What Is Man's Purpose In Life?

This is a question that comes to us some time or the other. 

There could be very many good answers.

1. To be the best we can

2. To leave the world a better place than when we arrived

3. To quote Thirukkural (Thondrir Pugazhodu Thondruga...) - To be born to be famous (meaning to do something good that achieves fame)

4. To be a good person and do good to humanity

5. To make money (Ayn Rand way - this may be one of the toughest and nice ways)

And so on. 

Each of these options assumes we have freewill and hence that we are at liberty to do what we want,  achieve what we want.

What, now, if we don't have freewill? I have mentioned in earlier posts, quoting Daniel Kahnemann, that most (about 90%) of our decisions are intuitive and taken by the heart (called System 1 or S1) without conscious thought. Only 10% of our decisions involve conscious and logical thought (called System 2 or S2). Even when S2 is invoked, it is invoked by S1 over which we have no control. In effect we do not have freewill - this is my conclusion not Kahnemann's. You can also read the excellent article about the lack of freewill mentioned within this post: http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2017/11/free-will-or-paid-will.html 
and my other posts http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2017/10/freewill-contd.html and http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2017/10/define-freewil.html

In the absence of freewill what is our purpose in life? To put this in perspective,  assume we ask this question of a cat or a dog. What is the purpose of a cat in this life? Ask this question from the cat's point of view. Or ask the same question from our perspective. In either case can we list any reasons describing the purpose? 

In the absence of freewill, is the purpose different for a cat from that of man? 

Ask this question of a software program. What is its purpose? Only its creator (the author) knows the purpose. The program itself may not know what its purpose is. Maybe the same applies to man and cat.  

Only the creator knows what our purpose is. We, without freewill just like software, have no clue about our purpose. Just like software our purpose is to execute (as a software does) ourselves in the way our creator intended. Now if a software does not run as intended, do we blame the software? We might but then, we are actually blaming the creator. Same way if man or cat diverges at all from its so called purpose, it's not the man or cat at fault. 

Man, just like software in the absence of freewill,  isn't even aware of his purpose. And neither he not the software was designed to know his / its own purpose.

Additional reading:

1. http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2017/10/thinking-fast-and-slow-daniel-kahnemann.html
2. http://www.beinghuman.org/article/conscious-thought

Fake Footwear On Flipkart

I came across this article today.  https://m.indiatimes.com/news/india/us-footwear-brand-drags-flipkart-to-court-for-allegedly-selling-fake-products-on-high-discount-336443.html# 

Credibility of the intermediary is affected by the quality of entities it connects. True, a brokerage house isn't responsible for bringing the seller of a shoddy company to the market place. That's the job, perhaps, of SEBI. A shoddy company,  like shell companies, can be barred from the marketplace. 

But then how does one bar a shoddy seller of (fake) goods? Consumer protection forum? 

Presenting A Bill For Services Rendered

It's probably more healthy when we present a bill after providing a service. While trying to be generous, we don't provide a bill. Instead we carry it internally as AR = Accounts Receivable instead of writing it off as an expense.

This, charging to AR, is horrible because only we know we have debited the other person's account while they aren't even aware of it.

This has two disadvantages:

1. We carry a baggage = AR which will rarely get paid because it was never presented to the other party and hence ultimately has to be written off which is very painful. Our internal finance department, like any other external one, cringes at the idea of writing off an AR.
2. The other person thinks he has got it free because of his charisma and they think we are bound to continue to give it free because of the norm that has been established of getting services free.

We usually think more highly of a thing that we pay for than which we get free. 

God, what a crappy situation. And what an ugly game both parties indulge in.

WhatsApp From 2 Phones Simultaneously - Same Number

How do you access wa from two smartphones - for the same number? I do it all the time btw.

For example, one of your phones where was is installed is getting charged and you want to continue chatting (and there is no extension card and you don't want to stand next to the wall forever) or you and your husband want to chat with your son from different phones.

Tipping Vidyasagar

A friend sent me this:

[12/1, 23:07] Susmita Sivasankaran Pal: *Charity wrapped in Dignity!!!!*

She asked him, "How much are you selling the eggs for?"

The old seller replied to her, "Rs.5/- for one egg, Madam."

She said to him, "I will take 6 eggs for Rs.25/- or I will leave."

The old seller replied, "Come take them at the price you want... May be this is a good beginning because I have not been able sell to anyone today."

She took it and walked away with a feeling that she has won. She got into her fancy car and went to pick her friend, and invited her to a posh restaurant.

She and her friend sat down and ordered what they liked. They ate a little and left a lot of what they ordered.

Then she went to pay the bill. The bill was Rs.1,400/-. She gave him Rs. 1,500/- and said to the owner of the restaurant: "Keep the change."

This incident may seem quite normal to the owner of the restaurant. But it is very painful for the poor egg seller.

The bottom line is:

_*Why do we always show that we have the power when we buy from the needy and the poor? And why are we generous with those who do not need our generosity ?*_

Every time a poor child comes to me to sell something simple, I remember a tweet from the son of a rich man who said, "After every prayer my father used to buy simple goods from poor people at expensive prices, even though he did not need them. Sometimes he used to pay more for them. I used to get concerned by this act and I asked him about it. Then my father told me: " *It is a charity wrapped with dignity, my son.*"

Compare these two stories of social hypocrisy.

The first one is disappointing and the second one is inspiring...!

My takeaway from the 1st story:

We Love to practice our negotiating skills which we do with "low end" people. In a high end store, not negotiating and instead being dignified (big tip) is an expectation. Extrapolating this.. If we maintain a consistent image of being high end we end up being treated better than if we maintain an image of a "Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar".

Knowledge Comprehension Application (KCA)

Whether in the field of abstraction (such as logic = T as in MBTI) or in the field of survival (FP = Feeling Perceiving),  there are three stages in increasing order of ability. T = Thinker.  F= Feeler. 

1. Understanding something - as in ability to recognize it and provide a theoretical definition. This is equivalent to having a knowledge (K) of that thing. 

2. Know it well enough to predict its behavior. This is akin to having comprehension (C) of that subject.

3. Understand its behavior so well that when faced with a requirement to get something done we are able to pick that subject up as the right tool and use it with the right parameters and successfully finish our endeavor. This step is akin to an application problem (A). One knows not only how to do something, one also knows how to fix something that has gone awry.

If we want to take this 3-stage KCA to a T example, we can consider Vlookup in Excel. 

1. We know what a Vlookup is. We can explain with an example to show how Vlookup works. This is K.

2. When given a complex problem (large Excel table or array ) and we are asked to determine some value using Vlookup, we are able to formulate the expression correctly. Or when a complex Vlookup formula is given, we are able to evaluate the expression correctly. This is C.

3. We are given multiple excel sheets with some related data. We are asked to evaluate something. We correctly figure out that Vlookup, among hundred other formula like Match, Sumifs), needs to be used and create the Vlookup with the right parameters and get the desired value. Or we are shown what an amateur has done who got a wrong result. We are able to figure out where he went wrong. This is A.

We can create similar examples in any other field - For an Electrician, Carpenter, Financial Advisor, Cook, Surgeon...

Let's now apply it to people.

If I know my husband is very reserved, doesn't talk to my father when he visits us,  very even tempered, very affectionate towards my children - that is knowledge (K) about my husband. 

If my sister asks me how my husband will react if her husband talks to him about planning for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary, I would tell her that he would prefer to contribute monetarily but he would prefer not to be involved in much else. That is predicting behavior. And comprehension (C) about my husband's nature. 

My husband loves my maternal uncle. Hence asking my uncle to request my husband to just be with him (uncle) while my uncle does all the things for my parents' anniversary and hence avoid tongues wagging in my family is an example of Application (A). I solved the husband problem by figuring out a solution involving my uncle.

KCA levels exist in abstract things as well as in survival (FP) things. Some people are at A level in abstract things while some others are A level in FP things.  Still others might be at C or K level in these things.

When we are at A level, we use our S2 - meaning our conscious thought process. S2 is used both, typically at A level,  for abstract and for survival purposes. The abstract people at A level think poorly of the survival people's ability to use S2. And interestingly, vice versa.

Surprisingly both survival and abstract people evaluate others in terms of ability to use S2. Einstein was one of the few people who believed that S2 should be the slave and S1 should be the master. Meaning that we shouldn't go overboard because we are strong S2 users.

Intelligence is encapsulated in S1. This certainly doesn't mean that if we use S1 almost exclusively we become intelligent. Intelligence is a result of lovely interaction between S1 and S2.

We use S2 only for things that we care deeply about,  S2 being a precious and rare commodity. Our core competence is that area which consumes the highest level of S2. If only we could develop a test which could record when we use S2 and what triggered the use (just like apps in Android determine which apps drains battery the most), we could perhaps find out what our core competence is. And when we do find what it is, are we in for a surprise or shock? 

When we bring MBTI into the picture, we might tend to believe that T people use S2 while F people largely use F1. This belief is incorrect. Both T, F use S2. Except as explained earlier T use it for abstract purposes while F use it for survival purposes.