Counterculture

The monotony of every day life is based on a very rigid social-dogma, that seems to be very inevitable, but yet so disappointing. The social environment around us discourages the idea of free thought and put us into this stream that most people feel suitable to abide by. But some of us, the daring and the crazy ones find this a substandard belief and feel there needs to be an alternate path or options to reach the ultimate purpose of our existence. There are various ways to look at this, some of it very radical and absurd, but in the end it is the essence of ones mind(very complicated and highly underestimated with certain individuals) that needs to make the right decision in choosing the right path to enlightenment. This idea forms the basis of a concept that was born in the 70s called counterculture, or you might just refer to it as the hippie culture.

Let me introduce you to a peculiar word the the western world came up with called idiosyncrasy. It is the belief of a certain individuals habits to be unusual or contradicting to widespread social beliefs and acceptance. This concept has struck a lot of thought into me and I will delve into more detail about this later. So counterculture is all about breaking the mundane and encourage free thought to the prisoned mind which our social-dogma has put us into. "The People who invented the 21st century were pot-smoking, sandle-wearing hippies from the west coast like Steve, because they saw things differently" -Bono(for those of you who dont know him, he is the lead singer of the band U2). Yes the Steve in the quote refers to the late Steve Jobs, one of the co-founders of Apple. Some of you might be stunned, and some might have seen this coming. Jobs was indeed a product of the counterculture or the hippie era. The social movement of the 70s allowed and encouraged freedom to a very large extent, which gave creativity a new meaning and redefined the way we look at things. It allowed individuals to follow their mind and heart to what they believed as a "greater calling". People were not afraid to experiment new things, and were not discouraged from breaking away from the almost nonexistent "social-norms"(This has become a very well established structure today). The whole idea was to break free, and to counterbalance the hatred and the war torn world. The numbers might overwhelm you, in the sense that the people who were part of the counterculture movement were not many, but they did make an overwhelming presence of themselves today, and impact the products we use in a very significant way.

The world as we know it today(peaceful and harmonious as it is, for the moment) is based on a very rigid moral system, where widespread belief amongst people seem to dominate the path of the future. In other words today's society is bound by a universal understanding of the social-norms which is the greater good for mankind. So to understand what counterculture is, we specify a bounded system or a set of norms, which obstructs the natural flow of energy or hinders the ability of people to choose their willful paths. Counterculture is more like an unbounded system where entropy(or randomness) is tending towards infinity. The choices you make are more in sync with that of a rebel. You define your own social norms which you abide by that is very different from the mundane. You embrace the negative energy cycles to turn it into a beacon of positive radiating energy. I am pretty sure you understand by now what I am talking about, and to reinforce the whole concept I will allow Morphius to share a few words.



Counterculture is a very diverse concept and it can mean practically anything which is contradicting widespread social norms. In the 70s when the concept was born there was a strong urge by the people to experiment on new things. Some of these things lead people to believe there is an alternate universe which is parallel to the ones they existed on. This lead to a lot of spiritual discoveries and, and the drive for human kind to reach the ultimate state of wisdom, the enlightened mind. One of the pioneers of this movement was Timothy Leary who lead the "League of Spiritual Discovery(LSD)" movement. "Like every great religion of the past we seek to find the divinity within...These ancient goals we define in the metaphor of the present-turn on, tune in, drop out." This lead to a lot of followers and who embraced a society of free thought and broke from the shackles of every day life. LSD or Lysergic acid diethylamide or better known as acid is a psychedelic drug, which people seemed to resort to as a way of escaping reality or creating this alternate universe of existence by transforming into a pseudo-environment created by the effects of LSD on the mind. Scientists have not come up with any adverse effects of LSD on the body, nor have they found out any addictive nature of the drug. Yet the drug is illegal because of its supernatural transformation of the mind making it believe things that do not exist in reality.(Which is understandable, cause you don't want a whole bunch of acid heads roaming the streets). Some might consider acid as the enlightenment drug, as Jobs explains it "Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life. LSD shows you that there's another side to the coin, and you can't remember it when it wears off, but you know it. It reinforced my sense of what was important creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could." So you can imagine the roots of counterculture and the impact it has had in our society today. Taking LSD in most parts of the world is considered as a serous offence. It is also a taboo in most parts, and is looked down upon. But considering the accomplishments of Apple in today's world which was a brain child of Steve Jobs, shows us that great things are not only invented by people who excel in the competitive world, but also by the people who dare to think different.

Ok so a lot of things might be running through your head by now. So let me break it down for you here. Counterculture which is synonymous with free thought is basically the idea of being different and mainly thinking different. There are a lot of different ways of doing that, resorting to drugs is not the only way(If this whole article might have sounded like I am convincing you to try some weed or trip on acid, I am not, just giving you my opinion). If you strongly believe in something, it is best to fight for it as most wise men would say. So break free from the shackles of social-dogma and embrace your mind to achieve things that normal everyday people are afraid to achieve. So here is to the crazy ones!!!

Hypothetics

"Free yourself from the rigid conduct of tradition and open yourself to the new forms of probability."-Hans Bender. Before I delve into the concepts hypothetics (which might sound just like an another complicated word to the average reader but it’s really an another abstraction of my mind), I would like to spend a few words telling you about what the rest of the blog entries in my blog are going to be about. If you have not guessed it already, the rest of my blog posts will have a probabilistic spin to it. I have always found probability to be one of the most common form of math used in diverse fields and probability being one of the only subjects (and related concepts) which actually makes some sense to me in engineering(thanks to my WACO probability and random processes professor from 4th semester). Some of it might sound very abstract but I will try to keep it as simple as possible. 

Yes hypothetics is a concept that is derived from the word hypothesis. Hypothesis is the processes of postulating a reasonable set of assumptions based on known facts. It is basically just another complicated word scientists came up with, so that they could justify their research. Hypothesis by itself is nothing but a term used to predict the outcome a processes that is going to be performed. Hypothetics in its basic form can be described as analyzing future events with a certain probability of occurrence, based on present and past events. It is the attempt to answer the frustrating question which we ask ourselves in times of failure and dissatisfaction, “What if?". Yes it is the most common question that we ask ourselves and try to come up with answers which don’t matter anymore. But what if we ask this question before a certain event has occurred and derive the possible set of outcomes from it and choose the best "what if" based on our objectives. Hypothetics in a nutshell is based exactly on this concept. It is the process of attaining a definable future based on the myriad different outcomes which are under our control in the present.

The illusion that our eyes perceive, that we refer to as the realm of our existence (or just our world) has an infinite number of possible outcomes which all have a certain probability of occurrence. The possibilities might be infinite, but all of the  probabilities for a particular time reference summed together is 1!!!! Or in other words we might be able to predict a few possible outcomes in the near future with probability of occurrence proportional to our present and past actions. This given in basic terms would be rationalizing of our future possible outcomes. Allow me to provide a simple scenario to better understand this concept. You are in a very happening night club in the city on a Saturday night and the closing time is just a few minutes away. Considering the amount of alcohol consumption you might find the relative simplicity of hypothetics a reasonably way of plotting the rest of the events of the night (which will be your immediate future, and will also be forgotten the next morning, if you know what I mean). You find this very attractive looking chick dressed like she wants some attention, who is standing by herself beside the bar counter (probably waiting for someone to approach her). Now your objective would be to get this girls number. There are a various different ways you could approach this situation, but the sample space of a reasonable future is always finite. So you could directly approach her make a decent conversation and ask for her number. In this case there are only two possible outcomes that would be reasonable. Either you get it or you don’t, so you stand a 50% chance of success (Which in terms of probability is quite reasonable). Now if you want more than just her number you are put up with a more complex problem statement which would require gauging and factoring in more possible outcomes with varying probabilities (If you know what I mean). So plotting your "what if" step by step is very crucial in these processes. But it is always best in setting a sort of benchmark probability, in the sense that you might get more than you asked for. 

Well, you might be thinking -- easier said than done. Yes it is easier to analyze an event once it is over and ponder on the different "what ifs" and satisfy yourself with the outcomes which can only make a difference in our pseudo existence of our minds. It is more complicated and interesting to device a way where the outcomes of our actions can be narrowed down into a finite set of possibilities with varying probabilities. It is this device which will help us reach our desired goals. Probability would have never been theorized if man was not curious to look into the future. It is this essential curiosity which drives every aspect of our actions into a stable and desirable future. Theoretically it could be possible to predict ones future based on hypothetics. The complexity of the prediction depends on the number of variables we consider. The more number of variables the more number of possibilities. As higher number of possibilities exist, so do the number of infinitesimal variable probabilities. The complexity and magnitudes predictions can vary from person to person. But overall we can reasonably predict our future based on our present and past events.

Now my fellow reader it is important for you to understand hypothetics is essentially an abstraction of my mind and the way I have started looking at things, which have worked give or take worked out for me. So if you have actually made it to this point without getting annoyed or confused or if the thought "why did I just waste my time reading what some possibly jobless fuck posted about random shit going on his head" did not run in your head. The sole purposes of the existence of my blog is churning out my thoughts on the web, and maybe get your views on this subject. So if you have reached this point cursing me (which you are free to do on the comments section below) or not, I would highly appreciate it if I could have a one of your mouse clicks on my sense meter below. 1 star being nonsense and 5 stars being yeahsense.  

Finally Final-Year!!

As an engineering student enters college in his first year, he/she is very excited to enter into a new phase of life with loads of new people to meet and lots to learn. Little do they know its not all its not all the shakes that they dream t about in the boring days of post school days holidays(But you usually end up making most out of it and before you know it you are satisfied) . Gradually the days go by and by no time you realize you are in second year and you got yourself in deep thought again...What am I going to do after engineering?? When am I going to get out of here...In the processes you start day dreaming about better days after college (If you are days are not as good as you expected them to be). You seek advise from your seniors, explore different options like higher studies(in management or science) or taking advantage of the colleges placement opportunity,  and you feel dumb struck by the different options that life gives you at that point and continue with your mundane life at college. Some daring seek a life of partying and being a rock star or traveling the world in the name of being a travel writer after the struggle of this so called technical education "Engineering"(To these people as Aerosmith could not have put it better 'Dream On').

After two more years of utter monotonicity and a very high degree of theoritical bullshit...a whole bunch of yadayadayada...blah blah blah...when are my semester exams and what do i need to study to pass...suddenly you feel like you are struck with a jack hammer by your very old and trustworthy friend who also happens to be your alter ego "MY FUTURE"...Final year is finally here!!!! WHAT NEXT???...At this point there are two kinds of people...The ones who got it all figured out and are know exactly where they are going to and what they will end up, after college is over. These people are right on top of the ladder, which is built on the bases of Darwinin theory of Competition. Who can blame them, these so called overachievers, they are going to enjoy the fruits of hard work...and you have the lost souls(some to a greater extent than others, but end of the day all fall under this catigory) who are going to try all possibilities to get somewhere and dream of a better future...

Now these are the kinda people who i could relate with more easily and is going to be the main focus of the rest of this jibberish that you are going to read if you are not bored allready. Some of us academically challenged by choice, felt that life is like a stream where you lied on your back and let this stream choose the path for you...little did we know about the other half who were swimming against the current to reach their desired destination...some of us decided to get off our backs and decided to follow the band wagon(realizing after all these years, it might have been a good idea after all). So now we start studying for the GRE, CAT and GMAT and other detrimental abbreviated examinations that are offered. Panic for placements is at a high with all those lucrative companies that come and go, taking the chosen few...Parental pressure is at a peak like never before...and you are sitting here and thinking..Damn It i should have worked harder the last three years...

But all is not lost...I was told that its these tough times(some more tougher than others) and how you come out of it is what defines you...So lets all take a chill pill or tap our frightened hearts saying "all is well"(yes stolen from the movie Three Idiots before someone slaps a plagiarism charge on me) or light up a doubie to send our worries to the smoke or what ever that makes us feel better...

PEACE OUT!!!!