Thursday, September 24, 2009

The Moon




















Today I decided to pass by our very own Moon after reading an article titled
"India's lunar mission finds evidence of water on the Moon"
Click here to see the article

It's an immaculate article as far as the format, and the language is concerned. Besides that, this discovery is an exciting one, and could have a lot of impact on the coming future.
I am also quite surprised that NASA failed to find traces of water on moon after all their efforts, and ISRO found evidence with their very first lunar mission. It looks like to me that somebody has been keeping secrets.
All that aside, the part of the article that I think needs to be talked about is and I quote -
"The discovery is a significant boost for India in its space race against China."
Another excerpt from the same article
"They will also provide a significant boost for India as it tries to catch up with China in what many see as a 21st-century space race."

Now this is where I think we are losing our ground as a species.

Let's start with the main motive behind the various lunar programs owned by various different countries.
The factor that gave birth to the space expedition programs was our need as a species to understand the universe better. To find out if there is life on other planets as well, so that we can evolve our understanding of nature and universe as a species.
But somewhere along the line we lost track of our priorities and are now fighting with one another over who discovers life first. Isn't something wrong here? Shouldn't we think about this for a while?
Shouldn't it be about celebrating as a species that we found water on the moon? Shouldn't the media and the governments be talking about -What this discovery by our fellow country means for us humans? Shouldn't all the countries be working together on exploring the space?

Wouldn't it be more efficient and peaceful if we worked together on the questions that face mankind?

But nobody seems to notice. Instead people take pride in these kind of events, somehow everybody wants to feel superior to everybody else. I am sure there will be a lot of people out there today talking about how proud they are to be indian. Even the news channels will be asking people how they feel about India being the first country to discover water on moon.
Every channel is out there sending out the wrong message and they have no clue they are doing so. Their motto is - "anything that sells".

And then we blame the media. Media is merely out there showing you what you want to see. Anything that gives them higher ratings. Of course the main stream media is politically fueled and controlled, but if we don't buy into their gimmicks who would the media cater to?

We need to self educate our-selves and be critical thinkers. Not just accepting the point of views thrown at us by other people and the society, but rather we should all have our own point of views. No matter how absurd they may be.

I see discovery of water on the moon as global triumph of humanity, and I am not one bit proud that India discovered it.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Time travel

Now, now before you let your imagination get better of you after reading the title of this post, let me assure you that this is not about complicated scientific theories related to time travel. But rather about our understanding and common use of the time frame.

Some of you might already know that time is not a real thing, but rather an imaginary concept that we humans have created in order to help us understand various events that take place around us.
Those of you who do not understand that time is just an illusion, there is nothing to be worried about because what I have to say here can be understood otherwise as well.
Having said all the confusing things that I have already, let's get back to the topic at hand without further complications.
When we talk about time, we think of three possible ways in which time can be divided. Namely, past, present, and the future. When we think or talk about any period in the past, we tend to form an image about the living conditions or standard of living of humans in those times. For instance if we think about the 18th century, we instantly form a very generalized image of that century in our minds based on our knowledge of that time.
We do this for a very simple yet an important reason, and that is to have basis for comparison with other periods in time. What we fail to understand is that our ideas are highly generalized.

What I mean to say here is that while many of you reading this blog are living with the comforts that the 21st century has to offer, most of the current human population is living a 17th century lifestyle. For a lot of people today electricity, phones, televisions are still a dream.
The things that we take for granted in our daily lives are still a dream for majority of the current human population, and this according to me holds good for any point in time. Be it past, present, or the future.
In simpler words, a few people in the 18th century would have lived more comfortable a life than many of us in the 21st century, while many people in the 21st century are still living a 18th century life.
The image above shouts out loud about the very same thing. It's the sad story of mankind.

It is a tragedy that in this so called Modern age, where man is already exploring the outer space, there are many of us who are still living in the stone age, and nobody seems to care.
For most of us fortunate ones ipods, high speed internet, fancy cars seem to be the definition of the times we live in.
But ask the not so lucky folks and see if they have even heard of or seen these things. They would be content even if they got a meal a day, but even that doesn't come easy.

This problem and others are all a result of our thoughtless actions. We humans have failed to explore the inner space before setting out for the outer, and that is the root cause of all problems.

A wise man once said that - we humans as a species, lost our way a long time ago, and we need to find it again, and it's only going to happen one person at a time.