Alternate Vision

Labels: god's chosen land

“My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.” Kerouac

He sums it up in a way that few can. And as I drop from one falling star to another, I will continue to remember that I have nothing better to offer the world than my own confusion.

Scientific reductionism has formed the basis of modern science where macroscopic properties are explained in terms of their microscopic elements (complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts). But often when explaining complex, dynamic systems that evolve over time - nature is a great example - reductionist thinking fails to capture the patterns emerging out of a multiplicity of simple interactions (the whole is more than the sum of its parts). And with this, comes the need to subscribe to a more holistic view of complex systems, that recognizes the probabilistic interactions of the constituent parts as integral to the rise of emergent orders. Brad Allenby, as always, provides some invaluable gyan on this topic .

"Observation and experiment are no longer the foundations of much cutting edge science and technology. The complex systems characteristic of the anthropogenic Earth -- such as climate change, the tension between environmental protection and development, food versus biofuels, emergent technology systems in the information and communication technology, nanotechnology, biotechnology, robotics and cognitive science domains, and water systems in globalized market structures -- cannot be understood merely by studying more and more about smaller and smaller subsystems, for it is precisely the emergent behavior of these systems qua systems that is the issue.

In short, while many scientific questions remain approachable through observation and experimentation, such simple methods are inapplicable to the complex systems which increasingly are our major challenges, and the tools we must use in such instances -- computer techniques and modeling -- raise far different validation and completeness issues than contemplated by the current scientific culture.

Environmentalism, sustainability, and science itself are increasingly trapped in a dysfunctional time warp, vesting the certainty of reductionist scientific method in new tools and frameworks that cannot justify such confidence. The problem is not inherent in the models, nor can we wish away complexity. Rather, the problem is with ourselves, in that we fail to recognize the growing mismatch between the putative authority we grant our tools, and their inevitable partiality and contingency given the complexity of the systems we attempt to parse." - Brad Allenby on Science and the 'Routes to Truth'

Amidst the overeating and lethargy that is inescapable each time I visit my ancestral home in Bangalore, I thought this time I would do what I've wanted to do for a long time - attempt to digitize some of my favorite family photos, currently stacked away in dusty albums, from the past century. Highlights include my granduncle's coverage of the Omikoshi festival in Shiogama city, Japan in February 1963,; my dad serenading my mom with his guitar at Powai Lake, Bombay in the early 70s; my late grandfather hard at work in his Bombay office in the early 60s. Credit for many of these photos has to go to the man on the left, my grand uncle, who captured a lot of these with either his 1935 Voigtlander (bless the Germans) or his old box camera. A few of my favorites:-

Labels: The Retro Project