Part 3

Human behaviour a paradox

I’ve been trying to model human behaviour. Human behaviour always puzzled me and interested me. So did Paradoxes. Here are a few of them and how they translate to human behaviour…

Schrödinger’s cat

In the world of quantum mechanics, the laws of physics that are familiar from the everyday world no longer work. Instead, events are governed by probabilities. A radioactive atom, for example, might decay, emitting an electron, or it might not. It is possible to set up an experiment in such a way that there is a precise fifty-fifty chance that one of the atoms in a lump of radioactive material will decay in a certain time and that a detector will register the decay if it does happen.

Schrödinger, as upset as Einstein about the implications of quantum theory, tried to show the absurdity of these implications by imagining such an experiment set up in a closed room, or box, which also contains a live cat and a phial of poison, so arranged that if the radioactive decay does occur then the poison container is broken and the cat dies. In the everyday world, there is a fifty-fifty chance that the cat will be killed, and without looking inside the box we can say, quite happily, that the cat inside is either dead or alive. But now we encounter the strangeness of the quantum world. According to the theory, neither of the two possibilities open to the radioactive material, and therefore to the cat, has any reality unless it is observed. The atomic decay has neither happened nor not happened, the cat has neither been killed nor not killed, until we look inside the box.

Theorists who accept the pure version of quantum mechanics say that the cat exists in some indeterminate state, neither dead nor alive, until an observer looks into the box to see how things are getting on. Nothing is real unless it is observed.

courtesy: http://www.paradoxes.co.uk/#schrodinger

This is similar to the human thought and action. You can never be sure what the other person thinks unless he or she expresses it. But there is a catch here. You also don’t know whether the phial contained some life saving drug. So you cannot be sure the person expressed is what he or she had in mind. And there is no way of finding it. So every person is acting out. Well, I believe in Shakespeare

“All the world is a stage”

But analogous to this example, Thought is also not real unless it is expressed. But on the long run, it does turn real. In actuality, it is the purpose of the action that define the actor. But to an observer, it is the action that define the actor. It is what the observer sees , what the observer interprets that define the actor. So it is the talent of the actor to convince the observer and the talent of the observer to see through it. And always there is the concept of reverse psychology which creates a infinite loop of what the actual purpose can be.

Coming to how a situation can be manipulated to one’s advantage, I came across this classic example:

http://www.paradoxes.co.uk/#protagoras

Protagoras’s pupil

Another paradox which has its foundation – real or legendary – in antiquity concerns the sophist Protagoras, who lived and taught in the fifth century BC. It is said that Protagoras made an arrangement with one of his pupils whereby the pupil was to pay for his instruction after he had won his first case. The young man completed his course, hung up the traditional shingle, and waited for clients. None appeared. Protagoras grew impatient and decided to sue his former pupil for the amount owed him.

‘For,’ argued Protagoras, ‘either I win this suit, or you win it. If I win, you pay me according to the judgement of the court. If you win, you pay me according to our agreement. In either case I am bound to be paid.’

‘Not so,’ replied the young man. ‘If I win, then by the judgement of the court I need not pay you. If you win, then by our agreement I need not pay you. In either case I am bound not to have to pay you.’

Whose argument was right? Who knows?

Well, to settle this, this is just a matter of priority. Now the thing to notice here is that both contradict the priorities they follow to bring matters to their advantage. And this is not so easily noticeable. This is a very common tactic used by people.

“If you cannot prove me wrong I’m right.
If you cannot prove Yourself right, You are wrong”

This is the form which people frequently use. This they sound it with a perfectly and convincing tone. I guess this should be a part of the Marketing Management course and that for becoming a fellow of the Bar.

And great orators have always used this… Now go read Mark Anthony’s Funeral speech… You’ll notice this…

Part 2

I was reading generally then i came asross this quote on non-violence by Mahatma Gandhi

“Non-violence requires a double faith, faith in God and also faith in man.”

Many people have different ideas about the first. I have faith in God. I doubt the second.

According to me, Gandhi was lucky. If he had done the same to say, Atilla the Hun or Timur the Lame or even the Teutonic knights, they would not have hesitated to kill all Indians. “Oh you are willing to sacrifice yourself, thanks for your co-operation. You are saving my time, my resources and making my job easy”. Btw Indians are very tough to govern. So even if they did not kill them all in war, they will eventually kill them all. Out of frustration.

Gandhi got away with it b’cos the British were ” fair” (may be a reference to their complexion which now is considered a racial comment. Oh come on! Every Indian envies a fair complexion. Don’t believe me? see the number of fairness cream ads and their sales)  which reminds me of a quote by an Indian diplomat

” The British are so fair that they left India in the same state of confusion as they found it when they came”

Now back to faith in man, do any of u really have faith in man? I doubt it. Anyways I hope to have faith but not yet. As in i hope that man will become worthy of faith. The same old cliched ” there are still good people out there and that’s worth fighting for”

In game theory, there is this interesting little thing called the prisoner’s dilemma  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner’s_dilemma

Well as we can see this is one of the mathematical modelling of people’s behaviour. Suppose A and B are the prisoners

This is how the A’s thinking goes

” Now for me to get the maximum gain i should betray and B should remain silent. The other person cannot be trusted. Suppose B betrays me, i get the worst scenario when i remain silent. So i should betray B to get away from the worst scenario. Suppose B remains silent, i get the maximum benefit by betraying B. So it makes more sense for me to Betray. But if we both remain silent, we both get away with a minor punishment. Why should i compromise??”

So does B’s. The human behaviour is not unique because each has a different reason on  different scales for the compromise or not compromising. Now, thinking logically, the compromise by A can be due to a favour expected from or owed by B in majority of the cases and not A unless that will get him/her another favour and so on. So A’s decision is based on whether A expects any favour or not. (This is what people call foresight ) ( Here favour includes shielding from punishment)

This is analogous to any human activity and any decision. This can be extended to anything.

But as you see, unfortunately, in practise, the number of times the game is played is known and according to the findings, the equilibrium in majority of the cases is betrayal. Trust man?? Your choice…

This game does  take into account some relationships like Friendship, Love, and Family, a very few of which are unconditional.  The minority of the equilibrium is spread among the rest three due to this reason of no reason…

I do have this relationships of no reason and hope that when i play this little game, they won’t give me up …

The ” Sane ” Human

Well, i’m writing after a long time. So pls pardon my lack of organisation, well, language in general.

Part 1

Since i’m writing after a long time, I’m not very much fluent with the spellings. Then i found this spell check useful and irritating as well. Partly my mistake, well, wholly i should say, but i will not accept the fact that it was my mistake… this i’ll come to later on… Now the thing which was irritating me was ‘ American ‘ English spellings. Well, change some thing in the original stuff, populari’ze’ it, and make the original one obsolete. A nice way of paying back…

Well, these are some observations which I’ve been making throu’ out my life. Some may accept this, some may not, but since it is I who is doing the writing ( well, in this case typing,  or let’s say posting it) , ok, posting it, it’ll be my views that I’ll be posting… I would like to credit the creators of these blogging site for including the “comments” section otherwise, it would be very hard to read one’s soliloquy and the lamentation…

These also create a lot of controversies, ” meaning” a lot of following which is what they want… This brings me to point out one of my observations

-> Humans are selfish

Well,” in humanities, we talk about the majority. There are exceptions, but we don’t talk about them.” This dialogue may sound familiar to my classmates. And sadly this is the case…

These humans, create something useful to themselves, some see that it is useful for others also… There are two ways of reacting to it. Not letting the others use it – “the selfish”., the other way is the intelligent way, use it to your advantage,  to let the others use it and get more profit from it…

bonus 1 , u don’t get to be called selfish

bonus 2, sometimes, u get to be hailed as a philanthropist

Well, there is no way to judge a person by actions, because, it is the intention which makes the action a virtue or a vice…