Can you Really Teach Abstraction?

I was talking to one of my friends about OOPS. While talking to him, a question suddenly flashed in my mind about OOPS and more specifically about abstraction - how can you teach abstraction and the methods to be used to abstract ideas. In order to answer this question, we need to understand the real meaning of abstraction - "a concept or idea that is not associated with any specific instance". In other words, it is our ability to take our learning to higher level so that it becomes independent of specific instances. 

Let us try to understand whether it is possible to teach abstraction with a help of simple mathematical addition. 1 + 1 = 2, 1 + 3 = 4,  6 + 5 = 11. Each of these additions are specific instances of addition. When we are learning "addition", we focus more on "+" (and put it in long term memory, yep that is abstraction) and we just remember the numbers until we solve the problem. Once the problem is solved, we just forget the numbers (short term memory). When we are early stages of learning, we tend to believe that specific instance is ultimate truth. When we practice, we face many types of similar problems and start to change our perspectives. The change of perspectives is critical that leads abstraction. With practice, we are programmed to abstract concepts (eg: addition).

So, i tend to believe that abstraction is directly proportional to practice and more specifically the number of "wow" moments that you create on specific subject and i agree if someone says "abstraction cannot be taught but can only be felt or facilitated".

OOP - Bending, Stretching, Thinking My Mind

The past two days, the Saturday and Sunday, were really exciting. I lived in this world with a lot of imagination and i would say it was good exercise for my brain. When it comes to Object Oriented Programming, nothing comes near to practice (of course, practice with head/brain/mind or whatever we call it). Object thinking was good testimony that one has brain and trying to use it.

I started off with a nice relaxation at Marina Beach with Sandy (an amazing guy and rock star) who often gives you a lot of challenges in the form of questions. It is not so easy to answer him as it is quite difficult to convince him (i bet, if i have a presentation now, i ll be more comfortable in answering questions than i used to be few months back). We spent around two hours in Marina beach (and we both thanked each other for making a good start) and later an hour in Saravana Bhavan. Dropped of Sandy at Guindy and from Guindy, i started my week on OOP.

I was trying to come up with a design for a problem and so far came up with at least five designs. Whenever i tried redesigning, i got to go back and reread the requirements/problem statements. I m a poor guy and i got to read the requirements many times. But yet to settle down with a design. I believe, i ll change the design five more times :-)

I expect to complete the design and coding of the problem this week and hope the next Saturday morning will be intense with some OO discussion.

@Sandy

I hope, you will join me next Saturday too :-). But the next time, we will be more technical and let us make sure that there is good amount of learning. What do u think?

Experience And Conditioning

In a given duration of time, there are two possibilities - conditioning or experience. You get experience when you question (and make mistakes) and learn to stop making mistakes. You get conditioned when you don't ask questions, make mistakes and keep making it. The sad part of conditioning is that you feel like you are deserted most of the times. Experience validates by questioning.

It is questioning that is key differentiator between experience and conditioning.

What I Think About Thinking

There is a friend of mine, initially i didn't like him much because i watched him from a distance and i believed what others had to say about him. I was deeply conditioned having my own lens (and few borrowed ones). Later, i had a couple of close interactions with him, now, i started to like him and most importantly the way he thinks. That is a usual story and probably heard number of times in your life. (me too). Here are my inferences with few meet-ups.

A good thinker always spends a lot of time in "thinking" than "speaking". He listens a lot and he doesn't jump into conclusions but keep learning (or draws inference). A good thinker always has a model to think - his own way of inferring/learning and he even learns the ways of new thinking (contemporary). Thinking has to be like a moving target. It is all about being dynamic and more dynamic.

Human beings are programmed to think, think deeply and that is part of the evolution. Thinking deeply needs time (to think and to reflect) and practice (with mistakes). You got to reinvent the wheel for your sake because if your friend knows "A B C D" that does make you educated. Your life is quite different from your friend's life and so is your thinking. So, reinvent the wheel, if  it gives you joy. Whatever that gives you inner happiness is always going to be correct.

Nothing can be so dangerous than being unknown and partially knowing something. Let us strive hard to do the research on something. Research makes us to think. If there are two choices - the first is to use the existing material and the second is to do research, choose the second. Research makes us to think though it takes little time. When you think, your learning gets registered in subconscious mind (otherwise, you abstract concepts). Life will be pleasant once we start abstracting.

The interaction with my friend made me to think and as a result i infer paragraph #2, #3 and #4

What do you think :-)?

Weaker Ones - Go Get It

There were many stories and the good one is the story of the fox that says, "mmm, no, those grapes will sour".

Weaker are the ones who surrender totally. I won't even use the word surrender as the word signifies freedom and realization in spiritual context. Inaction and letting others to act on me is a terrible pattern. Initially it made me feel so good and i seemed to get things with someone's effort. But i m sure that as the time progresses, the pressure will mount on me - you can't really say the cause of the pressure and if you drill down, it is self. I feel that i m deeply chained and we know that if we are chained to anything except the roots is not freedom. Freedom is something for strong hearted but not for me, because i m faint hearted. Freedom should lead to action but not the passport for inaction.

Freedom is highly risky and for sure leads to evolution. If i don't choose freedom, i not only stop the evolution of my self but also attempt to extinguish my self.

The above is my thought and highly influenced by Osho through his book "Freedom".

(Hu)Man's Problem

The human race is now going away from evolution. It is going through extinction. It extinguishes other micro organisms and organisms and that changes the ecosystem. We are marching towards to a point of no return. A point from where the mistake is going to be costly and most importantly it is going to be a irreversible situation. Is the nature keeping quiet to all our deeds? No

Nature gives him the signals through events. The man is not patient enough and intelligent enough to sense the events. He might have invented latest gadgets, most posh/luxury sedan and made a cover story in latest inventions. In order to understand the nature, he doesn't need those invention. He needs to be patient. He is too impatient to listen the nature.

He has the unique thing "awareness". But he is impatient and hence lacks to employ "awareness". The magazine Scientific American talks (for more than months, years?) all about the mess we create for future generations.

Politicians at Ripe Age

Yesterday, i happen to meet one of my great friends who is going to retire in two years. He is working in a bank and says he wants to retire as early as possible. He clearly knows that he needs rest. After hearing that, i was thinking about politicians and i deeply pity them. 

The politicians are mostly at ripe age - 50s (it is ok), 60s (still ok), 70s, 80s and 90s. It takes them a lot of time to climb the leadership ladder in their party and later in government administration. Somehow, their thirst is not quenched even if they are in power throughout. In some cases, by the time they enter their office as ministers they are quite above their retirement age.

But then, they are not able to leave the power even at 80s and 90s. My question is how they will face the death. If they feel so much about power and need the kick of power, how will they face death. Do they want to die when they are in power? Are they willing to be powerful dead-bodies? The death is total surrender. Even our own lung won't breathe, our own heart won't pump blood, our own blood won't flow even if we command it. It is total surrender.

I feel, the death for them is going to be so painful and paradigm shift.

I m not responsible if it sounds like your workplace :-(

Mindful Living For Simplification and Abstraction

We are sum of mistakes and we learn everything by making mistakes. When we were kids, we just couldn't hear what our parents used to say when we were about to touch a candle flame. Our reflex kicked in when the flame hurt us and we registered that event in brain permanently. We build our knowledge base by etching the neurons and their interconnections. This etching process is called experience. As we gather such experiences, our intuition also grows and our intuition reflects in the form of our actions. Our action leads to mistake and the mistake is again fed back. It is a constant learning process. We are life long students. Some of us are quite aware about that and some of us are in the process of learning that.

But now the question is how to learn fast? One option is to learn from our mistakes/actions. Another option is learning from fellow human beings. We can agree to some extent that learning from others helps us to learn fast. But no faster. The lifetime of human beings are pretty long and if we rely on learning from human beings alone, it wont be sufficient. How about learning from animals and nature? How can it be possible to learn from animals and nature? In order to do that we ought to be simple and adopt a simplistic living. A simple living is not only leading life with less things but also living with mindful thinking.

A student asked his master. You say that each event is unique. An event occurs as it is interconnected with so many other events, some of them are dependent on other events and some of them are interdependent on other events. But yet, how can the solution to the problems or interpretation of these events can be generalized (or how come Buddha simplified that the root cause of all problems is "desire"). The master answered his student that it is all about simplification and abstraction. Simplification and abstraction are quite possible only when we live a mindful life - state of complete awareness. You have to simplify things leaving out irrelevant things and consider things that are relevant (which is abstraction). It is when you simplify, you will be able to abstract.

When we have total awareness, we can learn from ourselves, others, animals and nature. All the encounters will teach us something and even the restful mind will teach us something. Mindful Living is needed to understand interconnectedness of many events and hence a must for simplification and abstraction.

What do you think?

Knowing Linux Processes

Sometime in 2005, I happened to write two articles on Linux Processes which was published Linux for You. For someone who is relatively new to Linux/Unix programming, the following two articles should be a curtain raiser as it explains basics of processes in Linux. While the topic is Linux processes, the concept should apply to any multi-tasking operating systems. Sharing it here hoping that it will be useful for some of you.

Access the following links for the PDFs

An Introduction to Linux Processes

Processes in Linux (Part -2)

Happy Reading.

What Can We Learn From Hatching?

Sometime back, i published a post titled "Get out of the Shell, Mr. Chick" on the need for passion to transform oneself. This post is add-on to that and please make sure that you read that post ("Get out of the Shell, Mr. Chick") before this. Now, we are sure that we need internal force or passion to do anything (and to excel in that).

But one question that pops up - "i have been doing this for so long time but no results". There is no wrong in being result oriented but i just can't see results. Seems like the tunnel is too long and too dark. I m afraid that i will give up. First, i would say, these thoughts are usual and things will be clear if we just try to understand from chicken hatching (or birth of a human).

There are two ways of answering this question. First, the usual answer which is simple without logical thinking saying that you shouldn't look for results when passion drives you. But, I don't agree with that fully. I agree with that statement to an extent of putting in efforts - dont measure your efforts when passion drives you. I don't agree with the argument if someone says that you shouldn't measure the results. Obviously, we need to measure the results so as to understand the efforts required to reach the purpose.

The second way of answering that question is to understand the process of transformation. Let us take the example of chicken hatching out of an egg. Once the hen lays the egg, it takes roughly about 21 to 37 days for the new baby to be hatched. Even this is the case with human being. But there is no clever doctor in the earth to exactly predict the time of birth or chicken hatching. The scientists have understood the environment or process of birth or hatching. But they haven't understood enough to predict the date of birth to the minutes because that is close to impossible or the world is not interested to know the exact time. The world is more interested on the transformation (to motherhood) and the product of transformation (the child), so extra few days or weeks doesn't matter. No mother in earth pulls her baby out if she stays in for few more days, the mother and the child know the time doesn't matter, but the pain (labour) matters.

If we are working on our transformation, it is quite natural that if we take few more days/weeks/years. It is worth the wait. Sometimes, "the wait" is far better undue transformation.

Powers of Truth

Today, I happen to write a recommendation in LinkedIn. Now, I m writing my experience on how i feel when i say something and how it affects our state of mind. When you say something, your intuition says something to you - you will feel that you have done a good job and your mind goes into peaceful state or your mind goes to confused state and you feel not so good. Even if you do something wrong because of your conditionings (but not based on the real facts), a slight discomfort kicks in. It is up to us to regard or disregard the cues given by our intuition. You can call it intuition or conscience (which again shapes you in a long run).

The real powers of truth are - the truth and its omnipresence, its ability to kick back some quality feedback on the subject immediately (person who is truthful/untruthful) and its ability to erupt like a volcano if suppressed (the tipping point factor).

Today, there is no doubt that i feel so much peace in mind and it was fantastic day :-)