God vs Science

The highest form of evolution of life on earth --- the humans have something that differentiates them from the rest of the animal kingdom. Humans are inherently inquisitive about their own existence. We want to know about everything we see, we see a stone and are intrigued how it got there? what is  it made up of? How did it come into existence.

Our inborn curiosity and the quest of finding the truth has got us to where we are today. Every phenomenon that we observed in nature, we tried to find the cause of it. At times we made some assumptions, which in turn turned out to be completely false. In ancient times Indians were taught that the demons Rahu and Ketu completely or partially swallowed the sun and moon respectively and that was the cause of solar and lunar eclipses. Today we know that this is complete nonsense, but back in ancient times this eclipses were observed with fear.

What's more this Rahu and Ketu demons got into astrology. Astrology is  a funny pseudo-science where people are trying to predict the future of a person depending on the positions of the planets and stars. Now this planets and stars are the ones that can only be observed by the naked eye. After the invention of telescope and after subsequent improvements in the telescope's design, millions of other stars and planets were discovered. However they will never make their way into the astrologer's algorithm.

People believe in astrology out of fear or superstition. No one is bothered to analyse the correctness of the astrologers predictions. In most cases the predictions are completely false or they are simply most likely situations that is likely to happen. Although in recent times faith in astrology has come down due to increase in scientific knowledge, it is still pretty high even in developed nations.

The fact is astrologers are busy making money by fooling people -- taking advantage of their insecurities, anxiety and fear. Most ancient books that we read today are full of false things are products of someone else's imagination.

The existence of God itself is questionable, sif god really exists then he will never mind communicating with us – his children. So all the stories of having seen god are either false or are some alien interactions. It is very much possible what people described as interactions with divine beings are but interactions with some advanced living beings from some other part of the universe.

This can be explained by taking our own example. When our technology advances to a level at which we can do space travel easily, change our physical forms as per situation, then we will be visiting different parts of the universe and try to make contact with living beings elsewhere in the universe.

There are many who simply tend to dismiss alien theory as pseudo-science, as a piece of fickle imagination. These people must understand the fact that the entire universe is made of the same material that exists on earth. The conditions in different planets that revolve around different stars maybe different, but that does not mean that there can't be life on any of those planets. They would be different kinds of living organisms. They might have evolved before us, they may be a million years ahead of us in terms of intelligence.

Considering the fact that our scientific and technological achievements are growing exponentially in a million years we will be super gods. We can't even imagine what knowledge we will have then and what amazing technology we will posses. Now if you imagine somewhere else in the universe there were beings who were similar to us just a million years ago, so by now they have achieved such high levels of knowledge and technological development that we can easily mistake them for god.

The ancient man was not aware of the vastness of the Universe. For him the earth was the centre of the Universe, the sun , other planets and stars revolved around earth. As technology developed we came to know that what we can observe with the naked eye was a less than micro-drop in the super vast ocean of the universe.

In our own galaxy there are over a 100 billion stars. Planets revolve around this stars. So there are at least a trillion planets in the Milky Way. Now there are trillions of such galaxies in the universe. To say that life does not exist anywhere else in the universe is the most ignorant and foolish statement that one can make.

Once we have the technology where we will become half robots -half humans along with the technology to travel anywhere in the universe and the know how of utilizing space-time wormholes to travel across the different parts of the universe, we would probably become gods to living beings that are in the initial stages of their evolution.

Stem cells for Brain and research on Brain Science

A few days ago I came across this article in ScienceAlert. It is about a research that is done on stroke patients by injecting stem cells into their brain. It was found that all the stoke patients on which the clinical trials took place showed marked improvement in their mobility, speech and brain functions. As you can read in this article, the lead researcher describes how a woman who could move only her left thumb was now able to walk and raise her arms above her shoulder after she was injected with stem cells into the brain.

The researchers are still studying the mechanism. It seems that the injection of stem cells into the brains of people makes the brain younger. This is very significant since this may lead to not only stroke patients but also normal people improving their brain functions at old age.

As you can read in the article it is mentioned that we have underestimated brain's ability to heal itself. Research on the human brain is very important, this research might give us clues of how we can improve the functionality of our brain. So in the future we may have treatments that can improve our logical and mathematical abilities to extraordinary levels. We may be able to create treatments that can make average individuals get extraordinary hand eye co-ordination like the best sportsmen.

We may be able to induce talents in people in different areas like painting, music etc. Research on brain and brain science is very important for humanity to go to the next level of its evolution.

Machine Learning - Its implications

Machine learning can potentially change the world and in terms of intelligence this self learning systems can take over human intelligence. This TED Talk explains the true potential of Machine learning.  

Deep learning a form of Machine Learning is growing exponentially. Which means that not only the the machines are learning fast, but they are learning faster and faster. As you can see in the graph shown in the video, deep learning systems are only 5 years aways from equalling human intelligence. 

The improvement in machine learning implies that we will have more intelligent computers and intelligent robots in the future. There will be a time when robots are going to make more robots that will constantly keep improving itself. It is practically possible that we will have implants that will make us humanoids. Half humans half robots. 

The power of Genetics

DNA  or deoxyribonucleic acid is very important for the existence of life. Genes are strands of DNA. This genes are responsible for our structural and functional features in all living beings.

The field of genetics is a relatively new area of research. Watson and Crick found the structure of DNA in 1953. The structure of DNA resembles a spiral staircase. In 65 years humans have come a long way in this field.

The field of genetics and biotechnology holds a lot of promise. Greater understanding of genes and their function can help humans design their own genes in such a way that they end up being more intelligent species. Humans can potentially change their genes such that they are able to adapt to the conditions of alien planets.

Genetic diseases will be eliminated as well. Humans can potentially become superhumans with greater knowledge of genetics. We can control our height, physique and other physical attributes. It maybe possible to genetic talents in individuals in people who don't posses such genes. 

In short if humans are to branch out across the universe, for that humans have to acquire the knowledge of genetics to adapt their bodies to live in any condition anywhere in the universe. Knowledge is Power. 

Why Love

One often wonders why life evolved on earth, why certain compounds in the planet came together and formed a system that would grow, divide and create its own copies and evolve from simple one cell living being to complex multicellular living organisms. 

As organisms grew more and more complex, they developed their neurons into complex neural networks which ultimately evolved into their brains. The brain controlled the various functions of the body both internal and external. The brain connected to various parts of the body through a vast network of neurons. 

This neurons would communicate the information in form of electric impulses to the brain. The brain would send information to appropriate part of the body to take the correct action. If the skin organism touches fire, the neurons attached to the part of the skin would immediately send the signals to the brain , the instinctive intelligence that evolved in the organisms over millions of years would direct them move that portion of body away from the fire. 

Various sense organs developed like the eyes, nose, ears, tongue etc. This organs sent information to the brain about the various happenings around the organism, so that the organism can react to the feedback and take appropriate action for it to survive. 

There is one more evolutionary instinct that developed in almost all living beings in varying degrees. We call that Love. This is more apparent in case of mammals, specially humans. 

Man and woman fall in love and started staying together. Which later evolved into marriage as humans got more civilized. The civilized humans controlled their basic sexual instinct and had sex only with their married partners. Of course in many cases deviations were there when the man or woman had sex with other partners, however 99.9% of the sexual intercourses in humans happened between married partners. The number may vary with country, culture and time period but the proportion of married sex is always much higher.

Since most sexual intercourses happened between married partners, the probability of the female partner getting pregnant with the baby of her married male partner is close to 100%. It is commonly observed that women have more attraction towards love and relationships, they tend to have sex with only those men who would stay with them for a long period of time. This can be easily understood, first of all the man has only one function, release the seamen in the vagina of the female sex partner. 

That is exactly why sexual intercourse evolved in living beings. The seamen contains the sperms that fuses with the egg of the female. Once that happens a baby is conceived in the womb of the female organism. The cells keep dividing fast and slowly different organs are formed. Then after a certain period of time the baby is good enough to come out of womb of the mother and live and grow in the world. 

When a woman gets pregnant she needs someone too look after her during pregnancy, this is where the role of the male partner comes into play, specially during the later and final months of pregnancy. Both parents have a major role in bringing up the baby. The mother's role is very vital in bringing up the baby, specially in case of humans and other mammals. The mammals have mammary glands, the mammary glands produces milk, which is the main food of the baby for the first few month when it needs the utmost care. 

While in case of animals the role of father is limited. In case of civilized humans the role of father is also very important. 

In human beings there is a tendency to be attracted towards men and women other than one's married partner. This happens more in case of men. The reason for this can be understood from the fact that humans have actually evolved for animals. Our ancestors were animals.

Men can potentially be more adulterous than women because evolutionarily speaking a man can impregnate more than one woman in one year, the numbers can potentially go into hundreds. However a woman can become pregnant only once a year. 

In humans and other mammals there exists a bond of love between the mother and newborn. It is this emotion of love that makes the mother take care of the baby. However love is not limited to  mother and child , there is love between father and child, granny and grandsons and granddaughters. 

So it is clear that emotions and feeling have evolved with evolution of life on earth and the main reason for this is the smooth continuity and evolution of living beings. Take example of birds, how passionately they build their nests, take care of their eggs, feed and look after their young ones. The same is true in case of majority of life forms on earth. 

All of us have seen and experience that when we do something we love to, not only we are happy, but at the same time we do the work very efficiently as well. Its people's love for beauty that makes them build beautiful structures, roads, buildings, cities etc. In case of a soldier its his love for the nation( patriotism) that makes him risk his life to protect it.

Without love life would have existed, but it won't have evolved to the levels of humans or mammals . Hence in all spiritual and philosophical books love has been given great importance and even scientifically speaking it is a very vital emotion of life. 

GNU/LINUX in different shapes and sizes

GNU/LINUX is a Free Software. Free Software is not necessarily zero cost software. Free Software allows the user freedom to copy, modify and distribute the original and the modified versions of the software. This freedom has allowed developers across the world to work on GNU/LINUX, since the source code is easily available and the developers are legally allowed to modify the source code.

Over the years developers across the world have come up with different distributions of GNU/LINUX in all shapes and sizes. Users of propriety software like Windows or Macintosh do not have any freedom to modify the software, since the source code is not available at all. 

For Windows and Macintosh users, the hardware of your system has to be upgraded to the current standard to install the latest version of the Operating System. With GNU/Linux users can find a latest distribution that fits their hardware. 

Even if you have a Pentium 2 or a Pentium 3 computer you have Linux distributions like Damn Small Linux and Puppy Linux that will fit your system requirements. In fact you can use Damn Small Linux even on a old i386 computer. 

If you have a 12 year old Pentium 4 computer, you can chose to install Lubuntu operating system which is a knocked down version of the most popular GNU/LINUX distro - Ubuntu for low power computers. For Raspberry Pi we have Pidora, Raspbian operating systems. They are Fedora and Debian operating systems optimised for the resources provided by Raspberry Pi. Raspberry Pi is low cost computer made with the intention of popularising programming among school students. It has been a world wide superhit. Today various Raspberry Pi models are available between $5 to $35.

With operating systems like Windows and Macintosh your hardware becomes obsolete within a few years. However with GNU/Linux you are likely to find a distribution that support your hardware. This becomes possible only because GNU/Linux is a free software.

(I will expand this article soon.)

It is possible to live on Mars

Humans have this natural tendency of exploring new places. We evolved in Africa and slowly over a period of time explored and settles across the entire world. For the last 6 decades, humans have been exploring space. We have now managed to send spacecrafts across all the planets of solar system. It is very likely in some time humans are going to try and live in one of the planets. 

The planet that may be inhabited by the humans in the future is Mars. According to this ted talk it is possible for humans to go to Mars and survive there. Initially humans have to live controlled environment. Later on by Terra farming the planet, the conditions of Mars can be made suitable for human habitation without any need for any external devices like space suits or air chambers.

Currently the Martian atmosphere is primarily composed of carbon dioxide. It is 100 times thinner than earth. Mars contains friezed carbon dioxide in the poles. By focusing the sun rays on the frozen carbon dioxide with the help of solar sail the sold carbon dioxide can be sublimated into carbon dioxide gas. Over a period of time the atmosphere of Mars will become much thicker and warmer because carbon dioxide is a heat trapping gas. 

The temperature of Mars is very low. The global average temperature of Mars is -63 degree Celsius. As the proportion of carbon dioxide increased and the atmosphere becomes thicker, the planet will get a lot warmer. 1% to 60% of Martian soil comprises of water in frozen state. With increase in atmospheric temperature and rise in temperature this water will melt into liquid water. There would be water flowing across the surface of Mars in form of rivers, lakes etc. 

Then vegetation would grow on Mars and this plants along with micro-organisms like Algae from earth will work to convert the the carbon dioxide of Mars into oxygen. At that time farming can be done on Mars. Humans then would no longer depend on Earth for food.

The mentioned TED video also mentions that with knowledge of genetics we will able able to change our genes in such a way that we are able to self evolve ourselves to survived on Mars.  

There was a time when Mars had a much thicker. The thicker atmosphere of Mars resulted in presence of liquid water on the planet. There were rivers, deltas, lakes on Mars. However solar winds and weak magnetic field of Mars led to stripping away of the Martian atmosphere.

It is important that we the humans must make efforts to branch out to other planets. In case earth is hit by an asteroid, the entire human civilization may vanish without a trace. All the knowledge that we have gained over centuries would disappear. If the human race or variants of human race are spread over the entire cosmos, extinction in one planet won't lead to extinction of humanity.

Travelling to other planets and living in other planets has been a dream of humans. We are getting closer and closer to realizing our dreams.