Savage or Civilized?

Civilization. What is it? Does it really have a meaning or is it just a term that we use to justify ourselves of what we, as humans, are today? What is it that differentiates the savage from the civilized? - Science? Education? Technology? Philosophy? Spirituality? Culture? How different are we from the so-called savage? What acts of ours differentiates us from the savage?

Who is a savage? - Webster gives the following meanings to the word savage:
1a : not domesticated or under human control 1b : lacking the restraints normal to civilized human beings 2 : wild, uncultivated 3a : boorish, rude b : malicious 4 : lacking complex or advanced culture

Lacking restraints normal to civilized humans? Is that something defined by ourselves? So, one of us came up with the list of restraints that are normal to civilized humans. And those who lack these restraints are savage!
Lacking complex or advanced culture? What is a complex, advanced culture? So again, one of us wrote a set of rules that decides if a culture is advanced or not? And someone not belonging to any such culture is savage!?

Somehow, everybody has built a notion that differentiates the savage from civilized? In our attempts to justify ourselves that we have progressed as a race, that we have become so much better in some sense or the other than our savage ancestors, have we turned our heads away from the unbelievable reality that we are no different from them in our savageness!!?? What the hell am I talking about!!??

The average savage man, much like an animal, did things that he needed to. His necessities were food, water, shelter, comfort, happiness and the likes. What are the desires of an average civilized man? Not very different. The means of acquiring the same necessities have changed. Instead of simply going into the jungle and hunting down the first beast that catches the eye, today we educate ourselves, get jobs and earn money to buy these necessitites. So, how different are we from the savage ones?

Yeah. We have respect for others, some form of bonding at various levels. Self, family, friends, neighbourhood, community, culture, country, ethnicity and finally the species. We have a prioritized preference level with which we subscribe ourselves to these categories dedicating ourselves to the betterment of one category... possibly at the expense of another!! There you go!! It finally boils down to the same basic instinct - survival!

After all these years, decades, centuries of so-called civilization, we still cater mostly to the most innate instinct of ours. So, what is that differentiates the savage from the civilised? Still in search of an answer...

My theory of Superstition

I have always been fascinated by unexplained phenomena... 'unexplained' meaning not satisfactorily explained by the current body of scientific knowledge... From my childhood days, I've been listening to innumerous 'superstitious' beliefs; for example, they say that a black cat crossing your path is bad omen. I've always wanted to learn the truth behind such beliefs. Is there a possible credibility hiding in those beliefs somewhere? This post is my (far stretched) scientific reasoning of one such belief.
First, lets look at what Webster means by 'superstition':
1a : a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation
1b : an irrational abject attitude of mind toward the supernatural, nature, or God resulting from superstition
2 : a notion maintained despite evidence to the contrary

'a belief resulting from ignorance'... ignorance!! - ignorance of what?
Is superstition the belief resulting from the ignorance of some science that supposedly disproves it, that is, provides 'evidence to the contrary'!?? Or is superstition the belief termed so due to the ignorance of any science that could possible explain it?!

Let's consider the superstitious belief that, "when you accidentally bite your tongue, it means somebody cursed you or expressed some grudge on you". Now, what kind of science can explain that??!!

Our body's nervous system supports the continuous passage of electrical signals. This should induce an electrical field in/around our body. We know that every electric field has a magnetic field coupled with it. That means, we could also have a magnetic field around our body at all times. When we interact with other people (who also have such magnetic fields), our fields may be interacting. So there could be some kind of information being gathered through this interaction. Our mind could be registering the variations in the magnetic field of the other person based on their varying thoughts during an interaction. Suppose someone was insulted by our words or in some way felt bad about something we said, and lets say that it created a specific type of variation in the interacting magnetic fields that our sub-conscious mind could register. But somehow, the sub-conscious mind has not yet conveyed this information to the conscious mind. At a later time, when our mind is going through random thoughts, let's say somehow the information previously stored in the sub-conscious mind gets triggered. So, the sub-conscious mind could make an attempt to notify the conscious mind by making us bite our own tongue!!...
Far-stretched science... Is it really?!!

What are dreams?

The human body and all its functions are controlled by DNA. The genes and the proteins that are made from them cause all types of actions and reactions in our body. We sleep because our body's clock thinks that it's time for us to get some rest. However, considering the fact that the human body is 'modularized' already, why can't sleep be induced independently for every module. We have so many organs and systems in our body each of which serves a different purpose. But, when we sleep, everybody takes rest. Instead, we could let different organs rest at different times. Wait, how will this help?
Assume that we classify all our daily activities into two major categories: Hard-thinking tasks (CPU intensive) and Mundane tasks (I/O intensive). For example eating, drinking, bathing, etc do not require a lot of thinking, whereas thinking, studying, etc require brain but much less physical activity. Hence, when one type of activity is carried out, the other parts can rest. For example, the brain (except for a small part of it say) can rest while we are eating, bathing or doing any other mundane activity which doesn't require much thinking whereas we could be lying down resting our whole body except a major part of the brain when we are thinking. Is such a thing already happening?...
Dreams!! Are they the means of communication assumed by our sub-conscious? Is that how it conveys it's knowledge and information to the conscious? Was it my sub-conscious that intended to write this blog?!...

An unanswered question...

I had pondered so much about an unanswered question for years when I was in school. My inability to find an answer or even framing the question in a more formal language bothered me intensely from time to time. Fortunately, the question survived somewhere in my mind all these years...
Consider that you and your friend go out for trekking in some dense unknown jungle. Assume each of you are carrying a radio receiver-transmitter. Both your transceiver sets work over a range of frequencies one of which has to be selected explicitly. You and your friend set your transceivers to some agreed upon frequency making sure that you will be able to communicate properly. During the trek, somehow you are lost and your friend isn't anywhere in sight. You need to communicate on the radio. But, unfortunately, you had accidentally changed the frequency of your radio. You don't even remember the frequency value you had agreed upon. You try to call on some frequency. But the absence of an answer can mean that either the frequency is wrong or your friend is out of range. What can you do? What if your friend has been trying to contact you and he thinks he has the wrong frequency and he also changes the frequency knob. What can be the best strategy for you to contact your friend?!...
After almost ten years, I was able to draw the analogy between this problem and the problem of rendezvous in a multi-robot system. I was happy to learn that an entire academic community was doing research on a problem that was lingering in my mind for years!! Having long-lost my interest in solving this problem, the assurance that somebody will find a suitable answer was satisfactory enough!!

Blah Blah Blah

For years I've seen blog's of many friends. I always wondered 'Why? Doushite?'. And today, I have my own. Does that mean I've found the purpose of a blog?!!
Purpose: Does everything in this world have a purpose. If so, do we know the purpose of everything. Does not knowing the purpose of something prevent us from doing it? Has mankind been able to realise the purpose of it's existence? Does every human realise the purpose of life before living it? Or at least before dying?
Maybe the purpose of doing something is to find out why it is being done. Maybe, the purpose of existence is to realise its purpose. Maybe the purpose of my blog is to learn its purpose. So, let me see if I realise the purpose of my blog by blogging...