Abhijit Naskar's Blog - Posts Tagged "innovation"

When fame and abundance kiss somebody's feet before that person is wise enough, he or she is very likely to lose track of what's necessity and what's luxury. And modern society is filled with examples of such intelligent stupidity - stupidity that is carried out by apparently smart humans. Because being smart is not the same as being wise. The world has enough smartness, but not enough wisdom to bring that smartness into proper productive practice - and I mean productive practice not sophisticated practice - there is a difference. A person smart enough to visualize a Falcon rocket engine can easily pinpoint the locations of various organizations that spread terrorism, yet the person chooses to explore the space further instead of prioritizing the technological advantages to first fix real issues of the human society that inflict harm to the humans every walk of the way.

The world is a miserable place not because we have lack of resources, but because those who have an abundances of resources do not have the slightest idea of true human need. The resources needed for colonizing Mars if put to proper practice can fix the world's global warming issues - it can fix the world's climate change issues - it can fix the world's terrorism issues, yet people are more interested in the pompous idea of living in Mars for whatever reason, instead of paying attention to improving human condition on earth. I am not against technological advancement, for I am a scientist, but my soul aches when I see smart people are dumb enough to chase after illusory glory of doing something different and innovative instead of focusing the powers of their soul on cleaning up the misery business on earth. You can, yet you don't. Why?

Smartness without wisdom is stupidity. You are smart - yes indeed - but I am sorry - you are stupid at the same time. How can you dream of having a cheese burger on Mars when your own kind on Earth is suffering! How can you think of taking rich kids into the orbit just so they can admire the beauty of earth from the heavens, when that very earth is infested with the primordial evils of human character! Awaken the human within you my friend, and pay attention. Awaken the human within and let it consume all the miseries from the world that you live in. Say a member of your family falls ill, would you ignore his or her misery completely just because you want to make life more comfortable for others than it already is, or would you first try everything in your capacity in order to heal your loved one!

Be wise my friend, for it is not enough to be smart. You are smart - there is no doubt about that - so utilize that smartness for humanity and heal your own kind. Heal your kind with your capacity my friend. It is wailing for healers - not some delusional faith healers, but real tangible healers. Would you not do anything! Would you not give your soul to fix the broken soul of this world! Arise my friend, Awake my friend and work for humanity, not to make it sophisticated, but to make it peaceful first. Remember, humanity first, then everything else.
Peace first, sophistication later. Harmony first, luxury later.


Your Friend
Abhijit Naskar, Neuroscientist

We live in a world where we have put most of our focus on improving technology and not on improving human well being – not on improving the quality of life. And the argument put forward by the advocates of technology is that, this is the way to improve human well being. Yet, despite all technological advancements, human well being, or to be more specific, human mental well being has only deteriorated with the rise of technology, instead of improving. Because they confuse comfort with quality.

We are manipulating machine intelligence, and in the process we have forgotten to effectively utilize the true potential of our own mind, let alone focus on improving the mind. We are developing artificial intelligence and have forgotten to develop our psyche. We live in a dream state, where we are mostly unaware of our own potential and nature. We confuse luxury to be necessities. We confuse comfort to be peace. The only advancement that we have made in significant proportions is scientific ones, which are hugely limited to technological advancement. Now, do not be hasty and conclude that I am about to criticize technological advancements. I am not. We are neither criticizing nor advocating. Science has helped a lot, way more than any other human endeavor in human history. But my question is – at what cost?

Medicine has prolonged human life, but when you go deep into this matter, you find out something rather ugly. Medicine has indeed improved physiological existence of humankind, but has it truly, actually, genuinely improved the psychological existence – the existence that is more direct than physical. You are your mind, and medicine has done nothing substantial to improve the quality of our mental existence. Popping countless bottles of anti-depressant, mood-stabilizer, anti-anxiety pills relentlessly, is not the sign of a mentally well and advancement species.

On the contrary it is a sign of a mentally deteriorating species. So, yes we have the technological means to bring someone back from the doorstep of death, but then what? Have we truly developed an actual means to liberate the mind and the body from the ever-strengthening death-trap of pills and technology? If not, then I am afraid, such a species which is ridiculously dependent on external stimuli, is not an advanced species, in the truest sense of the term. In this situation one is compelled by circumstances to ask an essential question – what the heck has technology really done, better than our ancestors in the jungle?

Our ancestors in the jungle were fighting against the enemies that were outside, but now, quite interestingly, we have become the enemies of ourselves. We innovate things to make life comfortable, and not to make it truly well. And in the process, we the human society have become meek worshipers of innovation. The humans of this century idolize innovation. It is a disgusting idolatry of innovation. And like in any other form of idolatry, whether it is Hindu idolatry, Christian idolatry of the cross, or the Muslim idolatry of letters, the humans receive a sense of comfort in the idolatry of innovation.

The humans have become so obsessed with innovation that they have completely ignored their own soul. And among these innovation-obsessed humans, the so-called transhumanists are the most deluded bunch, for they don’t have a clue of any kind of order in the human mind, yet they boast about developing more advanced technologies to merge the mind with machine – and the most interesting thing to notice here is that, they don’t even have a clue that they don’t have a clue.

Amidst the fog of technological delusions, the human soul has been ignored for so long that its very independence has been destroyed. Technology has crippled the mind to such an extent that the mind begins to malfunction the moment it senses the absence of the technology, which it is usually surrounded by – and unfortunately, sometimes or perhaps quite often, even the absence is not necessary to disrupt the well being of the mind – the slightest trigger can set the so-called modern humans off.

Here I must be clear about something. I am not condemning technology, rather I am pointing out its actual implications in human existence. Technology was supposed to be the help in life, instead it has become the major driving force behind life. I use technology as well. Right at this very moment, when I am writing this piece, I am doing so, on my computer. But the point is, the computer is not in control here, I am. The devices do not use me. I am the one that uses the devices.

Unfortunately, when I look around, all I see is, a bunch of devices using the humans – a bunch of soulless devices sucking the soul out of humans. The humans have become slaves to their devices and slaves to innovation. They worship innovators as some sort of God, and forget to take into consideration the core values that make a creature human. One can live without innovation, but not without values. And when a society is being formed upon the edifice of innovation, and not on the foundation of core humane principles, it is inadvertently going to become more and more disorderly over time in its internal realm. And this is not a speculation, rather it is a fact.

I am pain-stricken to say, that today’s so-called modern humans are all like the dogs in Pavlov’s experiment. Pavlov used a bell to manipulate the mind of his dogs, and today, social media platforms are using people’s own beloved smartphones to manipulate them. Humans of this modern society are being conditioned without them even being aware of it, through the tone of smartphone notifications. The humans of modern society get a spike of happy hormones, the moment they receive a notification, and when they do not get any notifications in a while, they go crazy due to the rising tides of stress chemicals. Yesterday’s telephone was neutral on this matter, for it did nothing more than just sit there on the desk, until someone rings you to talk. On the contrary, today’s smartphones are so far the most effective tools of manipulating people’s mind at a subconscious level, through the tone of notifications. These notification thingies have made a mess of the human mind, pushing it more and more into the abyss of complications, confusions and disorder, via the psychological process of reward and punishment.

Simplicity of the mind has become scarce in the midst of all the rise of technologies and worthless “media-material” which we call “content”, that keeps the humans ceaselessly asleep, never to see the whole picture. Cat videos attract more attention – breasts acquire more likes – pedophile porn attracts more viewers – and content of real value gets ignored because they do not entertain the viewer. All that the humans want, is to be entertained. They want to forget all the mundane elements of life. And in the process, they forget a basic fact – it is that, life has become mundane because of their own way of thinking. They perceive impracticality to be practical, and practical facts of peace and harmony to be absurd romanticism. They take sexual attraction to be love, and hail unconditioned love to be stupidity.

And since this is the society, one lives in, I am afraid, we are no more advanced in our psychological realm than the baboons in the jungle. If we are to call ourselves humans, we must first be responsible of our actions, of our environment, of our society – and start acting as humans, not as device-obsessed apes and attention-craving insects. And it all begins with the individual – not the individual who thinks of himself or herself as an individual with unique traits while walking on the same deluded and neurotic path as the rest of the humans of the society – but the individual who can see the self outside the walls of labels and recognize the responsibility of that self in its society.

The society is neurotic – it is a fact – no conscientious creature can deny it. But my question to you is – what are you doing to obliterate this neuroticism for good? Remember, you are insignificant, as long as you think of yourself as insignificant. The moment you find significance – real, actual, genuine significance within yourself, then that significance will automatically radiate into the society you live in. It all begins with you. A bunch of people known as politicians are not going to change anything, for they themselves are second-hand humans, living second-hand lives, like most humans on earth. They live conditioned lives with their mind being in disorder, and yet, you want them to bring order in this world. It’s like asking a blind man to show the path. Mind you, the whole world is our family, and our family is our responsibility – not of a bunch of so-called specialists. And this is not a glorified hypothetical ideal, rather it is an actuality.

To refer to this kind of actual and not hypothetical statements with potential for inspiring others, I hereby propose the term “neuro-cookie”. A neuro-cookie is not simply an inspiring quotation, rather for a quotation to be a true neuro-cookie, it must be based on actuality. The world has already plenty of inspiring statements, but when you go deeper into those statements, you find out that most of them have no basis in reality whatsoever. Most of these statements are products of mere romanticism and imagination. And since we are talking about reality, we must also keep in mind that, it is not necessary for a neuro-cookie to be fully empirical, but it must have some empirical basis. The contention of a neuro-cookie is to not simply inspire the human, but to do so with the most effective fusion of rational and compassionate elements. You probably have seen some of those neuro-cookies in my recent talks. Now, let’s get back to the real issue of change.

Peace on earth can only reign when each human recognizes this basic responsibility and begin manifesting order within the self. And this can happen only if each human becomes conscientious enough to live with technology instead of living through technology. Keep in mind, technology has no conscience of its own. Therefore, it is neither good nor bad. It is us the humans who have to be responsible of the implications of technology in human existence, and use it at our disposal, not callously, but responsibly. Without this basic sense of responsibility, technology would only bring more and more destruction upon the world, quite like what irresponsible, fundamentalist usage of organized religions has been doing through ages.



Further Reading

A Push in Perception

Science means nothing,
Unless we use it to lift the society.
Philosophy means nothing,
Unless it empowers humanity.
Religion means nothing,
Unless it advocates for inclusion.
Technology means nothing,
Unless it aids in collective ascension.
Tastes are plenty in our world,
So are the paths that humans take.
But if those paths hold no humanity,
Fabric of civilization will soon break.
Placing on humanity our prime attention,
Together we’ll attain true emancipation.

There is a plug point in the sky,
Which is beaming electricity 24/7.
Yet we drill holes into the earth,
To suck oil and power our concrete heaven.
When humankind first started drilling,
They had no idea of its implication.
But eventually scientists raised warnings,
Yet drilling continued due to lack of efficient solution.
Fossil fuel has already damaged the climate,
And we no longer have time for scholarly fight.
So I say to scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs,
Come up with affordable home solar-grid.
Electric cars won't do anything for climate emergency,
Unless all electricity comes from renewable energy.

Given the resources, I can build any technology,
Unlike some people, I do not need to hire genius.
Yet I gave up my obsession of electronics, because,
Building rockets is easy, building society not so much.
Not everybody is born with a silver spoon in mouth,
Rest of us have to choose among bread, dreams and tears.
But don’t assume that I am whining about a misfortune,
Because, a reformer is worth a hundred entrepreneurs.
Rocket science is child’s play for even a fisherman’s son,
Cognitive Science is common sense for a laborer’s child.
Yet you boast about a bunch of counterfeit geniuses whose,
Greatest power is that they are born with a golden hide.
If you seek true genius, lend a hand to developing nations.
And they’ll give you Gates, Musks and Byrons by the dozens.

Intelligence comes easy, accountability not so much,
Yet intelligence is complex, accountability is simple.
Technology comes easy, transformation not so much,
Yet technology is complicated, transformation is simple.
In olden days there were just nutters of fundamentalism,
Today there are nutters of nationalism and transhumanism.
Some are obsessed with land, others with digital avatars,
While humanity battles age-old crises like starvationism.
When too much logic, coldness and pomposity set in,
Common sense humanity goes out of the window.
Once upon a time religion was the opium of all people,
Today transhumanism and singularity are opium of the shallow.
To replace the sky god with a computer god isn’t advancement.
Real advancement is when nobody suffers from scarcity of sustenance.

Transhumanism is terrorism, for it is the very antithesis of life. Wasting precious resources on a pompous, narcissistic and megalomaniacal dream of extending life through cold, mechanical means, instead of helping to improve genuine human condition, transhumanists act as modern day terrorists who desecrate the very spirit of life and liberty without ever being held accountable. Let me tell you as a brain scientist and a computer engineering dropout – transhumanism is to brain computer interface, what nuclear weapons are to nuclear physics.

With superior sentience, come superior screw-ups. And this holds particularly true for industrialization. Even if we put aside carbon emission, in the year 2020 alone humankind has produced over 2 billion tonnes of trash, which is expected to rise over 70% by the year 2050.

Thus, in the name of progress we the gadget-mad gargoyles keep acting as the true eco-terrorists of the glorious dumping ground, called the planet earth. 2% of all our waste is e-waste. And the alarming bit here is that, that 2% e-waste comprises over 70% of our overall toxic waste.

So, what can you do, you ask? Simple – reject less, repair more. Try to make things last as long as possible, or pass them on to those who have need for them. Don’t let things go to waste, just because you can afford new ones.

For example, my kid cousin’s laptop has been acting up for some time now. But instead of buying them a new pc, I ordered the replacement for the faulty part and repaired the laptop myself. This way, we not only reduce our e-waste footprint on the planet, but in the process, we teach kids to value things.

The point is, whether you do it yourself or get it done by a professional, by practicing repair, you are actively participating in the making of a greener, cleaner and healthier world.

It’s not enough to be just a consumer, you gotta be a conscious consumer, otherwise there is no difference between a consumer and a slave. That is why, right-to-repair is not only a human rights issue, it is also an environmental issue. Repairing and recycling are the bedrock of sustainability. So I say again – reject less, repair more.

My skin is the color of soil,
My covers are the color of soil.
My heart is the color of soil,
My blood is the color of soil.

Species that forgets the soil,
Is a lifeform abandoned by nature.
Species that values sales over soil,
Will soon be vaporized or drowned by nature.

If we have no place for soil in our heart,
How can we expect the soil to replenish us!
If we have no place for nature in our heart,
How can we expect nature to have a place for us!

Only soil is real, all else is delusion.
Advancement that has no regard for the soil,
is but aneurysm destined for degeneration.

Extraordinary technology brings extraordinary recklessness,
Because the human mind hasn’t matured like technology has.
We may have developed technology that defies human limits,
Evolutionary predispositions of the mind haven’t disappeared.
That’s why I say, bigger the power the smaller the mind.
For a wielder without backbone, silicon is but plaything.
Even an ounce of science can do unimaginable harm.
To fathom it you gotta step out of the glare most blinding.
Science ‘n society go together, can’t have one without the other.
Where there is love for science, there is love for society.
If this simple thing doesn’t penetrate the skull of us thickies.
We would be better off without all the scientific glory.
Science is an act of service in the course of lifting all humanity.
Science without accountability is no different from a conspiracy theory.

Moments are vessel for memories,
Don’t waste them on snobbish hypes.
A memory cherished with a loved one,
Is worth more than a billion likes.
The less devices you have to charge,
The more charge you have for your mind.
The less you obsess over convenience,
The more you develop actual insight.
Purpose of camera is to capture memory,
Not to desecrate the moments seeking attention.
Purpose of a picture is to rejuvenate emotions,
Even a thousand pictures are useless without emotion.
Click less, live more – that is the motto of wellness.
Or else, click more, sick more – there is no treatment.