Someone Is Ready to Call Me a “Genius” + Something (Almost Random) on Sleep + My Joblessness

(1) Someone Is Ready to Call Me a “Genius”:

Yesterday or so, there was a message in the famous Lounge of CodeProject, asking people something like whether an IQ of 147 was high enough or not… I followed a few links in the ensuing discussion, and a few clicks later, was led to the following Web page:

http://hem.bredband.net/b153434/Index.htm#Conversions

Do have a look at this page. … I entered my GRE scores and lo and behold: I was a genius!

My V+Q score of 1510 correlates, the above page informs me, with an IQ level of about 155 on the Stanford-Binet scale. Wow! … Now, of course, you know about my GRE story (of Oct. 1989 batch): how the Americans canceled the GRE scores for all centers in India out of a suspicion of mass copying at centers like Hyderabad (the same city where today Americans pay Rs. 1 Crore per annum as salary whereas I go jobless), and then did nothing to act in time so that valid scores could be made available in time; how they bungled up even the make-up examination, canceling also the make-up examination score so that no GRE scores at all were available at the time of decision-making, etc. So, my score of 1510 is, really speaking, refers to the very first GRE, the one that got canceled. I got to know of that score because UAB had directly made that enquiry to ETS and used the answer they got. I never got to know my score the second time round because, as I mentioned above, that particular make-up examination also was canceled. My third-time GRE score, done up as a “time-pass,” more or less (because all my application money had already gone down the drain because all other American universities had already declined my applications for a lack of GRE scores, and because UAB had already offered me a Fellowship anyway), was: 800/800 on Quant and 680/800 on verbal. Even if we use this score, it still correlates with 153 on the Stanford-Binet scale! Wow!!

Really speaking, the only thing I find to say Wow! about my scores is that I never lost any point in Quantitative. There is a reason for it. This was the first maths examination in my entire life which I had answered without any mistake—otherwise, despite my excellent record right from school days, including winning scholarships and all, I had never actually scored a flawless 100/100 on any maths examination. Even though my brother and sister had, on many occasions, I had not. So, GRE brought me a wow because I scored 800/800 without a mistake both times. I mean, in our times, there used to be people who did score a perfect 800/800 score, but still had up to 2–3 mistakes. I, on the other hand, had made none every time I came to know of scores.

Another wow thing about GRE was—and remains—even more important to me. It was that I never lost a single mark in the verbal Reading Comprehension section. Not even once. Never in practice examinations (some 10 odd that I took) nor, I believe, at the actual examination. That, actually, meant far more to me. It does so even today. I mean I have known IITians (of high ranking branches) and medicos routinely miss at least one mark after answering both Reading Comprehension sections on each GRE; I never ever lost even one mark even once.

And the reason I find this performance so satisfying is… Well, we have to go back to my school-time to see why it feels so important to me.  … I had finished reading almost all of Vivekananda’s writings while still not even in 10th standard. Even before beginning reading his books, I had been distinctly fascinated by the tales of his extraordinary capacity for mental concentration, his extraordinary mental abilities.  There were those famous tales of how he had a photographic memory (stories which, even back then I had suspected would be probably somewhat exaggerated; stories that I myself, nevertheless, also repeated, adding a bit of mirch and masala too while retelling them to my friends…) And then, there also were the stories of how Swami Vivekananda could rapidly get the essence of what the next person was saying to him, right on the fly. It was this ability which had made a distinct impression on my mind. In any case, for certain reasons not yet known to me back then, I had concluded that it would be wonderful not to miss any such thing which was within one’s own means/control. (It was almost like a self-administered Hypocratic Oath: First, not to miss any thing actually there, not to introduce something of one’s own as far as this was possible. I don’t remember when I administered this oath to myself, but somewhere in the busy-ness of reading a book after another book, I had noticed, after chatting about how one reads with friends, that I had made a resolve or a commitment of that sort to myself.) So, not to miss something while reading has always been important to me, in a way.

And, there always has been one odd mental picture which I have associated with a mere rapid proficiency in mathematical manipulations. I have always  compared such an ability with a lean pole that could easily buckle. I mean I had implicitly grasped a sense of seeing abstractions built over abstractions, and the only way in which I could express a “dizziness” of that sort was by formulating a graphic metaphor like that. It was not that I didn’t understand the maths or that I was afraid of it. No. It was just that I was apprehensive of this way of using my mind to a major extent in my life. I was apprehensive of it, and had developed that “thin pole that could buckle” as a mental picture even as a school-going child. [Update on May 12, 2009. I tried hard to recall the specifics about this, but no longer remember them. So, I really can't tell today when it was that I really formed this picture. It's likely that it was formed sometime later, early on in my college---11th standard to FE/SE. Certainly it should have been there by the time I was in my TE---the time when I came across Ayn Rand's epistemology.]

And, I had thought, right back then, that the way to make the tall pole stand was to “support” it laterally, and this, I thought, can be had by expressing things in words, using ordinary language, and by drawing geometrical figures, graphs, abstract logical diagrams etc. to a lesser extent. [Update on May 12, 2009. Though not the pole analogy, the need to "support" mathematics with plain descriptions has been with me for a long time. I certainly remember that the sole preparation I had done for my 8th and 9th standard mathematics annual examination was to write down definitions once in my notebook. My family was worried about it. Maths, they had told me, was meant to be studied by solving practice problems, not by writing down theory like definitions and theorems. I had ignored them (which got them even more, say, disconcerted). After all, I pointed out to them, I could prove any theorem of geometry that the teacher could think of posing (and many others outside the textbook(s) as well). And, as to practice problems, could they guaruntee that the same specific problems/sums are going to appear on the examination? If  not, what was the point? But definitions and theory were different. They are interesting and can be useful also later on, I had argued... I couldn't convince them or anyone else with my logic, but was clear that theory and its explanations in different terms is what mathematics was really about. ... Apparently, I still disagree with a lot of people even today. So, the importance I attached to the theory of mathematics was still there right in 8th standard. But not the specific pole analogy, I think after rethinking about this issue.]

And, I had also thought (right in school time) that it was more important to be well-rounded in all cognitively possible angles than strive for an outstanding (a world-beating) mastery in only one thing or two. I still do think so, though today I can also place that thought in the right context: today, I will say something like that the broader-scale integrations are a must no matter how much of a mastery you gain in your specialty(ies) such as abstract mathematics.

It is for these reasons that the so-called “theoretical” (as opposed to “numerical”) questions also are important to me; it’s the reason why I have valued competency in Reading Comprehension; it’s the reason why I have been so delighted in having good scores in that section on GRE.

Being seen called a “genius” is just a time-pass. Really. Knowing that your first reading itself is (still) being done energetically enough, with as much liveliness or awareness or mental stamina as is possible to you regardless of your intelligence, is far more important (and, far more deeply satisfying. Really.)

In fact, my simple test is that reading (or exercising understanding through any other modality such as listening, watching, observing, recalling, mentally considering, etc.) should be done with such energy and focus that you ought to feel exhausted after a while. If you do not get tired by thinking, you are not exerting yourself right enough. If you get tired this way, even a couple of hours of study is good enough!! More on this, may be, some time later… (In Pune, I routinely run into school children or their parents who claim that they study for 4+ hours a day at home, on every day of the school! I can only marvel at them!… I mean, general reading for 6 hours is different. But studies… Well, it’s entirely different ball game… “God” knows how they study for such a long time. But sure enough, it does not show up in their examinations, writing, talk, or action.)

(2) Something (Almost Random) on Sleep…

The question of what does and does not form a proper philosophic query can be sometimes difficult to settle.

It is well known that philosophic ideas are abstract, that they are the widest abstractions possible to man. Also, being basic, they often are simple (i.e. simple, in a difficult way). But characteristics such as these, it seems, are not always special to the ideas of general philosophy.

For example, consider the question of instantaneous action at a distance (i.e., IAD for short).  This is a well-known issue from basic physics. In the last century, once Einstein’s relativity theory came forward, it became a focal point for a lot of nonsense as well as some philosophic discussion. One of the satellite issues that the relativity theory brought forward was that of the IAD. Of course, relativity theory is not the only context in which one can possibly think about this issue; I, for example, have discussed it in the context of the diffusion equation during my PhD research. Of course, speaking in general terms, my discussion is rather an exception. There is no gainsaying the fact that today physicists know about IAD almost exclusively in reference to Einstein’s famous postulate that the speed of light is a constant. If c cannot be infinite, IAD is ruled out. [Update on May 12, 2009. Notice, it's not enough that something might move faster than light. The point is, the speed of interaction has to be infinite for IAD to happen.]

Now, thinking about this IAD issue, I was of the opinion that it did qualify as a proper topic of general philsophy. But then, a few years back, I chanced upon on the Internet some writing from David Harriman in which he had taken the opposite position. It is not for philosophers to debate, he had said, whether one end of a see-saw would go down precisely at the same time that its other end goes up. (In case you didn’t realize that this example actually involves IAD, you are too dumb to read this. (LOL!))

David Harriman’s argument seems to make sense. The see-saw problem does seem to form an issue that is specific to some special observations pertaining to only a special group of existents. … Or, is it?

Consider this: Somewhere at the base of our system of justice lies a particular form of the law of the excluded middle. (It came from Aristotle, not Plato or any other mystics.) Now, of course, Aristotle’s law, when taken as a fundamental philosophic truth, is far more abstract and wider of application. (Indeed, it’s just a corollary of the law of identity—and the latter applies to the entire existence.) Yet, in the judicial system, there is one particular form of the excluded middle which is recognized: A person cannot be at two different places at the same time. For instance, consider what happens if you are innocent but get caught. If you can prove that you were in a different city when the crime happened, you are let go, your honour completely intact. Indeed, the lawyer trying to nail you down may even be able to prove that you were wielding a knife precisely at the same time that the crime happened. But what if you were cutting vegetable in Pune at that time when the murder actually happened in New York? It is a very particular form of the law of the excluded middle which saves you in such a case. It’s a metaphysical denial of the IAD which saves you. After all, jurisprudence is not a technology based on the science of physics, is it? Obviously then, it has to be a metaphysical denial of the IAD [Update on May 12, 2009: even though case such as what we considered here is easily settled by reference to the fact that the body of a person cannot be so long as spread over the two cities; we don't have to refer to IAD or its denial to settle this particular case. But, I was just taking a big example in general, that's all].

The case with issues like IAD is, perhaps, similar to the idea of individual rights. Rights is a concept that is at once both moral and political in nature—it’s the bridge between the philosophy of morals and that of politics. Similarly, I think there is this possibility that some concepts are sufficiently basic that they can simultaneously be both scientific and metaphysical in nature. They would, thus, satisfy one of the requirements to be considered as axioms of the relevant special sciences. For the science of physics, one might perhaps consider the following concepts/laws/ideas as falling into this category: space, time, sensory qualities like temperature (i.e. the Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics which merely establishes the objectivity of a quantity like temperature), color, etc.

As to David Harriman’s argument, there also is yet another way to approach it. This is a more indirect way. It consists of going through the concepts that philosophers in general have used over the centuries; apply reason to separate the chaffe from the grain; and go on from there. This second approach, thus, rather relies on what other men have thought the scope of philosophy to be. Now, since men aren’t always consistent, obviously, this is not at all a fool-proof method. But it can be helpful.

Consider, for example, what Harriman would himself consider to be the prime example of a philosopher, namely, Ayn Rand herself. Refer to her epistemology book. In this book, she discusses at length the classification of concepts, e.g. concepts refering to physical objects vs. those referring to the aspects of consciousness vs. those referring to the products of consciouness, and so on. Then, she comes to talk about concepts like “but.” Pause for a moment and ask yourself: When you read this particular chapter, does it feel like a grand first-hand inductive generalization proceeding from the concretes, or does it rather feel like a good review of the philosophy of the special science of grammar? Even if it’s brilliant, original, and first-hand writing, does it not feel like elucidating her views on the concepts of grammar—a special science just the way physics is? If you ask me, I would say that it means just the latter, even if obviously her more general purpose here obviously also is to lay the groundwork so that a future discourse on how individual concepts—words—are linked together, and so, how proper cognition can be defended from its enemies at a coarser level of cognitive granularity, would have some rational grounds already laid down. That, evidently, seems to be her more general purpose. But look at the actual methodology: She is not being deductive  here, sure, but neither is she directly integrating from concretes as such either. What she is directly doing here is rather a process of isolation, one of contrasting the narrower subdivisions from each other. Now the point I am trying to make is this: If Harriman were not to have the benefit of the knowledge that Ms. Rand is writing this all in a specifically philosophic context, would he so easily accept the idea that an indication of the meaning of the word “but” is (or can be) a philosophic matter? I mean, doesn’t it look a bit too special to grammar?

Overall, I believe, many times, it’s not so much a word or the outward point of debate which determines whether it is philosophic in nature or not; it is the depth of the treatment, the kind of integration which is demanded, the fundamentality of the discussion.

The reason I went at such a great length is because it is good to know what philosophy is. (Smiles.)

A particular thing that I really wanted to write about is this (but I have no longer any patience left to type any more—even though I am a touch typist).

Sleep.

Is this topic philosophical? Can it be? Or is it doomed to be examinable only from the narrow perspectives of special sciences, such as biology, physiology, medicine, and psychology (and worse: mysticism, religion, folklore, etc.)?

Now when this thing occurred to me recently (once again, after many decades), I tried to think very hard if Ayn Rand had even indirectly indicated anything on the topic. But I couldn’t recall anything except some indirect hints. For example, recall that passage from The Fountainhead when Roark goes to sleep right in the office late in night, his work finished (and if I remember it right, his body falling into a contorted position sheer out of exhaustion). So, the idea hinted at is that sleep is for relaxation, rest, perhaps even rejuvenation (though the emphasis clearly is not on this).

But is this all we can think about it? Can’t there be more refined and more fundamental philosophical remarks about it?

As I recently thought about it, I happened to consider what the ancient Indian wisdom says while highlighting the difference of man from animals. Man, Indian wisdom says, does have some qualities/drives that he shares in common with animals though qua man he is not limited to these. The qualities in common with animals (and birds) are: “aahaar” (eating), “bhay” (fear), “maithun” (sex) and “nidraa” (sleep). The Indian wisdom then goes on to add many things which I don’t buy. [Update on May 12, 2009. And, for that matter, even for the characteristics that Man shares with animals, the actual qualities are distinctly human in nature. More on this, later.] But still, this particular list is in itself interesting in that it brings together highly disparate facets together, and therefore, to that extent, it is indicative of some original observations. The pithy remark has, of course, survived millenia. Naturally, it prods one to see if there is not something deeper to sleep.

Here, I also recall Feynman’s experimentation with sleep deprivation. Or was it Carl Sagan? I’ve forgotten who it was. … I mean the guy who went into that sensory deprivation cell just to figure out if he gets any weird experiences or not. I guess it was Feynman. In the writing below, tentatively, I will assume it was Feynman, and correct myself later if I am wrong.

Stated simply, if you are deprived of proper sleep for some time, you will (temporarily) go mad. If it continues, you will die. … Sleep is one of the basic conditions of life for the organisms who show such behavior.

Is sleep a requirement of consciousness—the way it is of sustenance of life? In other words, is sleep special only to those organisms that possess the faculty of consciousness? Do ants go to sleep? How about worms? bacteria? amoebae? viruses? Where do we draw the line? How? This last “how” is, of course, a question of special sciences—not of philosophy. But consider the next line of thought.

There are cycles in the physical universe: high tides and low tides, day and night, changing phases of moon, seasons, motions of stars, etc. Aristotle was among the early thinkers to take a special note of the cycles—-he put forth the idea that time is cyclic in nature.

Similarly, there are cycles in the biological processes too: the process of breathing, the beating of the heart, the electrical and chemical waves of the brain and the nervous system… And, of course, the cycles of sleep and waking hours…

Further, considered from the teleological angle, sleep would be serving certain teleological functions towards furtherance of life.

But my point is that oftentimes the Western culture has thought of sleep only in the physical/biological terms—not of the requirements of consciousness. If what sleep serves are certain basic purposes towards sustenance of life, then, it can’t be for only the bodily sustenance—consciousness, considered as an invisible organ of the individual who possesses it, must also both require and be benefitted from it.

If myths, legends and folklore are any indications, to the primitive man, the state of dreaming would be indistinguishable from that of being woken up. But despite thus introducing this thread of thought here, I must make it clear that I am not therefore going to accept the hypothesis of the fourth state of consciousness as an established fact of science. Science requires far more care than Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and his disciples have displayed in this regard. God knows (humourously speaking!) it’s so tough even to just isolate the right concepts with which to work, when it comes to building science. Indeed as Leonard Peikoff has clarified, the proper status of psychology is that is is “pre-scientific” in nature. So, even if touching on dreaming, I am saying, let’s keep it aside and search for something of more fundamental or basic nature and state: What is the philosophic nature of sleep?

Frankly, I don’t know…. Sorry if you thought I was going to give you an answer. (On second thoughts, I now start LOL!)… But I myself am not very clear about it…

Yet, all of this I stated only in order to advance the idea that a philosophic treatment of sleep is not a bad idea (from an epistemological—i.e. philosophical!!—viewpoint). After all, Ayn Rand has even given a philosophic treatment to sex—a treatment that does not regard the biological fact of reproduction as its focal point. … At a time that the Rationalistic fantasies of immortality were a routine fad of discussions in the USA, she remained (not so) surprisingly in touch with reality in that she pointed out the broad inductive basis to aging—how aging and death are the things that are only to be expected as natural things… So, I certainly wish that she had written something on something as simple and natural as sleep, too.

If not, at least the other philosophers… But, off hand, I don’t know of any too… [Have they been sleeping on this issue?]

One reason I happened to think about this issue a few times the past few days is because I really do not expect people to have a good idea of what reincarnation is and what it can possibly involve if they are not even clear about what sleep is and what sleep can possibly involve.

Sleep is far too easy a topic, comparatively speaking. If you are already senseless about it, there is no reason for anyone to take you very seriously about your views of reincarnation, no matter how old or widely circulated such views might be.

But what my thinking finds interesting is that sleep involves a periodic (i.e. natural and orderly) loss of consciousness—the tool of human survival.

Here the term consciousness is to be taken in its primary sense. You may be conscious of your dreams—right while dreaming and later on after waking up. But there at least is some time when you are in the deep sleep wherein you lose consciousness. And regain it, in a systematic way. Again and again. All throughout your life. Even when it comes to dreaming, that still is not at all random but follows certain natural laws. The consciousness alters its modality during dreaming and it’s a very definite change. Sleep involves all of these.

Like every process of life, sleep fulfills some pro-life function—even if it involves a loss of consciousness—which, paradoxically, is the very tool of survival. What’s its philosophical nature?

This is one question that I don’t even have so much clarity that I could first form a riddle about it, and then go ahead and crack…

Indeed, as the discussions in Ayn Rand’s seminar on epistemology indicates, people first grasped the nature of existence, then Aristotle discovered identity, and, then despite Rand’s formulation that consciousness is identification (both qua faculty, and even qua awareness) we are still only grappling with understanding the nature of consciousness. As Rand agreed, when it comes to consciousness, mankind—or most of it anyway—still is very much in the Dark Ages. Consider, for example, what do you know about the metaphysics of memory? Why can memories be so vivid, and yet, in general, they are so fallible? Why do they fade? What happens when you recall something? … People are often likely to give answers in analogy with what computer does, but except as broad analogies, it’s utterly inapplicable—human memory is not a mechanical reproduction. … Isn’t it wonderful that here is one proper force of nature—one that is actually active, actually brings about changes in reality. And, despite being the tool of survival, this force can also so easily act against the same individual who wields that force. A faculty that apprehends reality but can so easily also go on to keep within itself only the purely imaginary. (Though, this “so easily” is perhaps not as easy as it’s often thought, as Rand pointed out: there is an immediately accompanying feeling of guilt—at least a mental uneasiness—with every act of evasion.)

Anyway, wrote a lot but without formulating a nugget out of it… But not a stream of consciousness exactly either… More, later.

(3) My Joblessness

Be moral. Write an email to any suitable employers from Pune, India, that you know of. … Tell them that they should give me a good, well-paying job in the field of CAE, or preferably, in software development for CAE (including allied fields like CAD, computer graphics, etc.). Thanks.

= = = = =

[I will probably update this post a bit later on, but not much.]

[The post was updated on May 12, 2009 at about 8:00 to 9:00 PM IST. The additions are given inside square brackets like these. Plus, there were a few editorial changes, streamlinings, etc.]

“Explaining” My Failure in the Prior PhD Program at UAB + A Little Bit Philosophic + Other Notings

You mean to say you want me to explain to you why I was failed at UAB?

Actually, I don’t know the actual reason. So, all this explanation is, really speaking, only an “explanation.”

If you want to have an answer, you will have to go and ask that bustard who was the most directly responsible for that bad decision: Mr. Raymond Thompson May be, this white Southern Baptist Christian will be able to tell you why happened what did. In any case, to ask the question to “Pat” (Prof. Burton R. Patterson), my guide, isn’t going to be terribly productive. As far as I know, Pat didn’t want me to fail, but didn’t fight it out on my behalf either.

But far more interesting is “Ray.”

This guy was so “competent,” he couldn’t derive an ordinary static equilibrium equation for the surface tensions acting at along three surfaces coming together at 120 degrees angle at a junction of soap-film bubbles. (Materials folks study soap bubbles because it’s a good starting model for grain boundaries in metals). I mean it might appear humorous, but it’s a fact that this guy could not model in the class the tension along the dihedral angles right, because he was too dumb to work out cos(2 theta) because he was too dumb to recall the formula for cos( A + B).

He based his entire course on research articles, and expected me to memorize every small detail of sulpher seggregation. He expected me to reproduce those empirically found graphs and data that are best relegated to handbooks.

The course he taught (and I have forgotten the title by now, but it probably was something like) “Surfaces, Interfaces and Grain Boundaries in Materials.” It, decidedly, was not a core course. But in UAB’s quaint qualifying examination system, I had to clear 8 courses individually. Since this guy was on my committee (and was also a Director of UAB’s Materials Science program back then), I had to include his course in those 8 courses. (Out of which, 3 or 4 were core and the rest were like applications or off-shoots. Like, the above course).

The first time I was failed in the qualifiers, this guy was the only one to fail me. I, then, did a “mistake” (given the sort of morals he practises and his compatriots love him for doing so): Despite being an Indian student, I went into his cabin and demanded to know what kind of answers he expected for the essay type of questions he had posed. (The level of detail for the experimental data that an ordinary student could commit to memory and recall at the time of examination within 45 minutes was unacceptable to his the then arbitrary whims.) He smiled indulgently (and I believe this was because he had made up his mind in advance the outcome of my second attempt at qualifiers too, no matter what I wrote.) He then told me that if as a graduate student I didn’t know how to answer questions like that, … And he let it go at that—I mean, he stopped explaining. Altogether.

A few months later, the “tamaashaa” of the qualifiers was repeated. This time round, Pat and Greg (i.e. Prof. Gregg Janowskii) had altered their questions. But this bustard repeated exactly the same question paper. I, too, repeated exactly the same set of answers (probably to 10 % less detail—out of exasperation.) He again failed me. Looking at his resolve, Pat too failed me in *his* own section. I had lost the enthusiasm the second time, and had not done too well on Greg’s section, though, had he wanted, he could have let me go. But, I guess, looking at the other two, Gregg too failed me. (Both were senior to him; he was on tenure-track back then.)

The system still had an interview left. In that interview, this bustard Ray simply bullied me, though he did it with a smoothness that was extraordinary given his personality. Sadly, Pat simply witnessed the tamaashaa that was going on.

Now, since I am not easy to bully (and you could’ve guessed it, couldn’t you? … Am I not a non-Brahmin, a 96-Kuli Maratha, a warrior and whatnot?), you might be curious (i.e. if you are not as dumb as Americans are) to know what technique might the bustard Ray have used. He did this:

He, first, asked me questions in, what else, sulpher seggregation. (What else could he have talked about, anyway?) Looking Pat’s discomfort at whether reproduction of concrete details is what interview could be about, Ray went into thermodynamics. In particular, chemical potential.

Now I no longer remember very much what precisely were the steps that Ray led me through, but he did manage to get to the idea of diffusion rates and chemical potential.

Now, this was easy stuff. The Late Dr. Chapekar had taught us in SE (i.e. second year undergraduate) so well, and I had perfectly understood that point right then—in SE. In short, the point is: you never mistake thermodynamics with kinetics. Thermo. deals with the hypothetical equilibrium situations; kinetics with the rapidity at which reactions proceed, their rates. But just because some reaction is thermodynamically favorable doesn’t mean it’s going to occur with a faster rate. Simple and clear. (Indeed, if the energy hump is big enough, it may not even “spontaneously” occur at all.) All of this is elementary stuff. (Some of it was taught to us in Std. XII.) There was no way I—*I*—could have made a mistake about it.

But, this bustard Ray made it appear as if I had made one. That, in a nutshell, was his skill. The particular technique that he used was to tear a remark I had made out of context, and used it to put words in my mouth. By that time, I guess, Pat and Greg too must have had decided that anyway this guy (namely me) is a better fit in a “stress analysis” sort of (i.e. mechanics-related) program. So, they, too, didn’t object to Ray bustard’s tearing things out of context.

Ok. What was the statement I made? I did make it clear to them what I said above. That free energy won’t tell you about reaction rates. But then, once Ray asked me fourth or the fifth time (and I am not exaggerating the number of times he asked me), and since he had kept his face straight throughout, I mistakenly thought that he was asking for a more speculative or “creative” sort of answer from me as to what could happen if an attempt were to be made to relate the two together in a basic way. (As to keeping the face straight: Many Americans, esp. white ones, are esp. adept at this particular skill, I have later on found out via my job experience as well—the bustards are masters of talking the talk, walking the walk, and keeping the two separate in a politically correct way.)

So, with an emphasis on the word “hypothetical,” I proceeded to give him an answer. This answer of mine was based on a certain type of thinking that had already become a part of my own thought process even back then. With my recent publications in the current PhD research, I may rightly say that this was an original way of looking at things. However, I did not had had enough of time thinking about it that I could explain it any time with Pat (during our research meetings or even otherwise, dropping in his cabin.) According to this particular thought process, a potential, indeed, could be built out of a diffusion process. (And by now, if you are familiar with my research, you should be able to tell how this comes about.) Now, of course, this result was already known to, say, random walk researchers. But I had not known about that thing. I had worked it out on my own. Since my thoughts were new, I was assuming too many things as known to the audience, and rapidly going through my answer. While doing that, I made a remark which seemed, to bustard Ray, as if it meant I was saying that greater the free energy difference (or chemical potential) faster the reaction. (To know the sort of lines on which my actual answer was based, refer, for example, to the groundwater seepage problem I have set in the very recent End-Sem Examination on FEM at COEP in Spring 2009 semester.)

But then, sharing this line of thought had produced precisely the sort of atmosphere of hand-waving and all (primarily because none of them knew this line of thought) that it gave bustard Ray his chance to make the killing. He moved in swiftly.

A few minutes later, even Pat was found nodding his head as to how I could make a statement that thermodynamics could predict reaction rates.

Now bustard Ray finished it off. Since I did not show mastery of even simple fundamentals such as thermo vs. kinetics, he said, I couldn’t possibly be allowed to pursue the doctoral program any further in his opinion. Pat agreed.

That’s how my timely PhD, greencard, even US citizenship and the earned benefits that these would get me, were summarily denied me. Not in an open challenge, but via a skillful use of politics, pressurizing, and, by way of the basic epistemological essence, context-dropping.

- – - –

Of course, it doesn’t at all surprise me that this bustard should have been given ASM’s fellowship precisely during the Republican regime—a party that is basically religion-based these days, a few Tea Parties here and there notwithstanding. (Indeed, regimes, the periodic rules have by now become in the USA. An objective rule of the law is no longer the de facto condition in the USA these days—and by “these days” I mean a time scale of years and decades, i.e., as compared to the 18th and 19th centuries.) It is not a matter of surprise at all. But what I am really curious about is: whether the republican bustards had asked our Indian bustards to delay my PhD admission here until the time that all business had been taken care of, in the USA. After all, notice the coincidence. I started trying for my PhD admissions in 2002 (first trip to IIT Bombay in March or May—I don’t recall now). I published my first paper in 2003 (sent Sept., published Dec.). My guide accepted me in August 2004. This bustard got inducted into ASM fellowship in Nov. 2004. And only then did Pune university ratify my admission, in Dec. 2004. (An otherwise just a formality—-After all, how many engineering experts does Pune University keep on its own pay roll anyway?) So, this is entirely possible that before I could utter anything about him, he was made into a respectable one. Even if this was not actually done, the point is, today’s power-lusting American bustards can so easily do it.

They do consider Indians in that poor a light. Many of them do anyway.

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As usual, since something has been said about my professional losses, the way I have been made to suffer by the Powers That Be, (so that even in your possibly pathetically short attention span you are kept sufficiently reminded), it’s time to talk a bit about something I like.

This is an easy one—what I am writing about. I had sent in an email about it to ARI, but it’s the first time I am talking publicly about it.

Assume, for this question (and without being like the bustard Ray Thompson) that reincarnation has been proved. Consider the Aristotelian position (also accepted by Ayn Rand) that at birth, man’s mind is a “tabula rasa”. But the reincarnation type of cases necessarily indicate the evidence for having a certain mental content—memories of the previous birth—right at the time of the birth.

Two questions: (i) How can the two be reconciled? (ii) Is this an instance that a finding in a special science is negating a philosophic principle?

As I said, I’ve already cracked this one. (I mean both the above two sub-questions). Also sent my prelim. thoughts about it to the ARI, who, as expected, did nothing by way of appreciation of it at all. But I know that my reply stands as a truth. The point now is: Do you know how to crack it? (But no prizes for this one. First thing, American and Indian bustards, as you know by now, trap each and every one of my emails. Secondly, even otherwise, I guess, I might have included the newspaper media in the cc field—just in case it helps clear up someone’s confusion.) So, no prizes, but see if you can crack it. It’s an interesting one. … Something—one among (too) many—that bustard Ray couldn’t have cracked at all. … Give it a try…

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Oh yes. “Chemical potential” reminds me of what I am about to write about.

I think Ayurveda is boring. And not at all deserving of what Mr. Raghunath Mashelkar, FRS, thinks of it…

I mean, Homeopathy is in a different league altogether. There, finding out a mechanism to explain its workings is a good challenge. (And I believe that it does work some times.)

But, in contrast, Ayurveda is almost fully based on the normal and “materialistic” view of medicines. I mean there are chemical molecules present in those herbal remedies, right? Indeed, its Hindu packaging apart, Ayurveda, come to think of it, is actually nothing but a preliminary, vaguer, cruder, less refined version of the usual Western medicine as the latter practised today. This does not mean Western medicine is a proper superset of Ayurveda. Some plants, medicines, methods of preparation (or of introducing changes) might be known to Ayurveda, say through trial and error, but these might be new to the Western medicine. Yet, both their approach is one and the same (at least when it comes to medical materials or drugs being administered).

And in a way, both are boring, just the way boring is most of chemistry once you leave the QM effects.

The reason I mention this all is because (i) Mr. Raghunath Mashelkar, FRS, sits on Tata board even if Ramadorai or Sherlekar don’t give me a job (but they all give jobs to Hindu Brahmins esp. if from IITs); and (ii) in view of my yesterday’s posting, rather than approach the Tatas to urge them to give me a good and well-paying job that is in line with my interests and competences, our Indian bustards have gone ahead and arranged for a 12th Oct. born Ayurvedic doctor to get matrimonially in touch with me. Note, my thesis happened to have got submitted on 12th Oct. 2007 to the Uni. of Pune. (Now you know one more reason why I call these Indians as bustards, don’t you?) And, I will give you one more reason. She is an OBC category girl. I am not going to hold this against her—it doesn’t happen that way when it’s me—I don’t or rather can’t even think on those twisted or “convoluted” lines. But I must note that Brahmin bitches, if they are good-looking and well-educated, never do get in touch with me on their own for matrimonial purposes. Indeed, Brahmin and CKP bitches don’t even respond me. Ever. (I have experience of running my matrimonial profiles since 1998—roughly the same time that American and Indian bustards and bitches have been oppressing me with their power games, including psychic.) Anyway, Indian bustards are what they are. Bustards. Let’s leave them here…

Mr. Raghunath Mashelkar, FRS, it would behoove you to let Ayurveda alone (despite any Hindu, Hindu, Hindu, thoughts of yours or those of your colleagues in Tatas) and instead focus on science and engineering. Also giving the right people good jobs. (And asking a question or two as to why their PhD defences get indefinitely prolonged…) Or, is this, too, too much to expect of you? Especially, by someone like me?

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I will “revise” this post, too, later on… (I have learnt to be shameless in matters like these. … So, I could even delete this post if I later on find it to be inconvenient to me, my career, etc.)

Explaining My Joblessness + A Little Bit Philosophic

If you have been reading my blog (or are one of those bustards who are responsible for following me up), then it would be obvious to you that my joblessness is deliberately planned for by the governments of USA and India together.

Notice that my joblessness has occurred at the same time as the graduates of Hyderabad’s management school got Rs. 1 Crore+/annum salaries. (And, CapMag.com, shut up; if your only reaction is going to be to defend the high salaries of CEOs, I will begin considering, you, too, as outright bustards.) It has occurred at the same time as young and incompetent IIT Bombay graduates got contracts and jobs in CAE field (e.g. Alcyon—remember the name, Kanwal?). It has occurred at the same that COEP graduates have got Rs. 75,000/month salary (e.g. Shirish Deodhar’s daughter, who got such an offer with Microsoft India. That, despite the fact that those Sun Java vs. Microsoft wars being played out in his own company, i.e. Frontier Software, with him inwardly taking Sun Java’s side. I mean, this guy supported Sun Java, and still got his daughter inserted into Microsoft India. And he still lied to me through his teeth that he had only Linux projects even when he had Microsoft projects… But then, it’s not particular to the body of Shirish Deodhar alone. It all is explained with this combo pack: Brahmin + IIT Bombay education + being a Congress (I) man’s son! (And, he would have been worse if he were a BJP or a Communist man’s son))

Now, the other side of this story. The jobs that I did get offers for/was permitted to do. The linguistically interesting things the bustards arranged.

The way these American + Indian bustards run the things, Google happily supplies links to my course material on FEM. But Google bustards and bitches don’t include my scholarly research papers into Google Scholar. … But then, what Google is doing now was only to be expected. (They are just Americans—no need to qualify them, is it, with any swear word such as a bustard and/or bitch.)

Before I came back to India in 2001, the last company who had sponsored my H1B visa was softUltimate, Inc., a small company of Hemant Pathak’s. Hemant later on closed it down. (While he dilly-dallied about immediately beginning my GreenCard sponsorship, by delaying it by one year, the smart fellow stayed back in the USA until he got his own citizenship… But then, at least he had the least decency to offer me a job once again.) Eventually, the only time the Indian bustards allowed me to get a job was with SunGard, where Hemant was working. Now, the games… Did you get the play on the name? No?  Recall that I had publically supported Microsoft in its moral defense. With the sort of bustards we have running our Indian IT industry, with the sort of principled amorality which these bustards want to promote (if it’s not Hindu Brahminism, it has to be principled amorality), they got it arranged with a company name of SunGard.

I have been shouting about these bustards from rooftops. That is what these blogs are. But the only software development company who happened to have called me for an interview was… Can you guess? Its name was “Fugro”. Now, you might be tempted to think that this was a play on the words: “Fuck” + “Row”. Nope. Wrong. The way Indian and American bustards want industry and commerce and run, the intended hint is actually at: “Fu” + “Gro”, a stand in for “Few” + “Grow”. And, what’s the meaning of that, you ask? Well, in mid- 1998, it so happened that just when India tested the nuclear bomb, I was very fresh in beginning writing emails to Leonard Peikoff. Indeed, it was only in 1998 that I had begun writing emails to him. (I have stopped doing so for years by now. I never got a reply from him, but when I once brought up the matter by calling him in on the radio show, he did say that he wrote my emails. That was, I believe from memory, in 1998.) In the very first email I wrote to him, I had written humorously: “When I really really grow up, I will be able to tell if I am an Objectivist or not.” This particular comment, I noticed, led to a lot of activity among the socialists in media (which means, about 95% of media men and women, including Jug Suraiya (shame on you, Jug!) and Mukul Sharma (yeah! Konkona’s father)). As usual, the American bustards had begun it—Bill Clinton’s supporters in the San Francisco Bay Area began it (with local newspapers in Palo Alto being the first to do so), and then it spread to others in the USA, and then, it spread, slowly, to India. And when I say I noticed, I am being inexact. The matter was thrust into my perceptual field—both “sensory” and “extrasensory”. (Which means, media bustards and bitches inserted such things at inescapable places in newspapers. And the Powers That Be also inserted such things in my mental “space” and in my dreams, sometimes awakening me up at night—giving me stress in the process.) Though the matter began with the American socialist bustards in the SF Bay Area, it very soon spread also to the Republicans, and the right-wing Christian bustards also milked it (including my life) to what it was worth. (But, yes, when I complained at Harvard’s iMechanica about it, the Microsoft/right-wing controlled msnbc.com were the first stop “using” my life. This happened in the year 2008. Until then, the right-wingers, too, were among the bustards to give me stress and squeeze life out of me. So, if they have stopped now, it only means that the right-wingers are more disciplined in exploitation unlike the left-wingers who tend to be a bit more scatter-brains about it.) So, our Indian IT bustards, wanting and trying to protect the cash kept compressed under the ass of Azim Premji, Ramdorai/Ratan Tata, and Narayana Murthy, obliged the American bustards and thus, the only place I got shortlisted since this blog began was in “Fugro.”

The reason I mention this all is because I have sent my resume to “Softtech Engineers”  (http://www.softtech-engr.com) and have not yet been shortlisted for the interview. Actually, they are conducting walk-in interviews

But I have gotten sick of the Indian employers bustards and bitches all finding excuses not to hire me. So, I have now decided to ask them to actually shortlist me and only then to attend the walk-in interview. (In fact, even at  Fugro, their employee incompetent Java bustard Rajesh Thorat asked me to architect not one, two, but three systems, all of which dealt more with networking than the domain of Fugro because that bustard knew only Java and only the networking domain and not petrochemical engineering. Thorat, then, smilingly found flaws in whatever answers I gave him. And asked me go back to him for a second interview should I better myself technically… Now, it  is true that I have forgotten some of my software engineering. But I am 101% sure that this pure CS-bustard was afraid that I would eat him alive should I get a chance in his company, and so, out of turf-battles, wanted to keep me out. Right, bustards Nayak? And immoral Retired Commodore? Didn’t you oblige your bosses in Delhi in shortlisting me and then treating me the way you did?)

So, even vis-a-vis Softtech, I did some homework. Here are the “lovely” aspects about them. (i) The name Softtech, if I mistake not, also was being used for her business by one lady engineer I have known—one Mrs. Kamal Purandare, my class-mate at C-DAC’s Diploma, also a COEPian herself, and a COEP classmate of my friend the Late Dr. Rajendra Kulkarni. (ii) Softtech’s board of advisors includes one Mr. Ajit Pawar, an engineer, i.e. a namesake of Sharad Pawar’s  nephew and a current cabinet minister in Maharashtra (and a political enemy of Suresh Kalmadi). (iii) On their Web site, their CEO has been shown accepting an award from none other than Sharad Pawar himself.

Now, all this could very well be a mere coincidence. Sure. But we don’t have to wait for too long to find out either. I have applied to them, called them up once, and have been told that they are going to get back to me after going through my resume.

If you browsed their requirements (and I am not sure if they have any honest requirements for all the advertised posts or not), professionally speaking, my resume fits them (and their company, to me) perfectly. So, if they at all call me for the interviews, I know to that much of an extent that they were being honest. Simple.

But then, today’s times are what they are, and for the reasons I have given you above, none can be sure if I would actually get shortlisted, interviewed the way I should be, or offered a job.

But then, one to cut the evil networks is to expose them. Accordingly, I have decided, from now on, to blog each and every “attractive” advertisement that the Bustard Rajah, Bustard Jyotiraditya Scindia, Bustard Ashok Chavan (the by-default IT minister of Maharashtra, following the scheme the scheming Bustard Vilasrao Deshmukh and cooked up to inflate his own cash-ass), and others have released .

Also, I am going to jot down here each and every advertisement that I respond to. And, why.

I am applying to Softtech Engineers because the domain for the software development concerns engineering.

Anything else, American and Indian bustards?

I will also be applying to Sharad Pawar’s Vidya Pratishthan’s College of Engineering.  Last year Mr. Prataprao Borade had conducted my interview for the post of Principal, and had informally indicated to me that I had been selected and that they could release their offer if I had a PhD in hand. Since then, I have taught a course at COEP. Naturally, I believe that even if not as a Principal, I should get Asstt Professor’s post. If I have PhD in hand, I qualify for a Professor’s post. With that, I also qualify for the post of Principal. Right now, I have to be satisfied with Asstt. Prof’s post. Pune University has this seriously idiotic rules that MTech in Metallurgy does not count towards Mechanical. Otherwise, I can also be a Professor even if I have no PhD. But I take it that Narendra Jadhav and others, even if they don’t t say so, have take a personal enmity with me, and therefore, aren’t going to change these bureaucratic rules so that I could sit as a Principal and make some decent money somewhere. Anyway, I believe, 99%, that Asstt Prof’s post at VP COE,  Baramati, should be mine. There are some disadvantages to that post too, like the distance from Pune and all. But I am applying there as a matter of job security.

I also plan to apply to COEP whenever these exalted ladies and gentlemen release their advertisement. Rather, I plan on being inside that interview hall on looking at their faces at a close view—what they think of me when they see me in there—once again!

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I began writing a small piece on the issue of the physical vs. volitional causation. I began that way, but ended up writing a plain text file of about 22 KB. (Which means, a lot.) I will post it, but only after I feel like it.

The bustard Americans and Indians must learn to respect me better. Including the IT industry bustards (including ministers, including Congress(I) and NCP ministers) must learn to respect my mind better. And begin to give me concrete evidence. Not through their “regular” channels. But using decent, rational means. Until then, I have no particular desire to add new words and phrases to their fucking gossip circuits aimed to keep IIT Bombay bustards exalted, IT Bustards moneyed, and me, without credit—financial, intellectual, moral, etc.

Got it up your ass and therefore into your brain (because there is no other way you have left of reaching your brains/heads) smart Indian and American bustards and bitches?

Good. Now, act.

PS: I want Indian Objectivists to know that Harry Binswanger won’t, in the last analysis, support you. Neither will ARI. Not when it matters the most to you—in your own most vulnerable moments, when you should have been protected. Whether to call him a bustard or not is a matter I have not yet finalized my mind on. But, yes, it is a possibility too. (One does not live giving one’s actual enemies every benefit of doubt they have not earned. Got it, HBL excerpt-picker for today “Sunny Soloman” i.e. Sunni, Solo, Man? Got it? If, as an American he is going to rather protect bustard/bitches Americans at my expense, he too, becomes bustard—wouldn’t he? That is the matter important here.)

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Needless to add, I will “revise” this post later on. Probably, after I get my next job—of the sort I want.