What we believe.......

What we believe is at times exclusive of what we understand. We tend to believe what we were taught and what is accepted by majority of the society to be correct. Why do we so strongly believe in things we do not understand? Considerable number of Sri lankans strongly believe in astrology. They work according to astrologically set auspicious times. What is the base for these beliefs. According to my understanding there is no base at all. The planetary system is generally understood as rocks (or masses) (except gas giants of course)rotating around sun. Some try to find a scientific background when people question about the reason to believe. One such attempt is to explain the effect as an gravitational pull. People on earth are affected by the gravitational pull of these planets.

So, M of Saturn is 5.6851x 10²⁶, r is about 1.3 x 10¹² and we get the effect as GMm/r² to be 2.243.76x 10^-22 N(man is 100kg). The distance between two people(100kg) to get the same gravitational force is 0.5 m(Hope my mathematics is right*). So lot of humans are affecting you than Saturn. And not only people, dogs, cats, cars and every non living object. Same situation is with Stars as well, because the r is in squired. It is a higher value just like the M.
Another point is that that the rays from the planets and stars are affecting us. So, light bulbs and touches are different. Might my mobile phone change my future; it emits microwave alright. And the planets are just reflecting the sun's rays they do not generate any themselves. In other words the rays we get from the planets is a segment of the rays we get from the sun. Any way most of these stars could be dead now, as it takes time for light to travel, may be thousands or even millions of years. So a star which died about a thousand years ago is affecting us. But light and gravity works in speed of light.

May be they are having a special kind of gravitational force or rays other than the spectrum we know. These things are unproven just like i could say we originated from aliens. And i don't see lot of people schedule their activities on alien invasions or worship aliens.
Some people believe that there are other laws at work when designing homes buildings, other than the laws of physics(වාස්තුවිද්‍යාව,nothing to do with civil engineering). They set suitable locations, angles etc. based on unproven logic. One person i heard say that it is not good to have the staircase base at the center of the land(it's a personal experience). The problem in that logic is: there is no center of the land; the earth is a sphere. And there is no land such that is mine. The ownership of land and physical objects including ourselves has no meaning. Its just in our mind. So center of land is in our mind and bad luck is in our mind as well. Is it necessary for us to prove every thing to know it is right? No it is not the idea. There are some things that have a higher probability of being correct such as world being round. Accepting that assumption will give a sensible explanation to so many other things( such as sunrise). And there are some things that does not fit in to this category.
It is better to think that there are things that we do not understand but totally depending and scheduling life according to an unproven logic is something different. There is a chance for it to be correct, a chance equal for us to be of alien origin and so many other unproven beliefs. Any way it is comforting to believe that there is a higher power and we can save, improve our life by working accordingly. That comfort is what we seek by all beliefs.


*Assumptions: The distance can not be taken between Saturn and Earth because both are moving. The lowest value i took. The radius of Saturn not added. Even those added we are in the error range, from human to a train may be.

Naked Earth

It was finally over. The mission they pursued for generations, has been finally accomplished. A world with inhabitable temperature of 450-480 ℃ and much CO₂ as needed for photosynthesis process. It was a miracle: two worlds with almost the same friendly environment but only one inhabited by local beings. The native beings were beginning to develop complex forms but were slow at the process. It did not matter any way. They were determined to colonize in this region, one way or other, but at this stage no persuasion was needed at all.

The two explorers landed on different land sites, specially intended for diverse data gathering processes. The region around the equator was highly expected to harbor indigenous life forms: mostly simple, while the poles were expected to contain high amount of water(H₂O) in the atmosphere and possibly liquid water(due to higher pressure) .
The equator exploration was carried out with caution of a possible unknown attack. The control was continuously monitored by the control mothership before any habitation attempts were made. Every possible measure was taken to make the quest a success after all the long years across the universe. But the extra caution resulted in something different: something they never expected. It was thought to be natural first, but formation of such complex forms in calcium, with such amount of duplication was not natural(at least not in their own world ). It was so hard to believe that it was an inner structure of a living being, once roamed on the planet.Certainly crawling as it was impossible to imagine balancing such a complex form in two stands, as one of them suggested. Could the mounds of rock around once served them as homes, it was impossible to say.

Explorers at the polar were less lucky. The attack began when they were out side the protective shield, covered with only the thin outer layer which protected them from the less friendly temperature. The attackers were never reported. It had been completely organized and well handled by the native species, unaware where they had inherited it. Though not technologically advanced now, still they understood the importance of protecting their borders , and they were the survivors of an unimaginable planetary change. The new finding was to change the simple native mind, just as it happened to their ancestors millions of years ago but in a completely different environment.But were they that lucky this time? The guests were not interested in biological experiments but on their own survival.
It is unknown whether the habitation program succeeded or not. But this is a glimpse of the distant future under the current CO₂ emission rate in the world.

Homosexuality, A Sin?

Usually, calling a person homosexual is an insult in our society, and in many other societies as well. But when considered seriously, do homosexuals exist, and in what percentage? And specially are they among us? If we try to find out the accurate numerical values and locations, it would be more than impossible, due to the first point given:' It is an insult'. But when considering the values in general surveys carried out in Europe, the number is much higher than what you would expect.

Any way is homosexuality unnatural? If we consider the facts, sexuality to begin with, is for a purpose. Purpose of producing offspring; to make sure the continuity of a certain species. It could be animal or plant life but the survival of the species strictly depends on reproduction(other ways are cloning, developing directly using DNA etc.). Each and every thing an animal do in general(done by each and every living being) has a purpose of individual survival or survival of the species. Homosexuality does not support this main purpose. In other words, homosexual activities are useless in natural reproduction process and could be considered worthless completely. Homosexuality is meaningless and worthless in this aspect.
In the other hand, is every thing we do in life is meaningful. Does every sexual activity between a heterosexual couple lead to reproduction? In most cases it does not. Under normal conditions a female may have one child a year and it certainly does not match the number of sexual activities performed. If as, they are meaningless just as homosexual activities, can be taken as unnatural. And does all the sexual activities has direct connection to reproduction? If that is the case the only normal sexual activity known is sexual intercourse.More over this rules out masturbation as an completely unnatural activity.

Therefore according to the facts, non-homosexual people too perform unnatural activities more or less similar to homosexuality.
What is natural and unnatural strictly depends on the person who is observing. Normality is relative. There is no universal definition of what is normal and what is not. Customs, norms are the functions which are considered to be normal by most of the people in a social category. There are huge differences between customs and norms between different societies, tribes etc. For example we would expect cannibalism to be universally rejected. But it is not.
The question is homosexuality a sin or not, is all about what you believe. And just as most of the beliefs it too may not be logical and according to facts. In addition, as organisms in this planet we have a responsibility to keep our species strong and healthy in number, in the future as well. Homosexuality should be less encouraged by all societies for this main fact. But they should be accepted by the society as human beings and treated equality to others.

How Gigantic And Advanced We are

We are earth beings to the best of our knowledge. Just as all the people in history before Galileo, earth is the center to us. More precisely for us, our selves are the centers of the universe. But as it comes, how small are we with respect to the universe.
I found this interesting video
As it seems earth or our selves is not the center of the universe after all. We are just individuals from billions of other humans on earth. Any way how important are we to the universe as a species.
If we consider the time line The universe may be older than 14 billion years(big bang) and our earth is over 4 billion years old (4 x 1,000,000,000) and our civilization history is less than ten thousand years (10,000) old at the best. So if we compare

4 000 000 000
      10 000

Earth it self is approximately 4000 000 times older than us(no body knows the exact values). Earth has passed through so many different stages, and it is said that our entire civilization is born in between a time period which is unusually suitable for life. In other words we are between two ice ages or any other disastrous eras. The point is, who can say we are the first to be here(on earth) as an intelligent species. There is a chance because no one has reported to have noticed any artificial satellites other than the ones we have sent, but we are always looking for things which are similar to our technology to pass it as advanced technology. May be they have taken a completely different path and we do not know what to search or expect.
Can an advanced civilization be born without buildings like ours or rockets like ours. May be not(who knows?). But the problem is we are always appointing our selves as an advanced species and try to find facts similar to our selves to declare any thing advanced, so we might have missed some important details even if they were in front of our eyes.
Another idea is that there were some advanced species and they are still among us, in a way we can't see or understand. They might not be in a physical form any more, while we search in the three dimensional space for them.
This is just considering the size of objects in the universe and the time(time as we know it). The situation gets worse when we consider the vastness of space and the distance between these objects.
If there are any other intelligent beings in the universe or in earth, advanced than we are then why haven't they contacted us. Or have they contacted us and no one knows it? How many alien stories in the internet are genuine?
So, finally it comes to the obvious question again: Can you really really believe we are alone in this universe with all these time and space? If so it is a terrible waste.

Can Future Be Predicted?

How many times have we heard the term "Its my fate" , from so many people from so many different social categories ? Is there a truth in this story? Is it all set and what we can do is just sit and wait for it to arrive? Some would be pleased to think that there is fate and some may not. The real question is whether there is fate or not, can we predict the future?
Under normal conditions we probably can not, because human nature is unpredictable in complex situations. But for simple scenarios we may know what is about to happen as we might have a clear understanding of the target environment and the people involved. Is this true for complex scenarios as well.
It is so difficult to predict what a human might do in certain situations. After a long time observation it is possible, as we might understand how the person's mind is set. But even then we get surprises. Human decisions are not specific. The same person may react to the same incident differently at two different times. But a computer reacts to the incident in same manner if not subject to malfunction. That is because we are capable of handling approximate details and our decisions are not exact.
A persons brain is set depending on the experiences he/she gets throughout the life time. Mostly during the child hood and the mind is set depending on the reactions from the environment for each and every action performed. That results in ethics and understanding of social standards.
Therefore as an idea by controlling a person's experiences and exposures we may turn that person in to some thing we want(Characteristics inherited from parents too play a major role).
If we are to know every thing in this world including living and non living objects, environments and planetary conditions. Or if we can control them, there is a possibility that we could predict the future. For example if a person ran into a bus and die it was a result of so many variables such as the time the bus started, the mental status of the driver, all the people in the road etc...
All these are variables which have values. Even the human decisions. If there were such a way to know these variables including things such as how each and every ones mind is set and the facts which change the environment conditions it may be possible to predict future after all.
Redefining the above point, what we do and our choices are strictly based on what we have seen and heard in our life, and what we inherited from the generations before us, which results in human characteristics. For all other living things it is the same. If this is true, then there is no choice after all: it is just an illusion of the mind, just like http which hides all the complexities of low level protocols.
Every other thing in this world happen for a reason as well. The inputs are extremely high in number, ranging from earth's magnetic field changes to solar radiation effects. All happen for a reason and a purpose. The real problem is understanding the reason or the purpose why we exist.
Future may be predictable or unpredictable, answering that question is ahead of our life time. The best we can do is try hard, and pray our choices to be correct.

There Is Life on Europa...........

Europa the 6^th largest moon of the Solar system is supposed to be a dead ice ball with less chance of harboring 'life as we know it'. It is too far from the sun to receive adequate sun light to maintain plant life: the base of life as earth found it. It's ice layer is so thick that not even sun light; the amount that filters through, could reach far. The atmosphere is too thin to keep human tissues from swelling out. Surprisingly it contains a considerable amount of oxygen. The subaqueous volcanoes still keep the water below the thick layer of ice. The volcanic eruptions and the magnetic waves from Jupiter dragging the ice layers produce enough heat for the organisms to survive. The life between ice cold water and lava is an existing example for the concept of 'deep hell'.
That is the condition of the Europa as man kind ever knew it. The situation was so different about 25 million years ago. Earth was younger and Europa was much younger. 25 million years may be so huge for human beings but for a solar system aging for more than 5 billion years its not large at all.

The first intelligent Europian was nothing like a human. They were amphibians evolved mostly under the ocean covering the entire planet. The thin atmosphere was enough for them to look up and see the distant sun setting behind the giant parent, Jupiter. Some of the Europian plants did photosynthesis just like earth plants, but not all. Some were highly dependent on the sulfates and carbonates firing out from the volcanic eruptions. The plants which used the sunlight did emit much oxygen to keep its weak atmosphere and the powerful ocean filled in.
They had to follow a completely different path to accomplish what human accomplished. Fire was not to be made as pleased, but they had to be in the place where heat was satisfactory. But luckily locations with heat were not scarce and they were in the best place they could be. The technology of the Europians began on the tips of volcanoes where the heat was good and the metal was in abundance; the exact place they ,them selves were born.
Their technology never reached the limit for them to leave the planet. Reaching the stars were not ever in their priorities. They were trapped between the vast ocean and sea floor. Explorations were carried out to search the sea and the ice layers but never above that. They had followed a completely different path in technology to do space explorations and they were stuck.
Climate changed with time and Europa got cold with the limitation of volcanic activities. The gravitational pull of the Jupiter was not enough to keep it stable. Europa was about to enter the ICE age. The Europians found safer locations to keep the survivors of their kind, under the sea; far far under for any one to reach or see. The climax of their intelligence was reached long back.
But just like any intelligent species would; they could snap out of the mental barrier once the environment conditions would resettle. Who can ever tell it will not.......?

Human Computer Interaction

Currently the main interface between us and the computer is the display or the computer monitor. It could be LCD or CRT but still you see what you see on a two dimensional plain which tries to fake the three dimensional world. Why do we have to use the monitor? Computers use electronic pulses to communicate and so do we.

We input our data through a key board or a mouse, just like we get out output through the monitor. We send our commands to perform the action as electronic pulses through the neurons and our hands turn it into mechanical power, then it is again converted into electronic pulses for the computer to understand. When it comes to communicating the machine and humans are more or less the same. Our processing technologies may differ as we use neural networks while the computer uses the von neumann architecture(the computers which we use in day to day activities).
That is why we are capable of doing different things better. We are much more capable of handling approximate data and thinking things out, while the computer requires accurate exact data to process with. But they are really fast in processing, remembering and controlling data.
Humans as well as computers contain huge amount of power which could be released once the communication barrier between the two entities is removed.
Imagine a world where people do not use mobile phones, just because they do not need it any more. They are mobile phones them selves. Humans them selves are networked. People communicate directly using the human network connections.
You do not have to study anything any more as you can access the online data store at your home just by thinking about it. You can save any thing special you saw on the way from home to work. Going further you do not need to go to work.
Virtual reality comes a reality. As we are machines our selves it is possible for us to be physically any where and virtually be in the correct place at the correct time. You will be able to do so many things which you wished to do in the real world, like copy and paste. You may transfer data any where any time you wish. The computers in the sense of today's usage will be less and less common.
Less and less physical interaction would be needed, and we may not need our physical forms any more.And we will stop wasting time waiting for some one to arrive at a meeting. It would be no longer human computer interaction but humans and computers will be the same: we will turn out to be a hybrid organism, capable of doing what ever we need to do.
But, will we be humans any more.............................................? That we do not have an answer, because we do not now what a human is.

Are we alone

Have you ever wondered whether we are alone in this universe? I bet you have. But what if humans exist on other planets. That we may not ask so frequently.
As some scientists suggest there is a missing link in human evolution, may be we really are an experiment of some advanced species, million times advanced than we are. The real story no one asked ever, began like this.
They visited us about 3 million year ago, when we were just getting down from the trees.Homo ergaste, had the least resemblance to modern man kind. But it had a brain of 70% to a modern human. After identification of the correct species they started the experiment. A sample of humans was taken away from the planet as they continued to genetically alter our DNA. That sample they planted in another planet thousands of light years away; a distance which humans will not be able to penetrate for millions of years.
The new planet was beginning to harbor life as well. Why they selected our blue planet to the other, is not a question we can ask. The oxygen percentage was about 78% of the earth. It contained water and some plant life. It was more than enough for the most adaptable species on earth to survive in, but they evolved in to some thing else. Something more tough and more physically capable.
The years passed in millions and the experiment continues. The same species in two different planetary conditions. It may be more than two. It may be thousands as well. But not any of them know the truth about their origins, and how they began.
And now two philosophers from two different worlds, but from the same seed, stare at the sky wondering whether we are alone.................