Errors and precision

Life is full of disorders, malfunctions and errors. And, then also, somehow, most of the things are working correctly in daily life and lives on planet are continuing. Murphy’s law says that if anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Our body is made up of so many different organs, and in total, adult human body consists of around 10 trillion cells. Except few sicknesses once in a while, our body seems to work normally throughout life span, which is typical of around 65 years. Society, as a general, has a multiple parts and even though some parts may create chaos sometimes, life goes on normally for each of us and we are moving ahead for better future. It seems that even though Murphy’s law is undoubtedly right in general sense, error doesn’t happen that often in our lives and somehow we manage to survive in this chaotic world.

Error has different meanings depending upon the context where it has been used. Error can happen due to lack of knowledge. But nature sometimes introduces these errors in its code to make species different from each other and to form coherent society, and this error generally referred to as mutation. Each of us has DNA that consists of millions of base pairs, and with the help of this DNA, our body is forms our body parts. Now, with only few exceptions, out of billions of people around the world, errors because of genetic mutation are rare. And it is amazing to know that copying of pairs in DNA happens in few seconds and still most of these pairs are free from errors. Is nature very kind to us or there is more order in life than we think? Even human made components, like computer processors, are an example of precision in life and when we see that each processor contains millions of transistors and each transistor holds a few electrons, protons and neutrons, point of failure is not in single or double digits but its in millions, and still, these processors work around the clock. It is in our nature to make mistakes but due to technological advances the rate of failure has been decreased recently in all major fields and work of nature provides us an example to become more accurate in every aspect of our lives.

Multiple personalities

Knowingly or unknowingly, we act differently to different people or to group of people and this creates various images of ourselves to other people. Most of us spend the average day at work with colleagues. Out of all colleagues we work with, each one has distinct perception about us in their minds. Although each of us is unique as a person, we live differently in our parents, friends, colleagues, rivals, etc. mind.

The moment we meet a new person, we start building image about his or her in our mind. At the time when we start our conversation with this individual, this person generally shows his or her positive side and acts civilly. When we get chance to meet or work with this person quite often, then we start adding his or her characteristics in our mind and build a strong image of that person after a few meetings. As we interact with a few friends, relatives, colleagues etc everyday, they get to know ourselves better and learn our different characteristics each time and we also add their traits, their behaviours, and their positive and negative sides into our minds that ultimately alters their image that we used to hold until then.

Although each of us has unique personality, somehow we appear different to each and every other person. And the same way, we have a unique image of each individual in our mind that may be very diverse than that person’s actual personality.

Fact on theories

As an electronic engineering student, I studied most of my undergraduate education studying around electron’s properties and its behaviour. I did so even without actually seeing electron by my eyes and putting faith on university lecturers and scientists who have discovered and studied it before me. The question is, how can we spend whole life on something which we haven’t seen or touched and just putting faith on people and unquestioning whatever they have substantiated a long time ago, is correct? What if someone will discover that the electron that we used to know is not what it is? Will lives of all electronics and computer engineers jeopardise if such thing happens? Or, nothing much will happen as computers and electronics device will work same as they were working before the new discovery.

Most of our educational studies and professional work are based upon some sort of theories. These theories are either established by some facts or verified by other theories on which current theory is based upon. Now, if predictions of any theory are verified by a few different sources, then we can confirm that theory is full proof. But if theory is based upon assumptions that we can’t verify directly but only depends upon indirect evidence, how much can we trust that theory? Most theories in Physical science are based upon such assumptions and those assumptions are, at least most of the times, depends upon indirect evidence. The question arises at this point is that then how can we trust such theories?

For example, all information we have about our Sun is a result of indirect evidence or calculations made on earth by scientists. As it is not possible to actually go to the Sun and collect evidences, is it worth to put blind faith in whatever scientists tell us? Most tests carried out by scientific circles show that Sun will be still there for another 5 billions years. But what if scientists have made some mistakes in their calculations and what if those mistakes were so catastrophic that we misjudged the whole process of chemical reactions in the Sun’s core? As we don’t know the whole secret of physical world yet, what if we haven’t noticed one significant process happening in the Sun that can alter our whole perception about it? What if we found that instead of 5 billion years, Sun’s remaining life is only 50 years? The chance of that happening is very odd, but, still, there is a chance!

In order to expand our knowledge, we always use old scientific notions and expand them further. We generally believe in our predecessors and their work. But, as it has happened before, they might have omitted minor facts that weren’t important to them in the discovery of something but those facts were also not that much negligible as well not consider for the bigger and better result. This may lead us all to the false results and to the future that is different than what we have predicted. There is no point going back to the beginning of scientific and mathematical origin and start verifying everything. But, there always will be a dilemma whether to trust on someone’s work that we can’t verify personally. Hence, I think it is always worth considering the fact that unless theories are based upon pure facts, they are still theories and we shouldn’t put our blind faith on them.

Friendship

Some of us are very luck in terms of friends we have got. Throughout our life and at different stages, we make friends and sometimes these friendships lasts forever and sometimes they don’t. I have good friends like, and because of these good people around me and with their help I am whatever I am today.

When I make a friendship with any person, I try to keep it that way forever. I have changed a couple of schools and been to two different universities in two different countries. Still, today I am in touch with my friends from my first school and still I am keeping in touch with all of them with whom I have friendship. Although each one of us is a little bit or more selfish, I consider myself very lucky in all friendships and I have gained more than what I have given whether that in terms of knowledge or help. I try to put every effort from my side to keep friendship alive, doesn’t matter where the person is living, how often he or she contacts me, how often actually I meet them in person or whether they were helpful to me or not when I needed their help. Friendship for me is to give something to people who I care about and seeking nothing in return. If any of these friends can help when I need any assistance, then I appreciate their input but if they can’t help me I don’t take it personally.

Each and every friend of mine knows me in different capacity. Although I have made few new friends since I have been here somehow I have managed to keep my old friendships intact and throughout last few years they have become even stronger. My colleagues here are telling me that these have happened because I am still bachelor and haven’t seen true face of each friend. People do change when they get married, get settled in their lives and when they have kids; people become more self concentrated and it will be hard from both the sides to keep friendships active. Well, I would like to think that when I will get married and when I will have kids as well, I would still try to keep in contact with all my friends and no matter what circumstances I will be, I will try to help them when they will need my help.