Being Universe

Paulo had said in "The Alchemist", " "When you want something the Universe conspires to help you"

On one such somber day, when you contemplate & retrospect yourself and the decisions you make, I decided to improvise the statement and put it up on one of the social networking sites. This is what I put up as my status:

"the universe conspires, for us to be in the right place at the right time! so even though u feel there'z only grey clouds in ur horizon, wait for the silver lining to appear"

This as usual evoked a lot of responses. While others merely chose to 'LIKE' it, my 'stochastic scientist' mamu decided to voice his perception or as he called it, "advocating pessimism". Here's what happened & after:

Titasha Banerjee if the wait overcomes the patience then what to do????

Moulinath Banerjee

your observation, and for that matter, the quote from The Alchemist and the Om Shanti Om copycat version in Hindi, is a bit too fatalistic, isn't it? As a stochastic scientist (or at least a
pretender to that title..:-)), I view the universe as fundamentally
random, with a veneer of causality on the surface..and everything is evolving constantly and things come to pass as a
natural concatenation of circumstances. Nothing is really pre-ordained. The notion of pre-ordained-ness (is that a word?)
seems to be flawed to me, but is maybe useful at times to overcome disappointments and personal loss and provides people some equanimity to deal with a fundamentally callous and uncaring universe. I agree that this is a cynical interpretation of reality. Of course, I am not advocating pessimism here. The only thing we can do is hope for the best. But there's no one watching over us....

Ok, enough bombast for one day!

Sugana Banerjee ‎@ titashadidi: well, rewards r sweet for one who waits...;-)

Sugana Banerjee

‎@ Chintumama: Firstly I dun think it's cynical at all. Neither i believe u're advocating pessimism. It's merely a choice of perception, i.e. what u choose to believe. The fact that u rightly observed is that it's a mere reciprocation of a somber mind. You know, one of those days, when u blv the word "Crap" has more to it, than given. I dunno if there's someone watching over us. I won't even debate on this. However, my mind tells me there are certain things, we(humans) don't understand while my heart says we aren't meant to. All i would like to say is, I perceive that there's a reason behind everything that happens to us. The reason may not be that obvious but there is. You might reason that it is the decisions we make with our conscious mind but then there's this unconscious & subconscious states that subtly governs the conscious being. Who governs them? Something i don't know of. Something that i'm not meant to know & hence I acknowledge the higher being. And to think about it, why do the 'turning points' of our lives, happen at a certain TIME? not a minute earlier? not a minute later. Is there a stochastiic reasoning behind it? If you say we 'thought' then or decide to do then, then why din we 'think/'decide'' earlier???

Moulinath Banerjee

But what you refer to as the turning points of life are all perceived as turning points in hindsight. Turning points have to happen at some time, correct? The turning points of our lives seem to me to be accidents (albeit accidents we might increase the likelihood of, in many cases, by our choices and propensities) that have had more impact on our lives than others, so looking back at them, we often accord them some special status, whereas to other events we don't! Say you're craving some chocolate at 2 pm...would it not be strange to muse about the fact why you craved the chocolate exactly at 2 pm, neither earlier nor later? Well, your metabolic processes conspired (to use a recent favorite verb of yours) to create that sensation in your brain at that time. Same holds for turning points. At certain times things come together and something momentous happens. And we define those as turning points once we realise their impact on us...

I admit that this form of reasoning can often take away the charm from some fond memory or event...for me it doesn't.
Special moments are special...they don't have to be pre-ordained to be special.

And in regard to the supreme being, well, who governs the supreme being? Another super supreme being? If so, we could
postulate higher and higher supreme beings ad infinitum...so why not dispense with a supreme being right at the start and postulate that the universe is self-governed? Introduces one less parameter to explain reality in the spirit of the maxim -- Occam's razor (look this up if you haven't come across the term before).

Sugana Banerjee

‎@chintumama: okay, how will u explain what hpnd between u & mami? Initially when she got in touch with u, u mistook her to be a guy? Later, when u realised the "booboo" u pulled off, you went forth...right?Have you ever spared a thought that what would happen, if u hadn't made such a mistake in deciphering names? Rest, as they say is history! But had it been this romantic, if u had played ur cards , lets say 'correct', from the beginning??? Mistakes are 'accidents' right???

And what about the times when lives are saved/changed within nick of time? Is it still 'our metabolic processes conspiring with our brain'? I'll quote u here, " At certain times things come together and something momentous happens. And we define those as turning points once we realise their impact on us.." Ofcourse, something steers the chain of reaction that leads to that momentous outburts, but what is that something? Stimulus, is a more likely answer. A change in the environment/state is what we define to be a stimulus. And the way our body copes with the stimulus is the result of 'formed memory', 'conditioned reflexes' or in easy terms, experience. what about the unconditioned reflexes? how did they come to existence?

the change, as I mentioned earlier, is brought about by reactions. Specifically biochemical. That brings us to " Big Bang Theory" and formation of first RNA. (Contrary to popular belief, RNA was first formed and then by reverse transcriptase action, DNA came to existence). when a certain base joined with a specific one, we got our genetic material. Have u wondered why did 'A' pair up with 'T'/'U' or 'C' paired up with 'G'. what would happen if this wasn't the combination? Prolly we wouldn't be there or may be the concept of 'homo sapien sapien' would be different. the formation of the first genetic material was by chance!