the brook

Visited the Greek Sculptures exhibition at the National Museum recently. Truly artistic and a wonderful experience to look through the exhibits.

What struck me most was the corner in which the busts of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle sat, seemingly mundane compared to the grandeur of the Aphrodites and Athenas (see more exhibition photos here).

Isaac Newton once said, “If I have seen farther than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” These three were pretty much the original Giants - widely recognized as the founders of Western philosophy and scientific thought. Among their many contributions - the Socratic method was the precursor to the scientific method which is practiced to this day. Plato founded the first institution of higher learning in the western world, and Aristotle wrote about a mind-boggling range of subjects; including formalisms of logic that would reign till well into the 19th century. It would be hard to find a legacy greater than theirs.

So this morning I was told by someone that they had a slice of bread and half a slice of cheese for breakfast. Half a slice of cheese. I don’t know about you, but this novel idea left me dumbstruck.

Maybe its because I’m a computer scientist and I tend to discretize everything; or maybe it’s because I’m a glutton - but I simply cannot fathom anyone halving sliced cheese. A slice of cheese to me is like a 1-cent coin. It can’t be broken, and it’s way too little to bother breaking anyway.

I know, to some of you out there this post will seem ridiculous. Hindsight is 20/20, once somebody tells you that a slice of cheese can be cut, it seems obvious. I like to think that my state of mind is akin to Rutherford’s after conducting his alpha-particle experiments and realizing that even an atom is made up of tinier parts. Sure, today every 12 year old knows what an atomic nucleus is. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t a big discovery. The guy got an element in the periodic table named after him.

I do not, of course, plan to use this information in any way. Just because you know that an atom can be broken, doesn’t mean you go ahead and try. Bad things have been known to happen. I’ll leave slicing the slice to the experts. But if somebody wants to name a fine cheese after me, I promise I won’t complain.

The Economist writes:

Indeed, this is the nub of the nurturists’ argument. Natural selection should have pushed intelligence genes as far as they will go, so all variation should be environmental. That it is not suggests there is some unknown countervailing advantage—at least in reproductive terms—to being less than averagely bright.

This is a non-fiction book on neuroscience. I nearly got scared too, but on the back cover was a recommendation from The Economist and so I decided to pick it up and give it a try. Turns out to be a wonderfully written, eminently layman-readable and a very interesting book.

The author examines a number of brain disorders in order to illustrate how the human brain operates and how complex and far-reaching the workings of this wonderful machine are. He starts off by examining the issue of “phantom limbs” - a condition whereby someone with a limb amputated can still vividly feel its presence. He moves on to discuss matters such as visual perception, evolution, consciousness and identity.

The best part about the book is that it discusses issues that are extremely complex, but very simply illustrated - the only prerequisite being (I felt) a sense of wonder. Dr. Ramachandran’s writing is anecdotal and often humourous, and illuminates the methods of brain science very well. One of the main themes of the book is that the brain is divided into a number of modules which can function independently of each other; thus leading to the concept of many “phantoms” or “zombies” in the brain, even though for most people their identity seamlessly coalesces into one entity. For example, he writes about experiments that decisively show that the part of the brain which judges the size of a coffee cup is different from the one that instructs your fingers to move apart to grasp the cup, and it is yet another part which allows you to actually perceive that the coffee cup is moving toward your lips. This seems quite mundane until you actually read about someone who can pick up the coffee cup effortlessly, but at the same time claims that she cannot really identify the object in question as a coffee cup. It’s amazing to read how many processes come together in order for us to experience life as we know it.

The book also links social behaviours and evolution to the brain. Of course, nobody will be surprised to know that mental ability and even hand-eye coordination may be a function of how your brain is wired up; but even social traits like being talkitive and egoistic are controlled to some extent by brain wiring.

Overall a lovely read for anyone - even if you’re not interested in the workings of the brain or in science generally, this book will probably generate some interest in you.

Rating: 4 / 5

I recently came across the Greenpeace Apple mock site. Greenpeace claims that Apple is lagging behind the rest of the industry in terms of green policies - specifically, toxic elements in products and the lack of worldwide takeback programs for hardware. They have a series of requests for Apple and a set of actions that consumers can take to help. Definitely worth checking out.

The larger question that comes to mind, though, is this - do consumers know enough about this? Not just Apple consumers of course, but anyone who uses a computer, or indeed any electronic device. Computer parts aren’t really all that different, and I cannot imagine anything inside a computer (and I’ve looked inside one dozens of times) that is even remotely environmentally friendly. We’ve been given enough gyaan about vehicle emissions, plastic bags and the like, but what about the millions of computers, cellphones, and music players sold (and dumped) every year? Imagine a mountain of the things lying in a pile, and suddenly the once-beautiful gadgets don’t seem so pretty anymore. If you can’t imagine it, just go to the backlanes around Serangoon Road and you’ll see them in plenty.

So I read up a bit on electronic waste. It turns out most of the developed nations handle this in their usual way - by throwing money at it and sending off the garbage to far-off places like - you guessed it - India and China. Where, of course, the materials are usually either dumped into landfills or burned - both of which can have serious environmental consequences. Not that the majority of tech-savvy users care, judging by an article (and the comments on it) on arstechnica that reported on this.

I suddenly feel quite happy about the fact that I’ve never thrown away a computer, but always sold it off or given it to someone who’ll use it. Though, of course, my motive was far from saving the planet. On occasions, however, I have thrown away old computer parts - and suggested that others do so.

At the risk of sounding preachy, I’ll list a few things off the top of my head that a consumer could do. I guess the most important thing is to ensure long-term use of electronic equipment. If you buy new, buy good so that it lasts. Sell off your old but working electronics, or donate them to someone rather than dumping. You could also consider buying second-hand computers (I’ve bought three, and not regretted it!). If one takes the life of a standard PC as 4 years (and I know from experience it can be much more), and they’re dumped after an average of two years of life, thats twice the amount of e-waste generated than is necessary. I’m assuming the planet has some limited capacity of recycling or safely disposing off e-waste, and uselessly increasing the load on this won’t help. It’s also important to keep track of recycling initiatives by companies - until I read the Greenpeace Apple site, I had no idea that companies like Dell and HP actually have recycling programs.

Sadly, longer computer use is not in the interests of the corporate world who sell us our computers. Hopefully, this will be an incentive for them to use cleaner components and have beter recycling programs.