Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Self Reference and Work.

I am able to relate self-reference and work. First let me tell what I mean by self-reference. We can think of self-reference as a paradox. For example, the statement S : This statement is true, is a self-reference because if we think of S as false, it will be true and if we think of it as true then S is false. So, we are referring the notion of truth and falsehood by a cycle. Pictorially,

True ------> False
True <------ False

Similarly, everyone is doing some thing or other with regard to the outside world and in turn gets some feedback from the world. And this feedback again propels us to do some act and which in turn gets some feedback. So this cycle goes on and on. This is kind of self-reference. Pictorially,

Work ------> Feedback
Work <------ Feedback

This notion of self-reference caused several problems in the development of modern day mathematics where people were unable to determine the validity of some mathematical statements. Similarly, one can think of being caught in the 'vicious' cycle of "work and feedback". To 'break' this self-reference mathematicians finally decided to stick on to the fact that we cannot break the cycle per se, so why don't we just ignore the question. After all, the development of mathematics does not depend on the validity of some statements. Similarly, doesn't it seem logical to think, only if we think that we are working and receiving feedback, we'll never be able to come out from the working world. But, from a wider perspective the development in this world doesn't depend upon our working and receiving feedbacks. But, this shouldn't stop us from working and receiving feedbacks, just as we shouldn't stop asking the validity of the statement S. I guess this is similar to the principle given in Bhagavad Gita, which says don't worry about the work and feedback, just do it without expectations.

7 comments:

High Power Rocketry said...

:O)

Arvind Srinivasan said...

Interesting, you have a lot of posts with a philosophical touch...

You may be interested in checking out my post on Self, Realization and the book Summa Theologica

tt_giant said...

personally, i would not work more than what i can possibly can(whether there is positive or negative or any feedback at all). If the work is interesting, sky is the limit.

it is not fair to trivialize and generalize the workings of the mind to a bunch of equations. my 2 hoots.

ioiio said...

Less Tenson -> More work
More Work -> More tension

Bad world :(

Kasthuri said...

@ alex : Thanks for visiting.

@ arvind : Yes, I like philosophy a lot. I guess that's where ultimatly one has to find peace.

@ tt_giant : Actually, I should have been more specific. By work I meant any act which we do. As you rightly pointed out, we can never expalin the mystery of the mind by equations. I was just giving an analogy.

@ ioiio : :-), Yeh...its always more of tension than work which gets accomplished.

sathish said...

Hi Kasthuri,

did not realise you had a weblog.. nice posts.. would be visiting your regularly..

this reminds me that I have long since visiting puzzling site by lavanya.. gotta visit there next..

Kasthuri said...

Thank you Satish...Yeh I started it a fortnight back. I used to go over your blog too...