The BIG Question.

A lot has been said about life, God, origin, evolution, et cetera on my blog recently. People appreciate that the theory of evolution makes sense. But they say that still there are questions that science hasn't answered yet. The biggest question that popped up from the discussion and remains unanswered as yet was, What is life?
Talking objectively and not opining on what people believe or don't believe, here's what I've understood of life.
We are all made up of matter. For elaboration on that click here to learn it from Sumedh.
So is everything around us. Then what precisely makes us different from any other spatially and temporally bound functioning packet of energy? Its this ability to ask this question perhaps. Its the ability to see the colour of this font and call it by a name perhaps. Its the ability to be more than a passive functional unit and change the course of physical events as 'we' please. The ability to be aware of the physical and the abstract, to be aware of awareness itself makes us different. Its not just the series of physical reactions (i.e. chemical reactions at a finer level) that a stimulus initiates in the functional unit that 'we' call as 'our' body to present to 'our' cerebral cortex its form. I mean, the stimulus' visual, auditory, tactile or chemical form. I mean, its physical surface, its chemical composition and its spatial orientation. Thats just perceiving the sense of it. And as you know various associations start forming in 'our' brains following that and we react. Awareness works not just while identifying or learning about a stimulus, it works in knowing it. It percieves the object in an abstract frame.
Abstract is something that cannot be defined in physical terms. Its not the physical terms that we cannot understand, I'd like to clarify. But even abstract thinking is most of the times a logical chain of thoughts. And thoughts are various circuits activated together simultaneously.
It is actually the awareness of a living organism of itself that makes it different from the non living. What psychologists use for the seemingly most intelligent species, the ID or the EGO exist in every unicellular organism and perhaps in 'living' viruses and prions too. It is the awareness of the self , the basis of which is that the self is different from the non-self. Now it makes perfect sense that living 'substances' require a system to perceive the differences between the self and the non-self, to identify the differences and another system to express their reaction to the differences. So there are the sensors, the processros and the motors.
Life formed in such a way that it was programmed to identify and protect the self. Its the same kind of programme that fuses hydrogen nuclei to form the Sun. This is the divine knowledge, in fact, knowledge itself is a property of life. But again its the physical forces that act in enabling life to be life.
A new-born child is only aware of its self. So it cries when its hungry. Because it has been programmed to identify the stimulus it recieves and classify it as good or bad for itself and react to protect itself. As she grows up, millions of stimuli shape her knowledge of the self. She defines good and bad more frequently now. Then she understands others' perception of hers. She compares her understanding with theirs and now she knows herself in a different and so-called more mature perspective.
But there is a still higher entity in the structure of life. Self is mine. There is a ME. When I address myself, I am aware of me and not just myself. Its not just the difference between me and my surroundings, its me. Its not my name, my sex, my nationality, my race, my physical form or a combination of these. It is me. In one word, its the consciousness thats me.
Hmmm... The mist seems to be forming again. What is consciousness? What am I referring to when I say I? My body, my thoughts, my emotions, my will? Am I just a thought, i.e. , a collection of neuronal circuits simultaneously activated in my brain? If so then where do I produce will from? Is my will only an expression of what my instincts (as yet unlocalized circuits) say is good for my self? Would I not have any will if I couldn't be aware of my physical or abstract worlds? Or do my worlds exist only because I do? The world is as it seems to the observer. I am the observer. Awareness, consciousness, self, I, will, would define life by their definition. Dive into the mist of the mystery called life to get the answer or surrender by accepting anything that anyone has to say.
You make the choice, while I pop-up a pill of Valium!

Here's what my friend Shivanand Sheth had to say on my article titled 'Darwin Rules'. I had to put it here.
"Darwin was a lovely guy. I always use the words "Survival of the fittest" in appropriate conversations as a mark of tribute to him. And I 100% agree with the theory of evolution. It is a perfectly valid theory which has enough undoubtable evidence in support of it and i admire the guy's intelligence for being able to put it all together. The ONLY way that humans have descended are by evolving from Monkeys and whatever the monkeys evolved from, and whatever the things that whatever the things that monkeys evolved from, evolved from. (By the way just returned home after seeing King King.. I felt like the gorilla had more brains than me)But the question is not about evolution or chemicals combining. It's about 'Life'. There is a vast difference between few chemicals combined in just the right proportions a few million years ago to create life and experiment demonstrated formation of complex organic molecules from basic carbon, hydrogen and oxygen when the weather of a few million years younger earth was mimicked in the laboratoryI just did a comprehensive google search regarding Miller Urey experiments and have gone through atleast 20 different authentic sites before posting this. These are just some of the excerpts i have found on all the sites i went through that i am posting here.
"These discoveries created a stir within the science community. Scientists became very optimistic that the questions about the origin of life would be solved within a few decades. This has not been the case, however. Instead, the investigation into life's origins seems only to have just begun."
"At present, the relevance of the experimental results of Miller and Urey are being questioned, since the atmospheric conditions used in the experiment are not thought to accurately reflect those of the early earth."
"The molecules produced were simple organic molecules. Far from a complete living biochemical system, but the experiment established that the hypothetical processes could produce some amino acids that are present in a biological system"
"The experiment did not produce amino acids, only some chemicals which may lead to the development of amino acids. And amino acids are not life either."
Infact NONE of the sites offered me any information which had a positive conclusive statement. Anyway i also stumbled upon "http://www.ucsd.tv/miller-urey/" which i found really funny, and i failed to create life there too.
Now the basic common flaws mentioned on almost all sites are:
1)The weather conditions created by the scientists were only assumed to be similar to ones present on early earth and that there is no means of knowing what the exact weather was like when life began.
2)Nothing close to 'life' was ever created. Only things created were new 'life-like' chemicals from old chemicals.
3)The experiment was carried out in 1953. Almost all modern scientists disagree with the results of the experiment today. ("Icons of Evolution - Science or Myth" by Jonathan Wells. Check it out on print.google.com)
I'd like to stupidly analogise a point here which i think is appropriate (The time is 1.30 am now, and anything my sleepy mind is deciding to analogise at this moment has GOT to be stupid)
It is argued that people construct a God to believe in, whenever they need a 'miracle', whenever they found no answers to their curiosity and that God is just their fantasy that they hold onto for a while in a moment of weakness.Similarly to me it seems that the people who attempt to find answers to everything, who try to find valid explanations to seemingly complex questions, those who are focussed on trying to find answers that negates the need for the existance of a God, too are, in a way, disillusioned. For them a 'miracle' is the formation of a few chemicals, discoveries which seem to answer fundamental questions of our existence somewhat but only to throw open more questions and more tasks upon them to 'unprove' the existence of God. Most don't have a clue about how to go about with their experiments to find the right evience, but they do have a blind belief that yes it is possible. Someday. Each new finding gives them the hope that questions can be answered without attributing everything to God. This too is a belief they start hanging onto when they don't have answers to find, and their basis for such a belief is just a little 'chemicals combining to make more chemicals'...whether it is valid or not- it is just something new for them which gives them hope.I find that this 'Hope' of continuing with the quest to find evidence, the belief that they can prove everything by science and logic, the fact that they 'just know' that God didn't do anything is pretty similar to the 'Hope' that the majority have in which they believe that life cannot and just couldn't have formed 'by itself'. They 'Just know' that God did do everything. They too might have their belief based on facts and myths with no validity, but the belief is enough in itself.
You have just mentioned the aspect of evolution. I'd like to mention the broader picture of life. Life as i see it is much more complex. It is intelligent. Life comprises complexities of breath, energy, the raw desire for having sex, the perfect fit of the male with the female, the feeling of hunger, the need for all the organisms to eat, the need to sleep, emotions like fear, love, lust, jealousy, even in the most primitive organism basic essentials are present... it's not just about DNA mutating to make a human being out of a bacteria.. Such things cannot be explained just by 'at one point of time intelligent forms evolved'I feel that there has to be a God who governs the 'Laws of life' - the law of hunger, law of sleep, the law of good and evil natured organisms, the law of the need for a breath, the law of reproduction, the design of the genitals, the law of a sperm combining with an egg, in fact the law of evolution and the law of the survival of the fittest as well.It's just that the inquistive scientific man is in the continuous process of finding the footprints left by a God without realising that what he is unraveling are just the fingerprints on that footprint.
I have no idea if i could convey what i felt appropriately... anyway though i do believe in a higher power's existene for sure, i do not believe that he is responsible for everything per se. and as i have mentioned in a fellow blogger's comment - my faith is very flexible- the day that science can explain everything, i'll stop believing in God."
You won't be surprised that I copied it from the comments section to the main page now that you've read. It is so well written. I never thought that Shiv would actually think so much on a serious topic, especially when he knows he is not doing this to impress a girl. Frankly Shiv, I am happy to see you do something so unexpected. Take it as a compliment. (I couldn't degrade the standard of the rest of your write-up by including that poem you wrote in your school days. Yeah, mention not.)
Now coming to the point.
Firstly, the authenticity of the Miller-Urey experiment should not be over-emphasised. I know it created chemicals that were too simple for life. The point that I was trying to make is that they succeeded in creating complex molecules from simpler ones. This is just a small trailer of what would have happened when life originated. There are a number of theories for that too. Its almost impossible to know what exactly happened until the day another experiment that creates 'living' 'breathing' organisms from scratch succeeds. Miller-Urey experiment only proves that physical forces are enough to create life.
Secondly, the definition of life must be objective. I am not over-simplifying things, but as I've said somewhere, if you leave the links in between, the answer would look too simple to be true. Define intelligence, emotions, desires, needs (perfect fit of the male with the female? Where is that male?) and all that you find too 'complex' for a simple DNA mutation to explain for. Nothing's outside the laws of nature and physics. I'll tell you what is the most difficult thing to define. Consciousness.
My quest as a scientist is not to disprove the existence of God. Its only a part of my job. (I am being very humble.)There is this hunger to solve this puzzle of who 'I' am. I can't delude myself by accepting God as the answer. It distracts me from the path of truth. My hopes are not resting on the answer. I live life at the sensory-motor level, more of sensory actually. But knowledge is a craze. I have to know this. Scientists don't need to hold on to a hope or an imaginary achievement to continue with their work. The pleasure of working is their reward. Newton didn't set out to find why does the earth suck when he actually found it.
When you think of God you close your eyes. But when you are confronted by the truth, your eyes are open wide in amazement. Thats not a miracle. Its a realization.
Also I want to mention that logic is not a belief. As Ayn rand put it, 'A' is 'A'. You look at it from whichever angle you want to, 'A' would exist as 'A'. The ultimate Truth doesn't depend on its observer to be true.
I personally find it inappropriate to classify science. Science is the game of solving every puzzle around me. Be it the world, life, relationships, my consciousness, my self or me.

Are we threatened?

Our world has been seeing some changes recently. Ad libitum, I could recollect a few...
Girls can't wear jeans or skirts to college anymore.
Students can't carry mobile phones to college anymore.
Its forbidden to support pre-marital sex.
No un-U rated movies on television anymore.
Couples spending some time together in public parks would be roughed up by the law-keepers.
saviors of the society have finally woken up from their decades long hibernation and now they'll teach the dissolute the rules of conduct in a civilized society. And the above actions have been taken because...
Boys get distracted by girls in jeans or skirts.
Students using mobile phones indulge in pornography.
You can't have sex until the society allows you to.
A/UA movies influence the vulnerable viewers adversely.
I have no clue why!
I do not have to really ridicule the reasons that have been put forth in support of the changes that have occurred. I think my readers are wise enough.
But I am really angry. What the hell do they think they are doing? Is it even possible in any universe to impose a moral conduct? Is morality under legal authority?
I could dedicate blogs after blogs talking about morality but lets cut the crap and get to the point here.
Girls and women wearing salwars and saris get raped.
People indulging in pornography may use mobile phones as a means.
One can have sex whenever he/she wants, in reality.
A/UA movies can be seen in the theatre, on home CD's, on the internet and so on...
Our homes are too crowded for couples to get cozy in front of their parents, uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, in-laws, etc...
Is civilization measured on a scale of hypocrisy? I know hypocrisy arises from fear. Why do we have to pay a price for the inability of those who can't face and challenge their fears? Their own carnal desires they pretend to be running away from?
I think our society is too scared to talk about sex. They are afraid that its something dark, devilicious because it attracts them. And when they finally give in to their instincts, they firmly believe its a sin. Guilt sets in. Denial sets in. The conflict asks for violence as a way out. More sin follows. We succumb to evil. We forget rationality. We set rules that have the purpose we could never achieve. Rules that can never work in reality, although people are made to follow them. We now have useless rules that everybody follows. We become civilized.
Love needs expression. Be it physical or otherwise. Love is beautiful when it is expressed. There is nothing wrong about satisfying our physiological needs. Couples holding hands or sharing a moment together cut-off from the rest of the world is not offensive. The underlying feelings are beautiful. A middle-aged man walking with his teen-age daughter staring at a woman with lewd thoughts is down-right offensive. Can the moral police stop that? But perhaps the man himself is a victim of this hypocritical thought sown into him during his moral development that never let him go to the extent where he could explore the beauty of sex. Perhaps his wife is so too.
When to do it, with whom to do it, where to do it, how to do it is entirely the concerned couple's decision. By letting people talk about sex we only spread awareness and incorporate responsibility into them. We cannot stop our children from turning into criminals by never letting them know what the crime is. They'll never know when they actually commit it.
We should just stop getting too excited about sex on a personal level everytime someone says 'sex' and look at it from an intellectual perspective when we form 'rules' about it. We shouldn't take it personally everytime.
Its not an issue. It should be discussed freely, just the way politics, economy or sports are discussed.
I call it sound mental health promotion.

Darwin Rules!

Where did we come from? Who made this world so beautiful? How did so much variety and complexity form in the natural world? From a tiny bug to a majestic elephant, who created life in millions of different forms? This beauty of life all around us couldn't have arisen from scratch on its own. Life is wonderful.
And the next wonder would be the magnificence of its creator. Sure the creator's world is a wonderland, its heaven. Everything is possible and beautiful there. But before you get going on a heavenly tour, I'm sorry to inform you that we did in fact arise from scratch. This is a real world and if you like to keep your dear delusions of heaven with you then read no further. I won't introduce you to God. I worship Charles Robert Darwin.
He 'discovered' the 'Theory of evolution'. Actually, I am not a hard-core believer of the theory of evolution. I don't have to believe it because I know it. The same way that I know that I am alive. So this write-up isn't an attempt to change anyone's beliefs either. A not-so-recent debate that I read about in the newspapers actually motivated me to write this. Some schools in Texas, USA have started teaching the 'Theory of intelligent design' in their classes. To those who are not familiar with this theory, it actually proposes an alternative hypothesis to answer questions like the ones in the beginning of this post which already have been answered by my God. It preaches that life is too complex to not have an intelligent creator to start with. This theory has got nothing to do with any religion, allegedly.
Well, first of all I'd like the 'believers' of Intelligent design model to 'know' that evolution is not theoretical anymore. It can be seen live! Pay close attention to this, my colleagues. Many micro-organisms, say bacteria, multiply logarithmically producing millions of progeny in a matter of few hours or days. When certain adversities are presented to them, for example a drug, a few of them that already had some resistance to it survive. Rest may be destroyed. These resistant fellows then multiply into enormous numbers and now we have a colony of new kind of bacteria. The former species has evolved into a new one. And this happens. So we can see the genetic pool of a population changing practically.
Someone said to me somewhere, "I can't digest that (science says) a few chemicals combined in just the right proportions a few million years ago to create life." Science says that. Only it happened a few decades ago. Miller-Urey experiment demonstrated formation of complex organic molecules from basic carbon, hydrogen and oxygen when the weather of a few million years younger earth was mimicked in the laboratory. Science doesn't just say. It shows.
And to see the miracle of science you've got to shed some delusions that you carry as the price for being social. Everything is explainable with the help of logic. And logic is the tool of science. Everything around us. Where did it come from, why is it the way it is... The answers to all these questions are trying to find us from the moment we asked these questions. Its we who make up a lie to support another and keep running away from the truth.
Evolution is far too obvious to call it a theory. I mean, how can someone ignore the phalanges present within a bat's wings and call it a bird? It had a hand for Darwinssake! What we see now as the wings are just former web spaces.
People's enthusiasm to find a purpose to their lives is partly responsible for the promotion of such stupid ideas. Purpose is one's aim. You decide it. It can't be found. You create the purpose of YOUR life. But the purpose of LIFE is only more LIFE. The DNA has to replicate. Purposelessly. It surprises many here. But it replicates only because hydrogen burns to form water. Its just a chemical reaction! And those who question that should first get their basic chemistry right. There's something within a molecule, an atom, a nucleus, a fundamental particle. Understand that before you say that you are not convinced that DNA replicates on its own, without a purpose. The scratch that we arose from is a lot 'complicated' to disappoint someone who feels uneasy by the simplicity of the idea.
Evolution started with sex. Sexual reproduction brought about variations. For those without any biology background, children produced by the natural mating of a man and a woman would look different while those cloned from a single person would all look alike. If you were wondering how can certain bacteria have drug-resistance to begin with, this is the reason why. Sex occurs, variations occur, adversities occur, selective propagation occurs, evolution occurs. Sex itself may become a selector. (I just wanted to say sex one more time.)
In conclusion, life wants to propagate, by sex, for sex. We are all Agent Smiths in effect.
This is so damn obvious people! Do we need an intelligent design to make sense of something so simple? Or are you just baffled by your own intelligence which sometimes says that life is purposeless? Is your consciousness too complicated to understand? Even for that, use logic people. Call it science, call it philosophy, call it psychiatry (you hear me Mr. Tom Cruise?). But say something that makes sense. Do not insult your intelligence by 'assuming' things. Don't make an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'! Do not mislead your children. You might have given up your quests to find your answers. They have a right to decide if they want to be weak or not. Stop spreading myths.
And finally, show those people some respect who dedicated their lives to find the truth that makes our journey easier now. Darwin was not fake. Respect my God please.
Just to be sure no one has misunderstood my voice, I am not anti-religious. I only oppose the 'Theory of intelligent design'.