epiphany

the world makes too much of sex (or the lack of it), too much of morality (or the lack of it), too much of money (but not in this case, too much of the lack of it), too much of love, and too much of death. but way under-emphasizes breathing, of feeling your limbs move on their own, of the five senses and of the sixth, and of impulse and of affection and of the beauty of just be-ing...

attitude

i'm a snob and i like myself for it. and i am one, because i like myself, which means quite a bit, because i have high standards. which implies that you can like me only if i do. because otherwise i could be unpleasant. and if i like you then you've got to be something, because of the above argument of my high standards.

so you get the idea. a snob is a happy person with a small world of people.

Experimentalists think they are playing a zero-sum Game against Theory

till date only theorists have really understood the potential that experiments hold for Game Theory. experimentalists just don't get it...

Schelling even as far back as the 60s said the following. that too in a tiny lil chapter titled 'Game Theory and Experimental Research'.

1. "Mathematical structure of the payoff function should not be permitted to dominate the analysis."

Experimentalists do exactly that. their subjects are shown mostly only the payoffs with the story or the game being hidden in 'neutral' language in order not to suggest any play to them. thus, hopelessly eliminating Schelling's elegant theory of the power of suggestion. reducing the game to a mathematical problem, if the subject wants to solve it; which very often he does not. what is this a test of? not of Game Theory as I see it and as it pretends to be.

2. "There is a danger in too much abstractness: we change the character of the game when we drastically alter the amount of contextual detail that it contains or when we eliminate such complicating factors as the players' uncertainties about each others' value systems."

Related to 1. above. the laboratory hides the game in what is shown to the subjects.

3. "Some essential part of the study of mixed-motive games is necessarily empirical."

This, the most important point experimentalists almost seem to never understand. that purely analytical means a-priori will never fully be able to predict what people will actually do. analytical methods rather predict what is stable play, or what is equilibrium play, or in simple words, what is clever play. whether this clever play is perceived by people or even when it is, whether they choose to play it or not is unknown till it happens.

especially with regard to the third point, Schelling points out how experiments could help Game Theory by exploring when and how do people actually play (or not) the stable strategy.

but its been wasted on researchers who simply do not understand the intent of the effort of Theory...

bright eyed girls

from dschool to UTD, still sitting outdoors with some reading in my lap and a pencil half stuck between my lips, life has come a long way

i want to make my home now. its been a long childhood, and clinging to it stubbornly, i have grown up. bring on the clutter of a functional chaotic home. lots of crockery, pots and pans. create a little colorful India within these walls.

painted glass splitting the morning rays of the sun into my home. colored cotton and lace curtains flying in the gentle breeze. the rustle of trees and the twitter of early birds as i step into the patio with my mug of milk. a rocking chair. a wind chime. tabla playing in the background...

a bedroom flooded with sunlight in the winter. with cane and bamboo chairs. a solid old fashioned bed and lots of hardwood furniture. photographs and paintings on all walls. and a huge globe of the world somewhere. a tiny room with bookshelves lining up all walls, and books, books and some bean bags. a spotless dry tiny bathroom. a cosy kitchen and dining table. an apron and song and dance and cooking. a masaledaar lunch.

candles all around the place being lighted as the day gets darker. some sofas to jump on and wear off the afternoon laziness. wood, lots of it. large wooden table tops. clear and clean. glistening in the lamplights. painted walls. seashells and bead curtains around the place. gulab jamuns and rosogullas. garam rotis, freshly made. a contented life. long walks. a good night under the starlit sky

imagine a white canvas and dripping blue paint on it. blue like the nearest bit of the spring sky. blue like MS Windows. only v near to the sun this blue should fade a lil. and then in contrast to it, imagine a dark brown, dried up-survived winter bark of a tree. and leafless branches, dark dark brown. with fresh, newly born tiny lil white blooms. all over. from in between and through these white-brown branches, stare at the blue of the sky. forever.

loneliness vs convenience is the mantra. strike the balance there. and we are back to the proven and yet abandoned theory of self sufficiency and happiness. i feel the forgotten shell regrowing just outside my skin...