TED Community » Pabitra Mukhopadhyay

Comments

• TEDCred score: +38.40 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A reply on Conversation: What is it about 'three'?

  2 days ago: 3443
  Three Thousand Four Hundred Forty Three
  Thirty Four (alphabets).
  Ten
  Three.....

• A reply on Conversation: What makes a good judge?

  2 days ago: India is a Common Law nation. However, I do not think India jurisprudence enjoys any more credibility than those of other democratic countries. I would have been happy to say that as an Indian, but it is simply not true.

• A reply on Conversation: What makes a good judge?

  2 days ago: No discomfort Anna :)
  Actually judgment as in law and as in general context are so different that they are spelt differently :)
  Regarding founding fathers of nations. With all due respect to them, Nation (as in Nation state) is an idea that has run its course. The political scientist Benedict Anderson describes nation states as imagined communities. ‘Imagined’, he writes, ‘because members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the mind of each lives the image of their communion.’ If we take constitutions as the rule books and judgments (as in law) based on that rule book, well we can have a villain and a hero in the same person on the two sides of a geo-political border.
  I shall come back to your comment after a day trip that I need to make to my village to mourn the death of my uncle.

• A reply on Conversation: What is it about 'three'?

  2 days ago: Fritzie, nice summary :)
  I think 3 as a number finds so many references of significance because it is the first of cognitive extensions of an abstract counting system that our consciousness has evolved into. Zero (absence), One (existing materialness) and two (pair, duality) are most probably as ancient as human consciousness, just after our consciousness progressed from the ability to differentiate many from one. This is a number sense that is existent in many animals now.
  3 is the first of the series that human consciousness could develop as a harbinger of a fully developed counting system, approximately 20,000 years ago. It is interesting to note that geometry, one of the most ancient rational branch of study recognized that a dimensional jump from to one to two is only possible by three straight lines as at least 3 such lines are necessary to cover an area.
  The languages stopped evolving in numerical sense (three abounds in language structures, three tenses, three persons, three degrees of comparison, you name it) simply because numerical systems took over the job. There are still remnants of many underdeveloped numero-linguistic roots and words like 'lot', 'many' and group names like 'herd', 'pack' etc.
  The interesting occurrences of three like the ones many are stating here can be due to pattern seeking abilities of of our brains.
  For example, you can write down any number (however large) in words, count the alphabets and write down the resulting number in words again and go on doing it every time ending with 'Four'. Do you think there is anything profound in that?
• +1

  A reply on Conversation: Why are YOU killing the planet?

  3 days ago: "Guilt is a normal human response when a person internalizes that they have done something against their own values and guilt precedes any ideological change and is the driving force to action."
  I think I prefer the Wikipedia description.
  Guilt is a cognitive or an emotional experience that occurs when a person realizes or believes—accurately or not—that he or she has compromised his or her own standards of conduct or has violated a moral standard, and bears significant responsibility for that violation.
  This description keeps unintentional/ignorant mistakes out of the mix.
  I am of the opinion, unless you give me better argument to believe otherwise, that ideological changes are not preceded by guilt, rather deep rooted anxiety about future on a certain way of progress. Guilt or remorse appears more connected to religious idea of repentance or penance and less towards a corrective action for humanity's sake.
• +2

  A comment on Conversation: Why are YOU killing the planet?

  3 days ago: LaMar,
  I don't think the individual YOU should feel guilty. Sad, anxious, worried, alarmed but not guilty. I am not really killing the planet, rather the planet is getting killed on account of a mass hysteria called growth and we are too helpless to stop it, it appears.
  People are doing their best actually. People who are aware, I mean. It is not that tough to be on the solution side. I am in agreement with you that our personal consumption should decrease.
  You may find this relevant.
  http://climatechange.thinkaboutit.eu/think4/post/want_not_waste_not_is_that_relevant_for_climate_change_movement
  And if you so like can check this page too.
  http://climatechange.thinkaboutit.eu/think4/blogger/Mukhopadhyay

• A reply on Conversation: Should Music be Free?

  3 days ago: "I can't buy that, too many people are not capable of fair exchange. "
  Don't you think that is one part due to our faith in currency based transactions?

• A reply on Conversation: What makes a good judge?

  3 days ago: When the judgment is about violation of a social conduct with possibility of criminal intent, the rule book should be written by the fathers of nations (however debatable the notion of nation be) in the form of Constitution, Civil Codes, Laws, Acts or Ordinances. The first rule of a good such book is : We are open to consider changes in the rules anytime it so warrants. So later on people can also write the rule book. Despite all the qualities that you mentioned when it comes to dispensation of justice, a Judge is only as good as the rule book.
  Since you mean 'judge' as in law, I am not going into the general contexts of judgment.

• A reply on Conversation: Should males be treated as superior to female counterparts, in any sphere of life? Why or why not?

  3 days ago: Women, in groups are superior to men in two specific ways, tenacity and consistency. Find a job that requires many trials before hitting success and employ males and females in groups to do the job. My experience says, women will beat men hands down.Similarly find a job that requires hugely repetitive actions (like assembly lines of clothes/garments factory) and my experience says that women will beat men hands down.
  It doesn't necessarily have to be sperms and eggs.
• +3

  A comment on Conversation: Should males be treated as superior to female counterparts, in any sphere of life? Why or why not?

  4 days ago: I am very uncomfortable with the idea of superiority. Males and females are physiologically different. All else is our creation.