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To ChatGPT, or Not to ChatGPT

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The other day, my YouTube listing featured a video on novel-writing using ChatGPT. I did not bother to watch it. I like to keep certain aspects of my naivety intact. Now, Khan Academy plans to deploy ChatGPT-powered tutors to replace human tutors. That was another trigger to bemoan the oncoming demise of the teaching profession on social media. The profession enjoyed an imagined immunity from digitization. It was touted as the most in-person thing, after mothering and nursing, that children cannot do without. Although COVID lockdown came very close to dismantling that notion, the ineffectiveness of online instruction was evident to all participants including parents. But, online learning is not an instance of AI. AI was involved only so far as to cut out a father walking into the camera with only a towel hanging by the waist. Before children realized the usefulness of background blur feature, they had pried into the homes of their classmates sometimes allowing that voyeuristic pleasure...
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Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

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The writing is simple; the subject emotionally overwhelming. The book eases the reader into life's grim realities we all have to contend with—old age, disease, decrepitude, and death. If suffering is likely to precede death and, in those final stages, you are expected to make tough decisions for yourself or on behalf of  your loved ones, you would do well to read the book. The author speaks to the medical fraternity and to those who look up to it to fight mortality. A targeted medical intervention or a technically successful surgery may bring professional/academic satisfaction to the medical practitioner, but for the terminally ill or those in their ripe old age, it usually comes at the cost of autonomy and quality of life. This hardly concerns the doctor if he is able to fix up the 'actual' problem. The doctor treats the patient’s problem as a challenge to his competence and speaks with the pride of a qualified medical practitioner. To his patients, he gives an objective e...
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Mr. Ambani, Please Give me a Bookstore

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I am told wealth meaningfully transforms man’s relationship with things and people around him, placing him in a position of power in the relationship. Of what use is wealth and power if it is not wedded to vision. We are grateful to the wealthy corporates for their role in bringing the much-needed infrastructure and a life of dignity to the populace. But, why aren't bookstores part of that vision!  No, I don’t have a business plan to run a profitable bookstore. Mr. Ambani, you have the wherewithal to think it through. I just need to put my gripe out there. Why isn’t Reliance interested in running a book store or support the ones crumbling under the deep-discounting practices of online stores? No denying that majority Indians live in abject poverty. A small percentage has just begun their aspirational journey. A bookstore doesn’t strike as relevant or urgent considering we have just started on our way to being a prosperous nation. But, from the ultra-rich we expect a vision of w...
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Salvaging Atheism from Crypto Theists

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I encourage you to read my prior post on atheism . Here's a thought experiment for you. Imagine 100 crore individuals flip a coin. Only participants flipping heads move to the next round. The probability of flipping heads or tails is 50%. So, in our experiment, half a billion people would flip tails and leave the game. The game continues up to the 29 th or the 30 th round where we are left with just two players. And finally emerges our winner, from among a billion, who flipped heads in all 30 attempts. Wow! What is at play here? Grace or probability? Let’s tweak the rules of the game to have the last man standing beheaded. You would probably hear the lament, ‘Of all people, why me?’ Statistical probability, nothing else. This thought experiment checks the innocent tendency of human mind to celebrate a certain turn of events in the universe as incontestable signs of Supreme Intelligence or Providence. Among the billion minus one chances of the universe remaining lifeless, life w...
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An Outline of Philosophy (Book Review)

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Another book that was lying with me unread for 25 years. Never could make it beyond three chapters.  Had it not been for the purple patch of reading that I have struck recently, I would have abandoned the book much early in the game.   Nonetheless, reading An Outline of Philosophy  was an uphill task. It slowed me down. It felt as if I had never read anything. A fiction novel with that page count would be a 3-day affair. I  fancied what it would be like to punch  much above my weight.   Reading a sentence over and over and then reading the paragraph over and over, carefully holding up a bunch of ideas in my immediate attention long enough for them to make sense so much so that a sneeze or a brisk movement could dissipate away sense, feeling anxious whether I would be able to follow Russell any further before my nerves give way — that was my experience with this book. After finishing a chapter, instead of getting caught up in self-congratulatory em...
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On Completing My Reading Challenge 2022

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For 2022, I set a target of 40 books to mark my fortieth year. I have read books in the past. But this time, I was on a reading spree. I gave myself completely to the satisfying experience of reading. The choice of books turns out to be very eclectic. My mini success. How often do thoughts and deeds of ordinary mortals align? A mediocre that I am, it required some hard self-talk to shake off my indolence: “Won’t you be good at anything? It’s not about coming up in life, but in your own eyes. Forget getting anything done, can’t you get something going?” I needed to have something going. After many years of wallowing in false self-esteem and perceived deservedness for every attainment, I finally faced my mediocrity that wore cloaks of protective lies. Upskilling, personal effectiveness, or anything socially aspirational has never been my strong suit. Reading satisfies me and doesn’t require outside evaluation. That was good enough! Even while reading, a desire to master the subject ...
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2022 Reading List

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Little Women — Louisa May Alcott — (4/5) A Short History of Nearly Everything — Bill Bryson — (3.5/5) What is History? — E H Carr — (4.5/5) Secret Garden — Frances Hodgson Burnett — (4.5/5) The Penguin History of the World — J M Roberts & Odd Arne Westadd — (4/5) Outgrowing God — Richard Dawkins — (3.5/5) The Courage to Be Disliked — Ichiro Kishimi, Fumitake Koga — (3/5) Things Fall Apart — Chinua Achebe — (2.75/5) The Doors of Perception (including Heaven and Hell) — Aldous Huxley (3/5) Gora — Rabindranath Tagore — (4/5) गोदान — Munshi Premchand — (4/5) A Room of One's Own — Virginia Woolf — (3.5/5) Sea of Poppies — Amitav Ghosh — (4.75/5) Dubliners — James Joyce — (4.25/5) The Body Keeps the Score — Bessel van der Kolk — (4.75/5) Maybe You Should Talk to Someone  — Lori Gottlieb — (3/5) The Vicar of Wakefield  — Oliver Goldsmith — (5/5) Babbitt  — Sinclair Lewis — (3.5/5) The Awakening — Kate Chopin — (4/5)  To Kill a Mocking Bird — Harper Lee...
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Preparing for Death (Book Review)

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They published what was yet a working draft. Very repetitive and does little justice to the subject it sets out to treat. Only the last chapter has some significant comments. Of religious sermons, I have had enough. The book is mostly anecdotes from the lives of spiritual men, quotes from scriptures, mostly Buddhist, and couplets. Arun Shourie merely restates scriptural statements and adds some personal account to back it up. He anchors the book with episodes from lives of a few great men towards the fag end of their lives and in their final moments. The author seeks lessons for us ordinary mortals in their acceptance of death and in their indifference to prolonging their earthly life. I wonder what can I learn from the lives of these men who were convinced of an everlasting life into which they will be delivered upon physical death. Besides controlling appetite(s) and coveting solitude, I don't think there is any other lesson or preparation possible for me. Appetite-control ruled ...
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The Tales of Beedle the Bard (Book Review)

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The only book in this genre I have ever read. I was reared on a heavy dose of Indian mythology, conditioned to read fantasy as mythology. When reading modern fantasy, that conditioning takes hold of me, only to mar the enjoyment this time. Hindu mythology sets out to explain the very origin and sustaining principle of the universe and breaks into legends and lore that capture the peopling of the universe. In doing so, it undertakes the ambitious task of providing  a commentary on the alleged historical events. So, w hile reading this book against that background, I was subconsciously seeking a bigger canvas for Rowling's stories. I don't the entire blame for this. The book's preface pushed me in that direction. For Hindus, mythology is an article of faith. Faith prevents us from seeing fantastic elements in our myths as fantasies. Hanuman crossing the ocean in a single leap is an event recorded by witnesses, not poetic imagination. The role of a poet is to compose devotiona...
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The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant (Book Review)

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This book can be one's baptism in philosophy. I was gifted this book when I was in the 10th standard. In the intervening years, I read it only in bits. It's a personal embarrassment that I had a gem of a book lying on my shelf unfinished. When Will Durant picks up a philosopher, he becomes the indistinguishable voice of the philosopher. So completely does he identify himself with the philosophy that you don't realize where the original thought ends and where the commentary begins. His paraphrasing embellishes the argument, supplying words the philosopher missed in the first telling. He offers a brighter lumen. Within each chapter, the last section is devoted to critical appreciation of each philosophy. Here, Will Durant detaches himself completely, exposing the loose ends of a taut system and the fault lines in a close-knit argument. The dissent is as impressive as the assent. When this happens chapter after chapter, you become conscious of your appreciation for subsequent ...
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