Saturday, February 11, 2006

A Lesson in Theorizing

Sorrow in itself is a neutral state. From all his observations which the author has made with the help of his sense experiences in this natural world, he makes two postulates. First that sorrow is inversely proportional to the mental distance at which one is from that sorrow. Secondly the gradient of sorrow with respect to time is directly proportional to the pain which one feels. Both these are pseudo-rational-quasi-emprirical observations which the author has made and some examples will be given to further elaborate these points. One more thing, here sorrow refers to what lies out there waiting for you to grab it, and pain is what you get, when you grab it; along with the standard definitons which exist and can be looked upon in any Oxford.
So coming back to the first postulate, sorrow being inversely proportional to the mental distance between the perceiver and the sorrow. A dog or a man might be dying outside one's door, but for him/her, if he/she is not aware of it, there is no sorrow there, because practically the mental distance between the two things is so huge, that sorrow boils down to zero. A person reading this article will again be unable to perceive the sorrow which the author might have been facing which forced him to write such an article, again because of the huge distance. When the distance is less the sorrow is more, when the distance is huge, the sorrow is less. Again, this is just an idealization; the actual mathematical relationship would be too difficult to even think of. Also one must not confuse this with the ordinary day-to-day usage of this word, exclaiming that he/she doesn’t feels anything even when there are so many terrible things(with a non-zero magnitude of sorrow) happening around them. Sorrow is not what one feels, pain is the feeling part, sorrow lies there outside with a magnitude depending upon the distance.
Coming to the second postulate, regarding the gradient of sorrow and pain. This is pretty obvious. For a person dying out of hunger in Somalia, one didn’t feel any pain, whatsoever just before he/she read this line, and now after reading this there might be some magnitude of pain. Why has this happened? Initially when the distance was large(initial time moment), the magnitude of sorrow was less, when the distance became less(final time moment) because of one's mental awareness shifting towards Somalia, the magnitude increased. Hence, there is a gradient {(SORROW*final-SORROW*initial) / (change in time)}, which results in pain. One might say at this point, that we can directly say that pain is simply proportional to the final magnitude of sorrow. This point can be explained in the following manner. We multiply the denominator and the numerator of the given gradient by (change in distance), what we get is

{(SORROW*final-SORROW*initial) / (change in distance)} *** {(change in distance) / (change in time)}

*** stands for multiplication.

Now the second term here is the mental velocity (if we suppose the existence of such a term). Now for a given value of initial and final sorrows and the distance being fixed by external circumstances we can say that pain become proportional to the mental velocity. Now this may appear counter-intuitive at first, because if asked to think one would usually say that thinking for a long time gives more pain{(contemplation)(less mental velocity)} and quick jumps of the mind from here to there{(Somalia for one instant, Palestine for other)(high mental velocity)} gives us less pain. But what actually happens is that when one sits for a while and thinks slowly, one can find the reasons for sorrows, and that’s when the magnitude of sorrow decreases(this is because of some other factors which were not included in the earlier equation for sorrow). The author, here has no intention to say that all sorrows present in the world can be justified, but still one can find answers, if one wants to find answers. Again, when one jumps at sorrows quickly or directly(high mental velocity) , the magnitude of pain is bound to be more.So, the second postulate is more-or-less correct considering some exceptions and idealizations of course.
The point of theorizing all this is stated next. Consider an individual X. That person X is surrounded by a circle of sorrows(Remember that circle here is only an idealization, because if we assume its a circle, then from the first postulate, the magnitude of all sorrows must be same, which is not necessarily true, so we can say its rather a closed figure with an idealization as a circle).As long as the person is at the centre of the circle of sorrows, he/she doesn’t feel any pain whatsoever, the pain arises only when he/she tries to move in the circle as if trying to cross over that circle. When X is at the centre; all the sorrows acting on him/her from all sides, balance each other. As soon as X changes his position , the magnitude of the various sorrows changes(first postulate), due to which there is a gradient, and due to which there is pain(second postulate).Imagine a heretic, who lives in the centre of the community which has declared him a heretic. Suppose that the person doesn’t wishes to be so, rather its because fate has made him a pawn in its hands. As long as the person lives in his home, remain confined to his own world, there is no pain. He is happy with whatever he is doing; nothing bothers him. Its only when he moves out, when he sees the outside world then the equilibrium is disturbed, hence pain.
Another situation can be when a segment of that circle breaks, i.e. somehow a part of the circle goes missing. In such a case, there will be an inherent tendency to run away from such a static circle, but that would again result in a lot of pain. So another possibility props up, thereby stating that if somehow the person involved is able to reconstruct that part, then the state of equilibrium would be attained. That is the stage when we start looking around, searching for sorrows, get some novel ones, manufacture artificial ones, borrow somebody else's or take the sufferings of the entire human race as an excuse. So that, once again the circle is complete.

6 Comments:

Blogger Anudeep said...

thank u.trauma is what leads to such an article... :D

7:58 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It was indeed an amaazing effort Anu :) plz allow me to continue frm...

Pain=

{(SORROW*final-SORROW*initial) / (change in distance)} *** {(change in distance) / (change in time)}

..ya so here V go :)....

Assuming the sorrow shield 2 be there with nullifying efect at the centre. If we don't choose to move/Change we are in a comfort zone due to equi balancing nature of sorrows..this inplies (change in distance) = 0 ...this implies (if focus only on sorrow/dist) will tend to give us infinite pain probably not in terms of magnitude but in terms of volume(with prolonged exposur of oneself to sorrow cage!); but this efect is not felt as change in dist = 0 also implies zero mental velocity which nullifies the effect of sorrow/dist ratio and gives us the feeling of comfort/pain free BUT THIS IS AN ILUSION! Being Stagnant at the centre is not a permanent solution infact its a cowardice! V SHULD DARE TO COME CLOSER TO THE CIRCUMFERENCE OF SORROWS & BREAK AN OPENING...GET OUT & CLOSE THE CIRECLE AGAIN! I agree in the process 1 might have to bare the pain...but once One is out?? sorrows are still there with their mutually balancing nature.. but now with no one at centre 2 bear the brunt! then what??? either--
1.)Sorrows will blow off or
2.)Collapse
in either case (fission or fusion)releasing enormous energy which could b utilised 4 general good.

Even if sorrows don't annihilate, still we are out of the Cage V are free !! but all this is FANTASY till V are ready bear..TILL V ARE READY 2 DARE!!!

Regards,

Vivek K.

3:05 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

well, ur point is well taken...despite the following trivialities:

- when i divided and mutliplied my formula for Pain by "change in distance", wasn't that obvious enough that this distance had to be a non zero entity...but again as u see...ppl have their whims... :)

- if u had to suggest/propose something to alleviate my current state as u have tried to do, so wistfully (although i appreciate that!!), then u cud have written that down simply without opting for the rhetorics as i too have done. :)

- shouting doesnt make a point.. :)

- if a person doesnt wanna believe something, then there is no way in this entire universe, by which u can force him/her to do so... :)

regards,
Anudeep

P.S. my mom n dad did sufficient work to think of a name for me, and i wud love to see that work getting appreciated, by being referred to by that name..... alrite peace!!

9:48 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I guess its "change in dist" and not "dist" which leaves us with the flexibility to move..
"had to be non zero" nahi "can be non zero".... as the word "can" encompasses extreems! why cant v dare to touch that which no intellect can define!!..... leave it thats another debatable issue!(still if U wish u can look for transreal & IEEE standard floating point arithmetic with practical application of 0/0 & 1/0) but all thats..IntellectualXYZ... I dare 2 go beyound!

-"alleviate" whats that? !! every one is omnipotent none can ne alleviated its jus the matter of realization :)

-"shout" hummmmm....agreed!...see this time even "i" is not in caps ha! ha! ha! ;)



-i surrender boss this was really a million dollar statement ;)



Fine Anudeep(hope no issues :) but why did u replied to only tis comment when i had also posted another comment as well on yr entry titled "language"??

2:39 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

well...hmm...as u'll see, i'll write the same thing again...i divided and multiplied my formula by 'change in distance' inherently assuming that it'll be taken as a non-zero entity...and as is very obvious in ur first comment that u took it('change in distance') to be zero(..and not even tending to zero!)..and pardon me for missing out 'change in' when i replied to ur comment...and as i think, and as i m allowed to think(:))that its the change which really matters....i never spoke about the absolute distance..

- 'can' encompasses a lotta ambiguity, if we talk about it pragmatically.....just as i would totally neglect any arithmetic intellectuality in my algebraic expression.... :)

- i accept what u have said about alleviation, but oops! u did it again...ppl always have their whims, and might i add this time, fancies too... :)

- i hate to tell u this...but the caps havent gone completely missing, this time too!! but nevermind!

fine vivek...and yes, certainly there aint any issues here, coz' there were none to begin with.. :)
alrite peace!!

regards,
anudeep

p.s. my mom n dad wud be certainly pleased this time..

11:10 PM  
Blogger Voice said...

liked the two postulated and i totally agree ..with u on the point people go looking for pain and sorrows.. people cannot live without them [u talked for the case when the circle breaks... main to kehta hu..log circle banate apne charo taraf].

8:49 AM  

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