Continued ...
My blogs continue at:
http://www.kaleemaziz.com/ipw-web/b2/index.php

My new home is http://KaleemAziz.com.

- Kaleem Aziz.

SOS for humanity.
The signal ? ? ? - - - ? ? ? in Morse code, i.e. SOS, means 'Mayday'.

This blog is inviting us to send out a message to rest of humanity that we are going down: "Mayday, mayday, we are going down! Do you read me?". Except this message is not from a plane, not from a ship; but from all of humanity.

We need to save humanity from picturing unreality as reality and reality as unreality. Here's a story that mimics this situation:

A man, Mr. Much-of-humanity, was crossing the forest one day, like most men do. But it just was not his lucky day, as fate would have it, a lion had picked up the smell of his human flesh. As the lion chased him, Mr. Much-of-humanity's instinctive adrenaline rush made him run for his life. In this adversity, Mr. Much-of-humanity who was not prepared for such problems, ran directly into an unused well. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!", he screamed as he fell into it.

However, fate, it seems, gave him a second a chance. While falling into the deep well he frantically happened to hold on to a rope like branch of a tree (there are trees in tropical forests that have rope like outgrowth growing towards the ground!). Mr. Much-of-humanity was saved. But a few minutes later he saw that the unused well was filled with snakes at the bottom of the pit -- so if he let go of the rope and survived the fall, he'd not survive the snakes! And the lion above him seemed hungry and determined to make a meal of him, if he came out.

In this predicament, when Mr. Much-of-humanity was out of adversity temporarily, he saw a honeycomb with fresh honey oozing out of it. So he put his hand in it only to stir up the bees in the honeycomb. He now fought this unwanted problem of bees, that he himself created, while ignoring the longer term problems that decided his fate.

His greed, it can be seen, overcame his fear -- instead of trying to solve his problems, we see Much-of-humanity indulged in his greeds. How ironic that his situation is much like our human kind, that doesn't understand the very problems that threaten to obliterate us, and yet are involved in superfluous enjoyment of superficial "fun" activities!

As if this wasn't enough trouble already, two rats decided to eat away the rope like branch. One was a white rat called Day, and the other was a black rat called Night. The time was running away for Mr. Much-of-humanity, but all he seemed to care about was fight the bees so that he can enjoy the honey. Alas!

That's why I call this blog of mine 'Mayday' or SOS for humanity. We have all kinds of real issues, from Ozone layer depletion, environmental pollution, Greenhouse effects, possibility of asteroid impacts, nuclear poliferation into terrorist elements, flooding, hunger, lies, bigotry, corruption, oppression, women inequality, child abuse, elderly abuse, unfair dictatorships, military rules, lack of jobs, dearth of opportunities, unexplored solutions, shrinking glaciers, extinct species and imbalance in information (causing large-scale ignorance). Yet much of our humanity is debating and politicizing trivial issues (of racism, greed and non-issues) like the French are cowards, the blondes are dumb, the Blacks are the source of all violence problems, the Chinese eat human babies, creating businesses to cheat people one time by selling them "member enlargement pills/equipment" that don't work, "inciting" people to oppose the East or the West (as the case may be), creating laws that only raise a controversy by don't solve any outstanding issues, hottest babes gossips, hippest kitties rumors, misinformed religious agendas, and so on and so forth. What's up with humanity?!
"Human suffering is effectually due to ignorance of the means to identify the truth, from all/any the sources available to humans."

I suggest people to stop fighting on the bees-like problems of humanity, viz., the trivial non-issues and the controversial problems created by our own greed. Instead I invite people to work faithfully to contribute to saving/progress of our humanity from the real lion-like threats through problems of hunger/oppression/injustice that are eating away large amounts of our capable population, and the snakes-like poisoning of our ignorance that lies right under our noses. Don't just look at what you want, look also at what humanity wants -- look at the reality, see the forest and the trees! Don't let humanity lose the second chance -- let humanity fare better than the dinosaurs did!
"Connect your answers such that it doesn't contradict with reality."

To reduce the noise of non-issues of human ego, I suggest:
"Lies and insult should be a punishable offense by law, for social trust and social respect to improve respectively; much like murder being a punishable crime improves social co-existence."

It is upto us to face up to our responsibilities, because no one else can do it for us. Again, ? ? ? - - - ? ? ? "Mayday, mayday, we are going down! Do you read me?".

- Kaleem Aziz.

Debates are like marriage.
There are issues that are quite "revolutionary" in terms of being "offending", no matter how much you don't want them to be. With less mature people, the discussions can quickly turn into person insults (reminds me of how someone in a debate called "someone's being busy" as "being too lazy to move the latter's ass", or the time when letting people be "free even if oppressed" is misunderstood as "policing", etc.).

There's a lot of trauma happening in online forums where people end up either being "insulted" or having "their reputation hurt".

(1) It is okay disagree with the opinion,
(2) it is not okay to overdo it (i.e., repeat it -- once, twice or thrice is enough!),
(3) nor to insult (personal attack) someone instead of disagreeing with their opinion.

However, each of the above is a gray area. For example, insulting God or culture or religion flames a person up into insulting the person whoever was as "arrogant" (in their view) to consider themselves capable of judging God; whereas the fact of the matter is that the other person only wants to refer to God as a concept and not as an ego-attached insult to hurl at other person. Explaining it is not going to cut-it either, because you're already in the wrong book by then. May be it is just that the topic is too sensitive, but I tend to lean to think that the maturity is lacking to continue that discussion. Therefore, I suggest people involved to keep "ego" out of debates and take the persons words only as an opinion or feedback (that they are pissed).

May be debates are just like marriages -- they are extremely powerful when they work, and the only thing you need for them to work is maturity of everyone involved in it. One person's maturity alone is not going to cut it, requires everyone to be mature. Successful debates are like mental orgasms; and hence the addiction of people to it. However, unsuccessful debates are painful breakups leaving a soreness (frustration/hurt).

Another reason why I believe:
"Degree of intimacy is based more on the understanding through communication (i.e., speaking, body language and listening) between the partners, and less on sexual exploration (i.e., number of orgasms)."

What is maturity?
"Maturity of person in a particular area is the real life experiences that brings him/her in touch with reality, as against emotional/egotistic/common sense beliefs."

Finally, I think online debates are better than real life fights; if you don't carry forward the frustration or vengeance, but listen to learn from it. Online communication brings greater diversity (you speak to thousands at one time!). Plus it gives a greater learning experience because you are listening to diverse people in the best possible phrasing they can do, without the personal bias of their appearance/expression. One reason why internet is such a great thing/addiction! :-)

- Kaleem Aziz.

A book as big as the universe?
The following book about the universe is being called "A book as big as the universe" here:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/11/21/book.apod/index.html

Funny that I consider universe (including the books in it) itself a book worth reading without the bias of any pre-concieved theory. I agree, we need books to understand the universe, but if you really think, universe itself is a book that can be read directly (instead of someone creating a book about it) if we all had the right tools:
"Connect your answers such that it doesn't contradict with reality."

There are people in this world that use the images to create conspiracy theories. For example, here's one in one of the popular faiths:
http://www.submission.org/miracle/nebula.html

Before we become convinced to "submission" because of the above "proof"; here's another person, but ranting about it:
http://answering-islam.org.uk/Quran/Science/rose-nebula.html

But what disappoints me is that many of them that are trying to dispute this faith fail to find the most important flaw; i.e., the pictures are in pseudo-color. If the agency that took that photograph chose to have "gray" or "violet" color instead of the "red" that it uses now, where'd the "sky splitting like a rose" theory be? (I knew about pseudo-coloring because I was in space industry processing space images years ago.)

By the way, if you are a skeptic and have been insulted, do believe me when I say the following skeptics seem to have a death wish or something (for they are to be beheaded for publishing against this faith):
http://www.secularislam.org/skepticism.htm

These unsung heroes may be revolutionary and brave, but many times, their own brother does them in ... :-(

- Kaleem Aziz.

Past is a rear view mirror.
While most of us drive through our lives, we sometimes introspect. I find a huge similarity between driving and living. Let's look at how different people drive their lives.

There are those that introspect a little too much. While introspection is a good thing that helps you know you, introspecting on non-issues^* causes us to spend more time concentrating on things within us that are not actually benefitial to our driving. Sometimes a jolt in the driving (of your life) brings us back to reality, and sometimes not acting fast enough is recorded for eternity. Which will we be? The problem with some thinkers is that they know they should turn their lives, but don't translate it to action. [^*Non-issue is a term I use for distractions in life that have no economic value. An example of such a non-issue would be day dreaming of being granted magical wishes without you having to do anything for it.]

There are those who don't want to introspect, but want to live in the present and believe in the instant-gratification of the present. Living with both feet in the present is better than being involved in non-issues. However, they probably aren't looking far enough on the road if they are looking only at the present. We need to be looking far enough to be able to know what to expect, to be able to plan and to be able to be prepared.

Then there are those who want to plan and be prepared for everything. Since one can only see that far, people who drive their life in this manner want to know as much as possible from the past. They tend to give greater importance to history and want to learn everything from history, in order to guide their future planning. While a great thought, there's a disadvantage to it. Past is a rear view mirror, if you look too much into the past for guidance, your focus on the present and future will become hazy. One needs to balance learning from history and yet be able to apply (i.e., work) it to a variety of situations in the present.

Now let's grow this diversity of each person driving his life, at varying speeds, with varying personalities and in different directions. This creates the complex traffic of the web of humanity living at any point in time. You have people irritated and honking their expressions in life (extroverts), you have people yielding and mellow with their defensive driving (introverts), you have people who complain but can't give up driving (cynics), you have people who love the journey (jovial), some drive their life slowly (modest), some drive their life fast (ambitious), some keep their life parked (localized), some travel far (nomadic), some are new drivers (novices), some are aces (experts), some come from different cultures (foreigners), some need to be reminded to keep focus (addicts) by messages like "Don't drink and drive (through life)!", you have people creating these regulations for driving through life (enforcers) even as they themselves drive through it and then you have some accidents on the road (mortally or emotionally hurt).

You can see the regulations of driving lives in the terms of lanes and directions in which we can drive and the red-green-yellow lights to which we respond, to be a productive part of humanity. But ultimately what keeps humanity ticking is each one of us driving in the present, using lessons from the past optimally, looking far ahead, being prepared for change and yielding to others. Honking begets honking and rash driving begets punishment from others. So as not to mix up reality and the past too much, remember the warning on the side view mirrors "Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear"! :-)

This is the lesson of life, as long as there is gas in our automobiles of life. What after that? Look at the dead automobiles to know. We have only one life, so let's check our life's odometer (i.e., age) and use the remaining driving through our life wisely so that it earns us happiness and peaceful journey to others.

- Kaleem Aziz.

Business Case for Solving Ignorance.
Analyzing Ignorance:
Even our greatest fact-finding missions, aka scientific efforts, are also highly ignorant of reality; but the greater danger to humanity is from those who don't know what experts of humanity know:
"Ignorance is either misreading or not knowing reality."

I believe we misread reality for the following reasons:
"Ignorance is a function of (1) lack of instruments to verify, (2) lack of tools to simplify, (3) miscommunication of information, (4) misunderstanding of the key factors, (5) impossibility of control over time (i.e., past and future), (6) observations that can't be long-term enough and (7) inefficient usage of human intellects."

Some of the above reasons cause over-complications of perceived reality:
"The need for quick-n-simple answers (a reality of our human nature which encourages aggressive learning) also allows acceptance of perceptions, that are larger than average cognition, as reality. These psychological instincts not only blur perceived reality, but also make unlearning 'common sense' more complex than learning objective reality."

The strategy to repelling ignorance can be plotted on the time-line as follows:
(1) Past: Reaffirm facts that are misunderstood, lost, unverifiable or undeducible.
(2) Present: Work to develop tools for: (i) travel, (ii) experience, (iii) observation, (iv) tolerant communication/mingling with diversity, and (v) deduction/generalization of key factors
(3) Future: Prepare for long-term observations that only time can reveal to our fact-finding missions.

Analyzing affects of Ignorance:
Simply said:
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance."

I know, we've been trying/living it! Democracy lets people without education an equal right to vote -- and what a disaster it has been! :)
"Ignorance is a social evil."

But before this is supposed to mean a racist rant to eliminate the uneducated, I am talking of a business case to eliminate illiteracy not the illiterates. A team with few literates and few illiterates is bound to have many of the problems our democracy faces. However, there are real strong reasons why we have high amounts of illiteracy despite free education systems:
(1) learning requires greater effort from student than from the teacher (i.e., education is a team effort of both the teacher and the student),
(2) a promise of future empowerment is not a sufficient motivation for all to use the available free opportunities to learn because
(a) some are too hungry to worry about learning and
(b) some are too full to worry about it, and
(3) reality is too complex, while education fails to simplify it enough for the average IQ.

Besides (1) free education, I believe we need to (2) simplify education further, (3) mass-produce quality education systems with technology tools and (4) motivate students by inspiring them (inspiration will self-drive them to do more).
"The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires." -- William A. Ward

Simplification, and subsequent mass-producing, of education systems solve almost all of the challenges current education systems face. To be cautious that the over-simplification of our education systems doesn't create greater fools that require further simplification that ends up teaching something so generic that it is of little practical value; we need to find ways technologically to inspire students to do more for their own good. An instant meritocracy would solve the problem in helping students find their place in the diversity offered by such a redundant education system. Also, mass-producing education systems should bring down the price/economics of a quality education system.
"Reality is complex. Human cognition is limited. We must try to tackle on both fronts by (1) expanding human cognition as well as (2) simplifying complexity (with better analogies and tolerant debates with diversity)."

Caution:
However, creating any means for eliminating ignorance/illiteracy must allow sufficient exposure to practice in reality, and not trade-off practicality to give excessive book-time. Creating systems for book-ish knowledge creates illiterate literates.
"Most get an education to avoid thinking!"

Nor should it be one that discourages mistakes:
"Education system must be where people learn through their own mistakes. Creating a perfect system that can teach students never to make a mistake defeats its own cause!"

- Kaleem Aziz.

Economics of Religion.
Here's an interesting research done by Harvard on the topic of measuring economics of religion:
http://post.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/barro/papers/Religion_and_Economic_Growth.pdf

There's an article that summarizes the results of the study:
http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=2208914

Analysis of the study:
The study says economy benefits from believing, but not from belonging, to a religion. That is, someone who believes in God, heaven and hell is more productive than someone understands religion in terms of "going to church". [Reminds me of: "Going to church doesn't make someone a Christian any more than walking into a garage makes you a car."]

I write a lot about religion and business (as well as religion vs business) at my blogs "Theory of Everything". Does the above research contradict what I write? No. Infact it gives me more proof that the work I am doing on UVS is going to usher a new trillion dollar industry.

The variable that is missing, I think, is education. The study is basically over population that visits church for what they don't know, but do everything based on what education taught them. Basically, they are trained inventory -- trained by education systems, herded (or beaten into submission) by religion. This combination creates excellent followers -- especially in a world where everyone wants to be rich (leader or visionary), making those wanting to be followers rarer. Religion seems to fit the equation.

Analyzing religions:
HBR is giving us the facts, not what is possible with these facts. What does religion do or has done each time? Religion has been created as a sum total of all facts known at one period in time -- and calling it one way we can live. Religion is "what works" of an era where a visionary leader saw as far as he/she could then. The religions that withered away were those of less visionary leaders or older religions. You'll notice (if you do a study) that the proportions of followers of religions in the world are greater in direct proportion to newer the religion has been. That is, Islam which came in approx 4 AD is most popular religion, followed by Christianity that came in approx 1 AD and so on. Why? I think it is because more facts were known for newer religions than for the older ones.

Analyzing democracy:
While people think they follow a religion, what they are mostly following is democracy (law) -- that creates one religion for current people with each age. But democracy misses one important component that religion had -- it doesn't give an answer to everything.

UVS emboldened:
What I am attempting to do with UVS is unifying several aspects of our livelihood into one explainable and understandable theory. The key difference between this and how business is done currently is that the former approaches to develop the individuals from bottom up by working on their values and helping them be successful in what they want to do (without a 20 year education cycle); whereas the latter attempts to make them consumers without necessarily helping them in being better consumers. In the former businesses help create "aware consumers", whereas in the latter we are just creating passive brand names that do not intersect with the individual values of the consumer. In the former the "manipulation of the consumer" is ethical, and in the latter it is not necessarily so.

Therefore, the UVS could be a simplified tool to address complexity of team work on a larger scale, much like religions do today, without the disadvantages of lost creativity and antiquated answers.

Why do I think it will work and not just offend people?
(1) Because we have "better" answers for it today,
(2) because no one person will do it all,
(3) because it is only a problem of information poliferation and
(4) because people are asking for answers every moment of their life in one way or the other.
(5) If it works time after time, people will not only not get offended, they'll embrace it.

How will this work out?
I believe we'll need three industries to be merged in solving the gargantuan task: (1) psychology, (2) technology and (3) media. I expect results need 20 to 50 years of work, therefore a very long term business investment and business plan. I am not clear on how everything should or will turn out, but I have a faith that this is needed -- and that someone out there is also thinking of such a solution. Hopefully, I'll find some and partner with them.

So if Harvard research is saying "it works", my UVS approach is saying "this works better". What I don't want to do is become a politician that only intends to benefit from the phenomenon by saying: Religion is regarded by the common people as truth, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.

Read more on the same here:
index.blog?from=20031026

I've created a paypal account for those of you who can't contribute to the creation or refinement of UVS directly, but want to help:
http://kaleem_aziz.tripod.com/blogs.html

- Kaleem Aziz.

Cultural Imperialism by the West or by the Laws of Nature?
Why should West be considered mature and right? We may be wrong but when something fits into 1000s of real situations, it becomes very daunting to inverse it by a thought experiment. "Cultural Imperialism" of "we are right" is something that comes from misunderstanding democracy. I find this flaw poliferated, magnified, criticized, opposed and detested by lovers of freedom and peace.

A thought experiment of me walking into a serene African wilderness would be composed of greenery, water, birds chirping, sunshine seeping through the leaves, etc. However, the reality of it would be that the water could be contaminated, a hunter's trap in my vicinity that can change my entire life in the next second, a few harmless monkeys watching me from where I can never spot them with my city dweller's eyes and a predator preparing itself to bleed me to death after a wild chase. My being peaceful in my mind cannot change any of the rest of the things. While I profess to exist in the reality of my mental creation, some of the other things are going to exist irrespective of whether I want them to be or not. In other words, I am human, not God. Why? I don't know. Would I want to be in more control of my life? Of course. Often times we find that understanding reality better can put us in a better position to defend out freedom. A certain amount of learning is required for us to survive in the indifference of laws of nature towards what we need and want.

Despair.com has one saying "It may be that the only purpose of your life is to serve as warning to others". Often times we do learn from others who wandered into wrong places and believed their perceptions were everything they needed to know about reality.

If we don't want to fail, we prepare and plan. There are always some who consider this team effort too "imperial", but leaders in a democracy know that -- not all look at life in one way -- and these leaders are charged with protecting us. Is it imperial on our lives to follow the directions of domain experts? If so, who stops us from wandering? So, I thought to myself, and I wandered. The reality is nothing like what I wanted it to be ... that's why I say, travelling and mingling with diverse people will show us like reading will not.

Reading only makes us followers of a concept, and sometimes in a what can be percieved as an "imperial" way, but if you want to understand it -- travel and observe keenly. Freedom and peace is lovely, and I respect that, but freedom has an equal component of "accountability" -- which is sometimes "very imperial". But from how I understand it, it is "imperial" because we are incapable of creating a better system at this time. Whoever does create one, will be a hero for eternity.

- Kaleem Aziz.

Apples and Oranges.
Going by the morality of holy books may mislead one into getting into these kind of studies:
http://www.barna.org/cgi-bin/PagePressRelease.asp?PressReleaseID=152&Reference=A

I live in America and have lived in places where morality is based on considering nudity a bigger sin than corruption. It is difficult to explain, but I can tell you the maturity and freedom available here cannot only help in homosexuals being free but also in every religious person being free in what they believe. It is my belief that if you travel and mingle here, you'll find a different picture of "morality" than one above that makes you believe "everything is collapsing" or "something is wrong". There is a sense in letting people be free.

I've debated with some folks in UK and they said, "What does US know? They don't even have a culture." as if it was supposed to be a bad thing. But lack of cultural pressures allows many in US to be more free and more creative. I personally believe cultural pressures are stagnating rest of the countries in the name of morality.

Do I think America is over doing it? I don't think so. [May be Germany is.]

Do I think Americans need leadership? Yes.

Do I think Americans need leadership based on the values of the holy books? No.

"Nudity is a bigger evil than Oppression?"

I (also) believe anything that hurts human sustenance is bad. However, I find oppression (lack of freedom because of unscientific cultural values) hurts humanity more than nudity. I agree nudity or gay sex kills too, but I've met gay people -- not all are uneducated and stupid (at least not as stupid to "smoke" and have unprotected relationships). Some I met were hardworking, VPs or CEOs in very dynamic organizations working to serve humanity in bigger ways than the "priests" do -- yet being cornered by some on the basis of judging their "morality" for having personal preferences. How has their being gay, for instance, harmed humanity -- and how has their producing goods that save humanity day-after-day not benefited humanity?

I've met drinkers who are responsible about their drinking and not lead alcholic lives. (Why take away their right just because some others get drunk irresponsibly?) Some of the regulations in US are stricker on deeds that were committed after drinking -- setting the example that drinking is bad, and that they are responsible and accountable for their actions. Drinking by itself may not be good, but regulated drinking gives more freedom as well as accountability. If I impose my morality, "not working harder" and "watching TV every evening" are also immoral -- yet a large part of the world gets away with it! :-)

Why doesn't the above study measure morality of "smoking", "polluting", "ignorance", "smuggling", "terrorism", "drug trafficking", and "cultural pressure"? I think these are also moral values that must be measured.

- Kaleem Aziz.

Reality is not relative.
Is reality relative to the observer? Do the laws of nature "bend"? That is, besides for gravity and magnetism? ;-)

One reasoning goes this way:
The problem with the raltionalist approach and to a lesser extent, I think, with the skeptical approach is that there is no such thing as an objective observer.

Quantum theory tells us that we can't observe certain sub-atomic phenomena without altering what we are observing (Heisenberg's uncertainty principle). Schrodinger showed that this also applies to macro-scale phenomena with a thought-experiment involving a cat. Roger Penrose is convinced that the brain operates on these principles to find solve or create solutions to problems.

The reality that is created by an observation is not limited to the observer. When someone opens the box, Schrodinger's cat is either alive or dead for everyone, not just the observer.

This all leads me towards the conclusion that reality is consensual. Our dominant culture contains a strong contingent of hard-science people who insist that things be reliably repeatable and rationally explicable. But sometimes what is required is a leap of faith.

Who's to say that the world of the Australian Aboriginal is (was) any more or less real to them than ours is to us. And when two such cultures collide is there a real change in the nature of the world?

I've debated this "reality is relative therefore leap of faith is justified" several times, and infact the first few times by being on the side of this belief. But having learned from it you may find my version of understanding a little more distilled.

There are two parts to the above debate. One is about "Heisenberg's uncertainty principle" which states that you cannot find the position of the electron at a point in time, but can measure the momentum instead -- therefore speculating where the electron must've been. Adding to the complexity is the increase in wave mechanics to elements as tiny as the electron, so that there's not just a mass but a wave that must be pictured together. Without going into the latest research where it says that tiny particles like the electrons are dipping into vacuum and emerging from it all the time, it still can be said that the "laws are the same" irrespective of the observer.

So having said that, the frame of reference does change the perception of the observation, but doesn't change the consequence. So a dead cat is either dead or alive, which doesn't change with perception. It has to be that way, because otherwise myth comes in and lawless universe is not stable enough -- it will collapse. The laws give our universe predictability -- if they weren't so magic is very necessary. I know the next question almost always is "why should there be laws that universe follows in the first place?". The answer to that is "I don't know", and I am optimistic believer that future generations will learn to modify the laws of nature, unlike how we think we are great by merely understanding them.

Coming to the second point of it, there are even more contradicting paradoxes like the Twin paradox, Big Bang dynamics and large mass curvatures. In twin paradox one of the twins travels at speed of light and comes back to earth, while the other stays on earth. To the one on earth two years have passed, and to the one that came back from the voyage couple of fortnights have passed -- and the younger one sees the older one with more children and grand children. There are no two ways about this -- it is not a perception of the observer -- it is a fact or a consequence of the law! Similarily, much of the laws of our universe were made at the time of big bang (when the universe was created), but to be able to modify them in our current time may be either mythology or magic or a sure way to death. :) As Stephen Hawking writes in his book, had it been a hundredth of a fraction different at big bang, our universe would not be stable enough to sustain life -- it is as if the universe knew we were coming. He also mentions the "Anthropic Principle" of suppose there was a time when our universe big banged into an unstable universe and could not sustain life -- who would ask the question "Why are we here?". He says, it is probably because we are here that we ask "Why are we here?".

If ours is a closed universe, there is no need of "leap of faith" in believing there is a God or a creator of the universe, because our universe is supposed to oscillate between Big Bangs and Big Crunches on its own. Many of the Big Bangs are supposed to create unstable universes that we don't know about. This one happens to be the one that can sustain us -- for may be a few more hundred billion years. A quadrillion years later, this will be a part of cold matter attracting each other -- going towards each other to cause a big crunch.

About the rest of the cases, yes there may be a "leap of faith" required -- but rather than believing in "leap of faith of an observer" I'd recommend "I don't know". This fundamental flaw in reasoning at this atomic level can cause us to be gullible in deciding at a macro level in our "real" lives.

"`I don't know` is a truthful admission of ignorance that cannot only sustain us, but also help us alleviate a lot of problems that `leap of faith` substitution to `our ignorance of laws of nature` causes us today."

But what I say is the easy part -- to be able to do it in practice for one individual and for an entire race is a totally different ball game (i.e., we vehemently oppose the change that can benefit us -- another "law of nature"). :)

You'll find I went beyond the related topics into what might look like unnecessary details. But I believe, most of the debates going to and fro go to those very next questions from "Heisenberg's uncertainty principle" to relativity to universe to God. So I kept writing my thoughts on all of those.

- Kaleem Aziz.