. It's that people are more ignorant than they think they are. We all suffer, to a greater or lesser extent, from an illusion of understanding, an illusion that we understand how things work when in fact our understanding is meagre.

We are living in a complex sophisticated world. Our life is facilitated by a community of people having expertise in specific domains. As an individual, we can only scratch the surface of the true complexity of the world. We rely heavily on others. This reliance on a complex sophisticated system has resulted in greater ignorance of our knowledge and understanding.

People generally have a habit of overestimating their understanding of how things work. We all suffer, to a greater extent or lesser extent, from an illusion of understanding, an illusion that we understand how things work when in fact our understanding is meagre. The illusion of explanatory depth gets created as a result of our dependence on others & overestimation of our understanding.

Before trying to explain something, people feel they have a reasonable level of understanding, after explaining, they don’t. Storing details is often unnecessary to act effectively, a broad picture is generally all we need. Storing details or going for too many details can be counterproductive.

It's remarkable how easy it is to disabuse people of their illusion; you merely have to ask them for an explanation...We have also found that people experience the illusion not only with everyday objects but with just about everything: People overestimate their understanding of political issues like tax policy and foreign relations, of hot-button scientific topics like GMOs and climate change, and even of their own finances.

We rely on abstract knowledge, vague and unanalysed. We’ve all seen the exceptions—people who cherish detail and love to talk about it at great length, sometimes in fascinating ways. And we all have domains in which we are experts,

Donald Rumsfeld was the U.S. secretary of Defence under both Presidents Gerald Ford and George W. Bush. One of his claims to fame was to distinguish different kinds of not knowing:

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.

Known unknowns can be handled. It might be hard, but at least it is clear what to prepare for.

So people know less than everything (surprise, surprise). In fact, we know a lot less. We know just enough to get by. Because our knowledge is limited, our understanding of how things change is correspondingly limited

The Two Causal Reasoners Inside Us :
Intuition and Deliberation are different approaches or responses toward a specific task, challenge or issue. Intuitions are personal, they reside in our heads. Deliberation involves conscious reflection.

This distinction between two different kinds of thought can be found throughout classical and modern philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science. Daniel Kahneman celebrated the distinction in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow. This is a distinction thousands of years old; it goes by a variety of names in cognitive science. For example, the two systems of reasoning have been referred to as associative versus rule-based thinking or simply as System 1 versus System 2. We’ll refer to it as the distinction between intuition and deliberation. Intuition leads to one conclusion, but deliberation makes us hesitate.

The knowledge illusion occurs because we live in a community of knowledge and we fail to distinguish the knowledge that is in our heads from the knowledge outside of it. We think the knowledge we have about how things work sits inside our skulls when in fact we’re drawing a lot of it from the environment and from other people.

The knowledge illusion is the flip side of what economists call the curse of knowledge. When we know about something, we find it hard to imagine that someone else doesn’t know it. If we tap out a tune, we’re sometimes shocked that others don’t recognise it. It seems so obvious; after all, we can hear it in our heads. Because we live inside a hive mind, relying heavily on others and the environment to store our knowledge, most of what is in our heads are quite superficial. We can get away with that superficiality most of the time because other people don’t expect us to know more; after all, their knowledge is superficial too. We get by because a division of cognitive labour exists that divides responsibility for different aspects of knowledge across a community.

The Braided River (Brhamaputra)

 

The common Hindi boast "Ghat ghat ka pani piya hai" (I have drunk the water of many ghats) now has some basis thanks to the author Samrat Choudhury, who set out on a journey to follow the Brahmaputra, drank the water of its tributaries and of the river itself, and took a dip in its water.

The Brahmaputra is also known as the braided river due to the multiple tributaries and vast channels that run parallel to this great river. The river changes its name and sex once it enters Bangladesh, From Barhamaputra (masculine) to Jamuna (feminine), merges with the Ganges, then becomes Padma, and finally plunges into the Bay of Bengal with the name Meghna.

Hydrologists call it a braided river. The term starts to make sense when you see the Brahmaputra, not from a bank, but from somewhere in the middle. Braids of water run into one another. Sometimes a channel seems to flow in a direction opposite to the channel next to it. The dance of creation and destruction is visible in the play between sand and water. The fine, silvery white river sand accumulates over time to form sandbars, which turn into lite islands. Then some subtle balance in the forces at work may shift the island. from one side to another. The water may start to nibble away, and it is possible that the island may disappear. Or it may not.

The Brahmaputra, it is older than the Himalays:

In the Cretaceous period of the Mesozoic era, a sea called Tethys existed between the Tibetan and Indian land masses... which was later uplifted by a geological upheaval into the Himalayan mountain range. A corollary to this hypothesis is that in the prehistoric past the Tsangpo had actually flowed from east to west. The Brahmaputra is called an antecedent river, and a paleo-Brahmaputra is generally accepted by experts to have flowed in what is now the Tibetan plateau before the Himalayas rose. The tributaries of the Tsangpo, even today, allow east to west, which is opposite to the Tsangpo's current flow. The Cretaceous period lasted from approximately 145.5 million years ago to 65.5 million years ago. It followed the Jurassic period. Dinosaurs still roamed the earth; their extinction is believed to have occurred at the end of the Cretaceous period around the time when an asteroid hit the earth in the Yucatan peninsula in what is now Mexico, though it is not certain if the asteroid caused the extinction. The Himalayas had not yet formed at that time. The mountains are estimated to have started forming around 20 million years ago. Geologists estimate they achieved their great heights less than a million years ago. Before they rose, a river flowing south of the watershed that became the Himalayas may have 'captured' a stream flowing to its north - the ancestor of the Tsangpo - thus giving rise to the Brahmaputra. In Dibru Saikhowa, this is where the rivers Siang, Lohit and Dibang merge in the area around the massive river island, roughly 35 km long and 10 km wide, on which the park is located. The untidy tassels of water they together form is the Brahmaputra.

To think only the main channel is the river is folly; in fact, the whole combination of channels and sandbanks constitutes the river. The Dibru, too, is a part of it. So is the river channel we had seen on our first day out in Dibrugarh.The river is the sum of its parts, and much more. It has come to be that the Siang, which is the longest and strongest of its three formative tributaries, is seen as the Brahmaputra; but the part is not the whole. In terms of water volume, the Siang is at best about a third the size of the Brahmaputra. The Lohit, which meets the Siang on the northern shore of Dibru Saikhowa, is no minnow. And the Dibang in monsoon carries a surprisingly large volume of water, more than the Lohit. It is almost as big as the Siang in the rainy season. Many other tributaries that are great, powerful rivers in themselves, such as the Subansiri, Manas, Teesta and Kopili flow into the Brahmaputra, making it the phenomenon of nature that it is.

Let's review the actual route of the river from its Source to its destination :

The river that is bright and clear on the map, a somewhat tasselled ribbon of blue winding its way down from... well, somewhere around Dibru Saikhowa in Assam where three other ribbons of blue, representing the Siang (also known as Dihang), Lohit and Dibang, meet untidily to become the Brahmaputra. Its origins, according to all authorities, lie in Tibet, near Mount Kailash, at an altitude of around 5,150 m, where it starts life as the Yarlung Tsangpo. From there, it flows from west to east before making a U-turn (The Great Bend) and entering Arunachal Pradesh. There its name changes to Siang. The Siang then gathers more streams and flows down through the Arunachal hills towards the plains of Assam. At the foothills, it meets the Lohit and Dibang. Downstream of this confluence, it is the Brahmaputra. The Brahmaputra in turn flows through Assam, gathering yet more streams, before entering Bangladesh. Upon entering that country it undergoes one more change in nomenclature, this time accompanied by a sex change - the 'male Brahmaputra, for some reason, becomes the 'female Jamuna. The Brahmaputra as Jamuna makes its way towards an eventual confluence with the Ganga, known in Bangladesh as the Padma. This great river of many great rivers finally flows into the Bay of Bengal, after undergoing yet another change of name the Meghna. Its whole length is 2,880 km.

A river is not a canal. It is a living, organic entity. It changes with the seasons. It ebbs and flows. The word for the river's rise is 'jwar', and its fall is called 'bhata, and these words are inscribed into the geographies and cultures of the riverine lands. Its ebb and flow are the life pulsating through the land. In the rains, up in the green forested hills of Northeast India, the earth rejoices in songs of water. Its gurgling, splashing sounds, as it makes its way down towards the Brahmaputra, soft but insistent, are everywhere - and in every little trickle, there is, in a sense, the Brahmaputra. It is a time of rejuvenation and rebirth - a time etched into the human geography of the land as fertility rites, such as the Ambabuchi Mela at Kamakhya celebrates the menstruation of the goddess.

Fluidity is the very essence of water. It is the nature of the river to be fluid; it has no fixed name, no address, no unchanging course. You can call it the Tsangpo in Tibet and the Siang in the hills of Arunachal, the Dihang in the plains, the Brahmaputra after, the Jamuna in Bangladesh, the Padma after it merges with the Ganga, and the Meghna at the end before it loses itself in the Bay of Bengal. You can call it what you will - because those are but mere local names, and they have no fixity. I can show you a Yamuna in north India too, that was once a river like the Jamuna in Bangladesh. They are names on maps, a human invention that came into being scant centuries ago after the river that is older than the Himalayas had lived, in one form or another, for a few million years.

At the birth of the river more than 1000 km upstream where the braids of the Siang meet those of the Dibang and Lohit. The place where the Brahmaputra is formed is inexact. It had not been easy to find the river itself, gigantic though it is, because I had been looking for a reality that reflected the neatness and order of lines on a map. I was looking for three streams of water called Siang, Lohit and Dibang meeting at one point, after which there would be one big stream, Siang plus Lohit plus Dibang, called the Brahmaputra. It was of course stupidity. There is no such point. The Brahmaputra is not a single big stream made up of three smaller streams.

The map is never the territory. Somewhere in the vague recesses of my memory, there is a story, perhaps read ages ago, of a man who wants to draw the greatest map of all time, the most detailed ever. He eventually draws a map as large as the earth itself. Even that map would be inexact, for it would be in two dimensions, not three. To accurately model the earth in all its detail would need another earth. "This is China,' we say, and this is India, and downriver from here is Bangladesh.' The river doesn't know, and it doesn't care. When an earthquake causes a landslide to muddy the waters of the Tsangpo in eastern Tibet, the fishermen in Goalpara lament their falling fish catch. When China and India plan dams and river diversion or interlinking projects, farmers and fisherfolk in Bangladesh anticipate devastation.

The devastation of flood visits the riverine lands every year. There are floods in the floodplains of the Brahmaputra in Assam and further downriver in Bangladesh. A company called The East India Company, naturally interested, like all companies, in maximizing revenues, had marked some of these lands near the river as wastelands and eventually put them to use for paddy and jute cultivation. It was great for the economy, but the river doesn't know or care that there are now permanent human settlements on the lands that are part of its annual monsoon home. Of course, we are powerful, we can dam the river. We just don't fully know what harm that will eventually do to the cycle of life in the lands through which it flows, and to the ocean into which it flows.

To see the river in its entirety is to see the connectedness of nature and love the intricate workings of the cycle of life - that cycle which pulses with the seasons, and the movement of water from sea to mountain and back to sea. We may dam the river on land, but if we wish to survive as organic beings, we cannot dam the great river in the sky that flows with the monsoon clouds. From the Himalaya to the Bay of Bengal, it is all one unity, and the smallest fish that spawns in a wetland of the Kaziranga in the Brahmaputra's seasonal floods is as much a part of it as the largest elephants that head up the Karbi Hills to escape the rising waters. The Brahmaputra is not a canal. It does not flow between two neat banks. Its untidy braids, channels of history and commerce, witness to the ebb and flow of empires, are the architects of the surrounding landscape of nature and of humans.

Waters, peoples, languages and cultures have flowed into one another along the entire length of the river for thousands of years. Many streams of humanity have flowed in to become braids in the cultural mainstreams of the riverine lands by the Siang, Brahmaputra and Jamuna. Industries that shaped the economy have emerged from global interactions along its banks; Assam tea became Assam tea with the contributions of forgotten Singpho chieftains, Chinese growers, British planters, men and women of the tea tribes, and Calcutta merchants. Time and movement have added variety even to the river itself. Take the water hyacinth, for example. No sight is more emblematic of the river's flow than a clump of this plant bobbing downriver with the current. It seems an ageless sight, a part of the Brahmaputra's landscape. It is a plant from South America that came to India with ships in the British colonial period, and survived all attempts to exterminate it. Like its South American cousin, the potato, and the chilli plant from Mexico, it has flowed in, across space and over time, and become ancient in its new home.

"Mahabahu Brahmaputra' is, as Bhupen Hazarika sang, the pilgrimage of great confluences. You cannot know the river without knowing flow.