Noumenal Notions

On Essence

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 12:02:00 IST

The sensibilities of an individual can largely be determined by the way he uses language. Although a person can be considered articulate when he is able to express himself without hindrance, he still remains far removed from being in complete possession of his words. Its not so much that he wields language imprecisely but he arrives at a place where language itself feels inadequate. The more he expands his verbal repertoire, the more cognizant he becomes of all the things he could never possibly say. Of the things that will forever remain within him. So learning to speak and to write is paradoxically both a liberating and a woefully isolating process. A part of you becomes capable of elaborating a particular thought or feeling but simultaneously there’s also a certain recognition that is thrust upon you. A recognition that in the process of formulating words, you also increasingly distill the essence of what you would like to say or perhaps even of who you are.

Despite the fact that an individual initially learns language through participating in a social landscape, the words afforded by that context is only sufficient in as much as he remains comfortably ensconced within the confines of normalcy. As long as he is within the subset of experience that is shared by many like him, he feels reassured as he rarely ever finds himself unable to say what he thinks or feels. However, if his idiosyncrasies become more apparent, his world of experience takes a sudden departure. It grows and widens to encompass far more than what he is able to say. Everything he sees from thereon not only appears different to his eyes but also unerringly bears the imprint of his profound isolation.

In such instances, which are by no means uncommon, one is able to readily witness what I have taken to call, the essence of things. With every spoken word or written sentence there is an implicit recognition of a certain animating spirit whose demystification constitutes the chief motive of any linguistic expression. Therefore language itself is a shadow of this “essence” which we all perhaps see differently but always by ourselves. From time immemorial, we have sought to peer through this shadow and by revealing that which is hidden, piece together the fragments of its perception. Our attempt to communicate an essence that seems hopelessly personal also appears to be informed by the strange conviction that another must have also thought or felt the same in their isolation. So hidden within language, there seems to be the notion of a certain mystery which, although is felt differently by individuals, still somehow remains the same in and of itself.

Understanding any form of literature usually rests on our ability to decipher this interminable subtext. Therefore the question so much is not what the words themselves reveal in their external form but that essence which they conceal. However, it cannot be denied that what we ultimately possess are the words themselves. For our scientific temperament, it seems far fetched to even speak of such an essence that underpins language let alone claim that it can be the same for all and yet be witnessed differently. Such an obvious contradiction defies the instinct of the modern mind to seek clarity and truth. Doesn’t the nature of this essence and our attempt to formulate its picture obscure the meaning of a particular text? Despite these reservations even if I do infer, isn’t what I see ultimately my own creation?

Our answer to these questions, culturally, have been two fold. Since this essence proves to be a thorn in our royal road to truth, an individual can simply confine himself to thinking and speaking of the part of his experience that is prevalently shared. If he reduces himself to the most common denominator, there’s scarcely any room for misunderstanding. His words are almost instantly understood and language itself serves to bring him closer to others. If however, context does not permit this to happen and an individual, through fate or circumstance, widens his horizons, his attempt to translate this “essence” is either met with complete neglect or it is merely experienced in the level of its external form. In both cases, although radically different from each other, there is a subtle glorification of language. And in this verbal world there are only two possibilities. You either be with others as a fragment of who you are or be alone in your entirety.

As language is stripped of its mystical qualities and becomes exalted as the essence itself, words turn hollow. All they ultimately refer to is themselves, creating an illusory world where every verbal exchange is entirely bereft of meaning. There is some clarity that is achieved in this process but it comes at the expense of a peculiar fragmentation where people exist together and are able to talk to one another but only in the interstice of commonality. Sacrificing “essence” at the altar of this world of appearance seems inconsequential in view of the togetherness that is achieved. So the imitation of essence is gradually taken to be the essence itself making emulation the general rule of life. Therefore what rises to importance is not to become but rather to merely seem.

Nonetheless, it is quite improbable to suggest that these ramifications ensue as a direct consequence of words moving away from the immemorial purpose of encapsulating an underlying essence. Even if I were to employ language towards the end of illuminating this hidden discourse which I witness in my own peculiarity, I quite obviously lose nuance in its articulation. If individuals experienced different facets of this essence in their own eyes and expressed that to each other through a means that is, by nature, inadequate, there appears to be no possibility of even the most rudimentary understanding. Therefore it is far more expedient to speak with one another and form relationships on the foundation of our shared identities. When words encapsulate a common social footing, it precludes any kind of effort on the part of the individual to fully express himself, since the words ultimately allude to a predominant human experience. So people are united, not in virtue of a common ground they have established through the dissimilarities in their perception of an essence, but merely because they use the same words.

The disappearance of essence from the world of language, therefore, effectively marks the death of the individual. It is precisely our efforts to look beyond words, to both express and unearth the strange artifact beneath them that reminded us of our inner dichotomy. In our perception of this artifact, this truth, we were forever separated and doomed to endlessly converse through means that were always far too small for what it concealed. In this process, even if we became fragmented as individuals, we were still united in the belief that there was more to the world than what seemed to be. Our relationships consequently were predicated not on the basis of what we already had but what we could give each other. It was not on the basis of what we could say, but what we couldn’t. The mystery that loomed over language propelled us to see each other, be with one another in a place beyond words. And in this journey, what fundamentally sustained us was the conviction that despite having eyes that saw differently, what they ultimately witnessed was one and the same.

Pockets Of Eternity

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 07:43:58 IST

I have for long considered the pursuit of knowledge and art as solitary endeavours. Despite the prevalence of institutions that impart education and the necessity of participating in communities therein to further our horizons, I felt there was always a personal element in the instinct to create and understand which was beclouded by the presence of the “Other”. Throughout history the echos of this opinion has resounded in the desolate rooms of many great thinkers united strangely by their mutual hatred for human company. It is not that they disliked people or belittled what they had to offer but within the hallowed sphere of their creation the existence of another seemed, almost, like defilement. Yet, the product of that very creation would fade into obscurity without eyes to behold it. Isn’t the value of art and literature in some measure diminished if it went unobserved? Even more so if it were forgotten? So it seems evident that any artistic creation partly derived its value from those who where willing to remember it. But paradoxically, the act of creating required solitude. A place where an individual stands alone, freed from the stifling claws of observation so that his mind can soar to the very limits of human thought.

The lives of these great philosophers and artists unmistakably bear the insignia of this perennial conflict. It is quite trivial to glean that underneath all of their works there is a persistent attempt to claw their way into a singular moment of isolation where they can speak, not as proponents of a specific context, but as unadulterated individuals. The search for this inner voice is as breathtaking to see as it is hazardous to wield because in its display one is reminded of the gulf that separates him from the world. Undoubtedly the reason art enjoys acclaim is because in it a curious observer is able to see a reflection of some thought or feeling that he had nursed deep within but the artist only grows more and more distant in this process. It was as though to preserve his solitude and yet deprive himself of it, he crystallizes a part of his being so that it can participate in the world at his behest.

However none of these considerations seemed to me important because I had grown accustomed to seeing art for merely what it represents. I was of the opinion that any kind of creation, especially art, transcends its progenitor the moment it is fully created. It always leads a life of its own and sometimes even assumes interpretations its creator might not have intended. To me the beauty of art consisted in this detachment and the question of who was behind it and why sullied its objectivity. But recently my attention has been drawn towards the individuals behind these great works and, more importantly, the instinct which propelled them to create. More than the relation that art shares with truth and meaning, what is its relation to the tormented soul who birthed it? Or perhaps to put it differently, in the face of life’s travails why is it that we find the need to create?

Although I have hitherto framed this question within the context of esteemed thinkers and artists, the thread of creation, at least in some small measure, is woven into all of our lives. All of us are accustomed to occupying a state of duality, being either as individuals who tirelessly strive to create or as witnesses of another’s creation who perpetuate its existence in memory for as long as one lives. Humanity’s entire corpus of knowledge and art fundamentally establishes a continuity of remembrance. By reading the works of a distant philosopher or in witnessing art from a remote era, you participate in the revival of a primordial memory which not only serves as the recollection of what was produced but also of why. Nonetheless, the latter part of this equation still remains more elusive than the former. There is, quite evidently, some desire to escape time in the origins of any creation alongside an attempt to stand against reality. Art achieves its ability to peer through the fabric of what is “real” through the postulation of a lie. An artifice that is partly made to be witnessed and remembered but in its crucible precludes the presence of any other.

These reflections, at least to me, indicated that in the instinct to create one finds humanity’s most primordial endeavour and perhaps also its oldest riddle. It is customary to remark that all great artists are immortal because as long as the vestiges of their work exist, they continue to participate in our lives and at times even serve as luminaries in our darkest hour. Although it is true that most of us do not have the makings of such great men, we still harbour the same instincts. There has always been, for as long as man existed, a bitter struggle to contend with time. In spite of the fact that the artists and thinkers of history championed this struggle through the immortalization of a part of themselves, they were still defeated by the certainty of their own demise. Our imaginative faculties which allows us to look beyond the confines of our immediate present unfortunately also abandons us to live with the knowledge of oblivion. Being creatures that exist within the flow of time and yet aware of a reality outside of it, in what way could we possibly define our selves? We are able to establish cause and effect and through the succession events, construct a “self” which we take to be our own nature but in the reaches of our imagination, the din of eternity still resounds.

Therefore in the life of the artist or any individual who exercises his creative faculties, one not only finds a primitive struggle against the brevity of human existence but also a microcosm that reveals the inner contradictions of human nature. Any attempt to define the individual by resorting to his nationality, creed or religion seems down right fictitious as it only accounts for the “I” ensconced within the flow of time and context. So what do we do with the part of ourselves which appeals to the infinite? Which not only recognizes its existence scattered across time but also within other individuals. In its broadest sense, art represents an attempt to satiate this desire for the infinite in man and therein one finds the beginnings of his higher nature. However, feelings of love and compassion which evince his deeper humanity also reveals that artistic creation does not merely consist in producing an oeuvre. It could comprise of any action which, although seemingly mundane, leaves an imprint of the infinite.

So not only do we find the records of this instinct in the deepest harmonies of music or in literature of the most sublime kind but also in relations of one to the “Other”. The very same relations that a person, in the process of his creative work, comes to despise the most as it deprives him of his inner voice. In this treacherous landscape of time where an individual forever struggles to manifest the eternal against the chatter of the crowd, what do we make of human nature? In its purest form, art becomes a living memory which serves to remind one of the very thing that remembers. In the immersion of its elaborate construct, we are able to behold a fleeting moment of sheer perfection. Its almost as if we find ourselves within a pocket of eternity where time comes to a halt. Where we witness, as I always imagine, not only the secret order of all things but also the manufacturer of that moment in all their stark lucidity. We do our utmost to stay in this narrow embrasure of time interspersed between the seeming monotony of events but it departs immediately like a weary traveller eager to return to her home.

As much as the architect of the embrasure experiences this in all its fullness, he’s also aware that our weary traveller heeds to his beck and call which makes him feel all the more lonely. I have seen our hearts yearn for many things in these moments. As witnesses we attempt to entrench these pockets of eternity deep in our hearts by reliving the experience that begets them. As architects we strive for the mastery of tools to fashion the embrasure, hoping that it not only beckons our traveller but also any others that might even fancy the architecture. We want to witness others in their truth and want to be witnessed in our own. But besides these moments of timelessness that feels as distant as the stars after they have transpired but closer than the air we breath as they occasion, what hope do we have?

As I had suggested before most of us are not Dostoevsky or Mozart in our pursuits. We do not have tools as refined as theirs and neither do we sculpt embrasures as beautiful but we all remain artists at heart. Fashioning such timeless moments have never been the prerogative of the arts. In pursuits of knowledge or even in enterprises that are most remote and mechanical, one finds a cascade of embrasures, different perhaps in their structure and form but unified in their purpose. However a significant part of ourselves still belongs to the world of time. Our context, as ephemeral as it is, engenders human differences and despite our best efforts, we can never witness the truth of another without tainting it by our own. The entire history of the human race, in my opinion, is unified in its yearning for eternity and we wish that she never leaves us. In each moment where an individual catches her glimpse, he tries to imprison her. He fashions the most beautiful sonnets or melodies to sever the tether which bounds her home but all she gives us in return is a memory. In our greed, we have our eyes set on the traveller and fooled by her weariness we do our utmost to make her stay, hoping that she makes us forget ourselves in all our wretchedness. But I think we often fail to see that in the memories that she gives lies a path to her origin. Only then do we realize that it was not weariness that consumed her but a desire to prevent our unbecoming which lead the way to her home.

Weltanschauung

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 10:06:33 IST

There’s one particular passage in the Archaeology of Knowledge where Foucault calls himself as the enemy of the Weltanschauung, a word that loosely represents a general orientation towards life. Such a proclamation seems rather innocuous in and of itself but if understood in the proper context, it reveals Foucault’s disdain for overarching truths and narratives. By pioneering the postmodern technique, he hoped to show that knowledge, throughout history, has never progressed cumulatively. There were endless debates about the nature of the world and in the intersection of each epoch, new frameworks of knowledge and truth displaced more than it built on the work of its predecessors. So instead of seeing a movement towards objectivity or better approximations of truth, Foucault witnessed a history of dispersion. A series of events which only acquired meaning within a certain frame of reference, which according to Foucault, was mostly discursive.

As much as these observations seem reasonable enough, they also entail the invariable conclusion that all affirmations of truth and morality are fundamentally tyrannical. Since there can be no question of a true objectivity, making it possible to discern truth and error only inside a certain reference point, the act of choosing one reference over another becomes arbitrary or as Foucault called it, contingent. It naturally followed that arguing for a specific worldview was more an instantiation of your unique context than an attempt to communicate what you believed to be true. The subject was always subordinate to the rules within which he existed. Rules that not only informed his way of life but which also ultimately determined what he could say to be true or false. In virtue of the fact that an individual’s conceptions was fettered by this intellectual tyranny, Foucault undertook the herculean task of deconstructing these rules and contexts by showing that under the weight of his analytical knife, nothing remained which was not our own linguistic construction.

It became pointless to search for hidden meanings, underlying truths or some ulterior discourse which illuminated the secret order of things. All of us existed in an ateleological sea of islands drifting aimlessly and moving towards nowhere. And the fact that we inhabited an island, cherished a specific value, held a worldview dear to us or elaborated a certain Weltanschauung is simply a consequence of historical happenstance. Although such claims ring the death knell of most things I consider worthwhile in human life, they enjoyed wide acclaim and continues to, in my opinion, inform the undercurrents of modern culture.

It is by no means radical to say that society now suffers from a general loss of objectivity which found its loudest expression in Foucault’s works. Throughout the world we see the continuous rise of extremism whose flames are fanned mostly by the prevalent aversion towards disagreements. If, as Foucault claims, there really is no underlying thread which connects seemingly random events in history, no place where a person can meet another outside his frame of reference, what becomes the purpose of human relationships? Why would I cherish disagreements when all I see in it is a gaping cleft that reminds me of my abject loneliness? As mired with contradictions Foucault’s ideas seem to be, they are also a faithful expression of an isolation that is now widely felt. For a rational mind that prefers ugly truths over comforting delusions, it seems appealing to embrace this ambivalence and wage war against the Keepers of Weltanschauung vainly searching for something they may never find. However for a mind that is both rational but also shudders in the fear of its own separation, it would be more desirable to hold ground and use whatever means it has at its disposal to delay the isolation it perceives to be imminent.

So it is no surprise that we are no longer able to find a place of commonality in disagreements. We tenaciously cling on to our beliefs and worldviews because, much like Foucault, we are not quite sure what exists outside of them. And we are more terrified of what we are without them. Therefore as much as I recognize the seeming arbitrariness of my own notions, in what hope am I to relinquish them, even momentarily, if all I see outside my island are vistas of interpretations and perspectives stretching into nothingness? Isn’t this all the more reason to hold on to what has been given to me? Wouldn’t I be a fool to forsake what I imperfectly know for a possibility of perfection I might never attain? We have nursed these questions deep in our hearts, albeit rather poorly, and we are preoccupied with answering it unlike a fool, but why shouldn’t you be a fool?

The Gordian Knot

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 09:56:33 IST

Introduction

There are many things that one often encounters in life, which, for no apparent reason, incurs his immediate disapproval. Such premature judgments can be a little concerning because they sometimes express our prejudices or other convenient misconceptions we might selfishly entertain. However underneath this seeming lapse in judgment there could also be a certain form of intuition at work. A way of seeing that signifies personal insight more than any kind of hateful bigotry. Instead of learning to discern between the two, we generally prefer to dismiss judgements of this sort, sometimes rightly so, regarding their spontaneity as a sure sign of ignorance.

Contemporary discourse has in many ways greatly benefited from being cautious towards such inner exigencies. So much so that discussions are expected to proceed along the lines of explicit, justifiable and, I dare say, pragmatic reasons. Dialogue is confined to the mere analysis of statements where any attempt to understand the other person or reconcile differences is subordinated to the quest of objectivity. Given that our whims and instincts mislead us more often than not, why shouldn’t we conduct ourselves otherwise? What bearing could our feelings, our intuitions and our deepest inclinations have in the pursuit of truth?

For the longest time, I considered the elimination of this “subjective” element as the mark of sober reasoning. Arguments presented in such a light speak for themselves and make way for the emergence of facts. In difficult matters these personal elements only stand to becloud the issue, effectively preventing any kind of discernment between truth and error. Nonetheless, this objectivity can only be meaningful in so far it serves the end of understanding. So what must one do when this objectivity ceases to illuminate? When it confronts forms of truth and human activity that cannot be reduced to a plane of reasoning? When it no longer facilitates mutual understanding but instead perverts the intentions of the speakers, reducing them to mindless automatons who have entirely forgotten the very purpose of human dialogue?

As isolated as it may seem, the subjugation of such human elements to a higher order of things is now commonplace. I personally found myself in the throes of this conflict in regards to the idea of specialized education. Ever since my departure from formal schooling, the way I had learned became extremely disorganized and spasmodic. In contrast to the stringent schedules and the neatly defined boundaries between subjects, I learned haphazardly and as randomly as I could. I felt the distinctions between intellectual endeavours slowly wane and I no longer saw them as isolated subjects oriented towards a predetermined end, but rather as an organic breathing edifice that represented the expression of the human instinct to illuminate the world. As I engaged with this edifice, it demanded the attention not just of my mind but of my whole being.

Following this realization, it was no longer possible for me to return to my old ways. I couldn’t wake up everyday and learn on prescribed times, eyeing constantly towards the utility of whatever I was taught. My tempo had long ceased to conform to the general blueprint that was laid out. It was as though for the first time I was able to feel the rhythm that resounded in the deepest parts of myself. All of this however only made me more maladjusted to the demands of civilized life. I was perplexed by the idea of specialization and how prevalent it had become. It was not just doing one thing that was worrying but it often came at the expense of being ignorant of the sheer breath of human experience. Knowledge was prevalently considered as nothing more than a means to sustenance and consequently it became important that learning must always serve a practical utility. As a result, what was ultimately required for survival became technical expertise. Some form of talent that rendered our pitiless existence slightly meaningful.

We have called this higher order of things “objectivity” in one place and “specialization” in another. There are still many more words that can broadly encompass this phenomenon but it still remains mostly obscure. What is clear however is that there is a persistent attempt to tame human nature. To modify and condition our modalities in order to make it conform to a set of rules. Most would call these rules as “society” but even that leaves much to be explained. Confronting an onslaught of external threats which undermine human survival is not solely a product of our time. Although technological progress has removed the constant worry of fighting for basic means and sustenance, our life continues to be, in many ways, encroached by imperceptible forces. But in light of the unprecedented luxury and abundance that surrounds us, this seems either far fetched or atleast trivial. If anything, progress has occasioned an era of endless possibilities where communication, transportation and commerce have acquired a breathtaking degree of perfection. And in the intoxication of what is possible, of the treasures that the future holds in store, conforming to rules seems unimportant or perhaps even desirable. After all, isn’t conformity an inconsequential sacrifice in the path towards technological progress?

Ends and Means

The problems engendered by such technological developments has entered the purview of many great thinkers. Aldous Huxley, who is particularly known for his novel “Brave New World”, spent the better part of his life trying to understand the ramifications of technology and how it could lead to the subjugation of human nature. Working along similar lines, George Orwell in his infamous “1984” also presaged the rise of totalitarianism and the eradication of individual liberties through technological means. Both Orwell and Huxley envisioned a dystopian future that was dominated by some form of totalitarian state which replaced values of freedom and criticality with either unquestioning obedience or mindless luxury. Despite their differences, it was clear to both of them that fundamentally human values which served as the cornerstone of civilization were under siege and technology would be its coupe de grace. But the question remains, how did this come to be? If technology simply served as a means to an end to land the final blow doesn’t the actual problem lie elsewhere?

It is inadequate to suggest that mere perfection of technological capabilities were solely responsible for the siege on human values. There were many historical conditions which contributed to this malaise, especially the dissolution of religious and metaphysical structures under the primacy of reason. Much like Galileo’s decentering of the earth in the solar system, man’s nature and his existence were dethroned from being the fulcrum which organized human affairs. The works of Freud and Darwin, in their unparalleled rational lucidity, penetrated the supposed metaphysical roots of an individual, showing that our innermost beings were determined, not by divine will, but impersonal natural laws. Humanity was dissuaded from the notion that they were children of two distinct worlds. The mounting evidence suggested that they only belonged to the tangible and must reckon with the brevity it invariably imposed. The emergence of these ideas was followed by a slew of rationalist totalitarian ideologies, attempting to fashion men in the image of perfection. If the possibility of transcendence was entirely annihilated, if there really was no metaphysical enclosure, no extra-mundane point of view which justified the suffering that abounds, it became our responsibility to establish worldly paradise. And fundamentally reconstitute society to ensure man’s return to Eden that was so vainly promised in archaic scriptures.

The central concern of almost all modernist ideologies then was to discover the ideal form of social organization that would usher in this utopia. Despite the apparent differences between the various “isms” that were consequently produced, they were all premised on the idea that human nature was essentially malleable. Whatever identity we constructed for ourselves and the enshrined values which sought to protect human nature nature was considered a product of social and culture circumstances. There was no such thing as fundamentally “human” problems. They were merely problems of society, of culture and as a result warranted external reform more than individual insight. The deeply entrenched belief of the arbitrariness of our existence, underpinned by the hubris that attempts to remake man in whatever way one sees fit, is, in my opinion, the animating spirit of modern culture.

Aldous Huxley, in his book “Ends and Means”, presented a particular way of looking at history that illuminated the workings of this spirit. Huxley observed that with the rise of totalitarian ideologies which sought to revolutionize society by undermining the idea of the hallowed “individual”, there was also an increasing tendency to justify decadent means by invoking the nobility of their ends. The Nazis were justified in the massacring of Jews because they wanted to cleanse the world and usher in a paradisal state of humanity. The lies perpetrated by communists, their mass genocide of the Kulaks and the disenfranchisement of citizens were all necessary means to achieve the ideal society. A society that was entirely devoid of suffering. As much as these events bear an ideological veneer, Huxley proposed that it was underpinned by a fundamental perversion of “ends” and “means”. None of these ideologies and their proponents professed the destruction of humanity. They simply wanted to put an end to some of the perennial problems that plagued us all. They firmly believed that the atrocities they committed would be vindicated by the future whose foundations they were laying in blood.

This was, according to Huxley, not just a characteristic of extremist ideologies but of modern society in general. For instance, the ultimate end of education has always been one of personal enlargement. It was to teach individuals to think critically, question and engage with problems of life in a manner that was fruitful and undogmatic. However, Huxley pointed out that modern society was more concerned with producing specialists than individuals who were truly educated. Specialization initially made its appearance to facilitate cooperation and the leveraging of one’s specific talents. What it produced instead was according to Huxley a form of “general imbecility”. Doctors, engineers and educators in spite of having profound technical knowledge in their respective fields were still hopelessly prey to ideological and dogmatic slumber. They did their job and, more often that not, they did it exceptionally well. Why must one think and question, engaging oneself in affairs that lie outside the bounds of his expertise when he has already achieved mastery?

In matters of law, education, politics and even in general conversation one can clearly discern that the ultimate ends of all these human activities are being slowly eclipsed by the supposed means of their realization. Education that should foster critical thought instead engenders selective ignorance. Political ideologies that served to profess important values are now simply a sophisticated pretext to wield power. The practice of law that once remained subordinate to the pursuit of ideal justice has devolved into an indifferent framework which recognizes no truth outside its own legality. But most important of all, conversations themselves have become vain attempts to eradicate silence by filling it with words that have no real relationship with those who utter them. There is some parallel between this line of development and the siege on human values that was alluded to previously. However it is important to recognize that those values have not entirely disappeared from our horizon. All of us still collectively extol truth, justice, equality and the importance of critical thought. But these self professed ideals have been hollowed out. The tether which rooted them in a particular way of looking at the world has been severed entirely. They exist as mere spectres whose true loyalty now lies elsewhere.

Technique and Ellul

So with these observations we have implicitly painted the picture of a frontier whose precise nature bedevils us. It is, for the most part, a landscape pervaded by ambiguity where, as Nietzsche so famously proclaimed, there is no “up or down”. Where values, no longer grounded by an overarching Weltanschauung, retain only their most provisional identities. However underneath the perversion of such human ends, we can glean the faint whispers of a movement whose importance we have so far underestimated. It is a movement that seems quite indifferent to ideological and moral considerations because it does not require the impetus of human initiative. It proceeds along its own lines, transforming whatever lies in its path and recognizes no ends outside itself. As much as Huxley provided us with a perspective which illuminated the problems of modern man whilst warning us of the nefarious role technology would come to play, it was Jacques Ellul who could see, in its entirety, the movement transforming modern culture. According to Ellul the threat did not consist of men indiscriminately wielding the powers of technology. It was rather in technology itself, imposing its mechanical will and turning us all essentially blind to judgments of good and evil. The fundamental insight that Ellul furnished to the discussion of the technological phenomenon is that as much as technology is a product of modern man, modern man is also equally a product of technology.

Like Huxley, Ellul also adopted a perspective similar to “ends and means” which he deployed to trace the development of modern culture. But he departed from most other thinkers in his peculiar treatment of technology. He proposed that the technological phenomenon has a two fold aspect. It is partly historical in the sense that one can observe its beginnings long before the proper invention of any machine like apparatus. He considered this nascent stage of development “technological” because it is marked by the use of technique. A technique, in common understanding, refers to a set of means systematically employed to achieve a predetermined end. The technique itself is impartial to whoever applies it and its efficacy is largely determined by its own nature. Ellul’s conceptualization of technique is quite similar but he does not confine its application to a purely mechanical context. As much as the tools of hunting in primitive societies constitutes as a form of technique, the application of rationality, the practice of law and politics or even the implementation of economic policies also equally come under its purview.

Therefore by extending the domain proper of technique, Elull characterized a framework of ends and means where technological progress was constituted by the perfection of techniques hitherto devised. And the machine, in this line of development, represented the epitome of such a process. As much as any human activity can be encapsulated by this fabric of ends and means, what distinguished a technique was its impersonal striving for perfection. It consisted of means, often leveraging some form of rational principle, that was arrived at through careful experimentation. And its very conception begets a search for the most efficient way to attain its purpose. A technique could include something as tangible as the methodical use of fire in forging weapons and as abstract as a pedagogical structure in institutions of education. Throughout the course of history, the number of techniques employed to understand and harness nature has steadily increased. But there was always, as Ellul notes, a mysterious desire to temper its proliferation.

In Greece, particularly, there was an emphasis placed on maintaining the economy of means in different facets of civic and personal life. Whenever a situation necessitated the creation of some “new” technique, the Greeks made the utmost efforts to assimilate the novelty within their existing framework. They maintained that regardless of circumstance it was always wise to leverage existing mechanisms to address issues rather than creating something seemingly better. According to the Greeks, techniques only existed to facilitate a life of simplicity and not its own development. Historical records abound with such examples where the perfection of existing means or techniques did not always occupy the forefront of social consciousness. A black smith forging weapons for battle was concerned, not just with the practical utility of his product, but also its aesthetic appeal. Considerations of truth, beauty and simplicity always hovered above the desire of technique to achieve its own perfection, making the use of it not an impersonal mechanical process leading nowhere but a conscious deliberate choice in securing an ideal.

The search for efficiency only began when the overseers of this latent desire slowly disappeared, creating a social milieu where technique could operate without mitigation. This consists of the other aspect of the technological phenomenon, a social and historical environment which whole heartedly accepted the movement towards endless perfection and efficiency. Therefore with the industrial revolution the world saw an explosive growth of techniques which encompassed all of human life. New forms of economic organization were invented. Bureaucratic machineries significantly expanded to account for the growing population. The universities accommodated to disciplines with endless sub divisions, each of which did more or less the same under different contexts. Most importantly, the progress of science created machines that could harness the forces of nature like never before which, whilst accomplishing unparalleled technical wonders, also put weapons of mass destruction at the hands of a few powerful men.

Technology was allowed to grow without boundaries or restrictions, creating a world of intricate inter dependence where modern man’s primary preoccupation was to integrate himself to this process. One of Ellul’s chief insights about the technological explosion was that each development, each specialization and invention of a new technique called for more of itself. Therefore with the proliferation of techniques, of disciplines and sophisticated machines, grew the endless need for perfection and efficiency. The need to constantly move forward which was underpinned by a strange human instinct for ceaseless doing. Nothing mattered as long as one contributed to the expansion of the technical milieu. As questions of “why” were relegated into needless philosophy, individuals immersed themselves into the more relevant problems of “how”, making specialization the sin qua non of modern life. Akin to a spider trapped in its own web, modern man became confined by the technological society which he created. A society where every step forward reminds him that the purpose of his existence was in his own undoing. Where what was required of him was not the development of his individual faculties or the fruition of his curiosity but rather his mere capacity to just “do”.

The Knot

Therefore with the rise of technology, there emerged a culture of techniques and technicians preoccupied with their jobs and how it contributed to nothing more than the movement forward. Mechanisms belonging to political, economic, judicial and psychological domains sought only their own elaboration. The mass of techniques called forth by the modern era under the pretext of prosperity created a monolithic societal machinery whose furtherance was contingent upon reducing individuals to a statistical average. But the nature of this technological society, of how the mysterious “technique” transformed modern life still remains elusive. Isn’t technique merely a process through which you efficiently do something? What could possibly be dangerous about striving for perfection and honing our talents to achieve what we deem as valuable?

It is not any individual technique per se that presents such a great threat. Techniques in politics and economics have helped us construct better societies. Psychological techniques, although fairly recent, have afforded better insight into human nature, greatly informing decisions on workplaces and other environments where individuals might confront undue stress. All of the various techniques that emerged in the wake of the industrial revolution seems to have, if anything, improved the quality of human life. But it is important to recognize that none of these domains can be viewed in isolation. I believe in the very act of doing, in engaging one’s intellectual or physical capacities systematically to secure an outcome, there is a certain momentum, a comfort that was heavily guarded against. Being left to reckon with the weight of sentience, the capacity for mere doing has always been our immemorial source of refuge. However in this immersion, we are also reduced to uni dimensional creatures hoping momentarily to liberate ourselves from the mire of consciousness. The primordial need to escape the reality of the human situation, of the impossible questions it invariably imposes, is what technique as a whole exploits.

As much as all the domains we have hitherto discussed make life tentatively better, there is an impersonal automatism that informs their development, giving rise to a never ending procession where individuals are only allowed to be the purveyor of cause and effect, perpetually forgetting, for as long as they can, about the true nature of existence. Therefore beneath the enticing spectacle of technological development, one finds the steady encroachment of an ateleological fabric encompassing all of human life. With every new technique and specialization, with every scientific discovery and political development, there is a creation of “necessity”, reciprocally producing more of itself as it offers respite from the burden of reflection. So the relentless march towards progress, despite the luxurious amenities it affords, is also fundamentally an attempt to forget. To reduce a person into a mere constellation of factors whose only purpose is to elaborate the societal fabric which maintains his dreamless stupor.

In view of these observations, it doesn’t take much to realize that the conditions of modern life are oriented towards our unbecoming. And within such a society, survival is only guaranteed in the abandoning of idiosyncrasies or atleast those of which that impede the progress of this machinery. The forms of knowledge that are consequently produced and their application, although seemingly operating for a higher purpose, mostly contribute to the adjustment of men to society. Not to the enlargement of their consciousness. So even in a discipline as evidently altruistic as psychology, only issues of maladjustment are addressed, sometimes at the expense of nurturing one’s individual nature. But none of these developments necessitate an increase in human suffering.

The world that we now live in is quite far removed from the Orwellian vision of authoritarian states. Wars waged in the name of religion and rational ideologies were resisted by denizens of the state because they persecuted the innocent. They threatened to take away the freedom of individuals by force because they believed it served a higher purpose. But what if force was instead replaced by consent? As Huxley writes in Brave New World, why would individuals want freedom at the expense of personal responsibility? Why would they want to nurture themselves at the expense of maladjustment? Why would they prefer truth to the comfort of propaganda? The apparent use of force in modern times has been steadily decreasing because it is no longer necessary. The mass of techniques we have discussed and all the different domains it has produced, although offering isolated moments of reflection, as a whole plunge modern man into a delightful slumber from which he has no reason to awake.

In the story of the fall, Adam ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge because he was enticed by Satan. Before the fruit and the accursed knowledge of good and evil, all he had ever known was bliss. The birth of consciousness that soon followed Adam’s lapse in judgment, is also the birth of human suffering. Although these ancient stories have been relegated into the antiquities of the past, the longing for paradisal bliss never truly faded from the heart of man. A longing sometimes manifesting as a desperate plea to undo Adam’s fatal error. I cannot help but see the technological society as the incarnation of such a plea. In the bustle of modern crowds, in the secluded libraries of universities, in fully packed theaters and in the chambers of parliaments one can hear the constant hum of this plea resounding louder and louder. The hum soothes the ear it befalls, guaranteeing not only the happiness of the beholder but also his sanity.

But what if one closes his ears? He is assailed by questions to which there are no answers. He is confronted by empty values which perpetuate mindless doing. He sees the perversion of ends and means, of techniques and its subjects. He is cast aloof, left with no direction except the voice of the vox populi. He risks severing the last tether which grounds him in the world of the profane as he asks himself what is the immutable foundation upon which a man can discern good from evil?

The Hum of Doing

Wed, 23 Jul 2025 13:56:03 IST

Ever since my departure from institutions of formal learning, my concern for academics had slowly waned and withered. I have not met anyone who likes examinations or assessments, not even those who excel in them. It is almost unanimously perceived as tedious and even the best of students would likely prefer another mode of evaluation. Despite its short sightedness and its attempt to reduce students to a quantitative measure, examinations still remain as the prevalent means through which we judge qualification and merit. Although I have reached a point in my life where I wouldn’t have to take any more of these, at least within the confines of academics, it still bothers me in some ways.

It was evident that this abiding concern had only little to do with the distress academia had caused me. In a test, I had always felt that I was constantly put in a position to prove my worth. To justify what pragmatic utility my existence had ultimately served. As much as everyone would agree such quantitative measures are woefully inadequate at even judging a phenomenon, let alone a person, we are still forced to contrive one out of necessity. Only numbers and magnitudes can inform action. And given the fact that we exist within a culture that views dissent from ceaseless doing as failure, we strive to be engaged. To compete and out do each other in whatever ways that are presented to us.

Academic evaluation remains as a thorn on my side because in some sense it revealed a dangerous tendency that I have since observed everywhere. The obsession of means over ends. Examinations and by extension even the entire educational edifice exists to enlighten individuals. And any numerical quantity is only meaningful in so far it measures what it intends to. But within academia, I could observe that any quantitative measure which is supposed to be nothing more than a symbol of knowledge appeared to take a life of its own. And as the symbol became increasingly detached from what it signified, it only referenced itself. So every pursuit within academia, became to me, a pursuit of quantity. A relentless attempt to conquer and relish what is ultimately a hollow symbol at the expense of true knowledge.

I had for a very long time accepted this as normalcy until my hiatus from institutions. Being in a position, for the first time, to reflect clearly I soon realized how fundamentally rotten and soulless the process of learning I had hitherto adopted truly was. But I also observed that this seemingly isolated problem pervaded almost all facets of life. I could see the far reaching influence of such hollow symbols everywhere from science to politics. The pursuit of truth which had once been the heart of scientific movements became subordinate to the necessity of application. Political ideologies which served to remind us of perennial values are now mere pretext to weild wealth and power.

Every human endeavour, every decision and mode of thought ultimately became enslaved to the deafening hum of doing. It no longer mattered to anyone “why” one must do but rather “how” well you can do it. As I struggled to place myself in this world, pursuing interests and desires which had always emphasized the why, I found myself invariably drowned by the ceaseless motion of the world around me. The means and methods we had devised to make life better have now paradoxically possessed it. Movement is now the primary preoccupation of life and all that matters is your contribution to the endless march of civilization. Swept by the tide of progress and the usurpation of means over ends, we are left chasing hollow symbols as we become hollow ourselves.

The AI Hype

Thu, 26 Jun 2025 09:48:15 IST

In a previous blog of mine on Linux, I talk about how the commonplace ignorance towards technology is becoming more detrimental with each day. This is an idea that one of my favourite writers Neal Stephenson introduced in his essay “In the Beginning was the Command Line”. To provide a brief summary, the essay outlines the development of major operating systems and reflects on how since the inception of the “GUI”, end users have come to increasingly relinquish the control they have over computers. Ease of use always entails a certain amount of ignorance and sometimes it is warranted. But when this interface, which is supposed to facilitate unmitigated communication, falsifies or subtly leads you towards performing a specific task, it becomes something else entirely.

I have found this frame of reference extremely useful in discerning between good and bad software. If a particular program strives to be transparent and fulfills its task as effectively as possible, I usually consider it well written. Recently I have been exposed to a fair bit of discourse surrounding AI which prompted me to evaluate it along these lines. While some regard the technology to be revolutionary, others dismiss it altogether on the basis of describing AI to be nothing more than a glorified auto complete.

I personally err towards the latter side of the debate for both personal and general reasons. In my experience using AI, properly called LLM, I have found it useful in certain respects. It can rearrange text quite efficiently and might even be useful for looking up syntax or documentation for commands. But when you engage the LLM with more sophisticated tasks, even if it is strictly confined to programming, it is needless to say that it fails rather miserably. This limitation of LLMs and its inability to generalize in any meaningful sense arises because LLMs do not understand. They simply predict the next word in a given prompt, creating a feeble illusion of intelligence that crumbles almost instantly with scrutiny.

I find this predictive nature of LLMs problematic for many reasons but mostly because of how it deceives someone of what it actually offers. As you enter a prompt in ChatGPT or Gemini, what you get in response gives you all the impression of some rudimentary intelligence at work but the truth couldn’t be farther from it. However there’s an even more alarming concern. With the rise of “Vibe Coding” and the general practice of using LLMs to sidestep any serious writing, especially in Academia, this technology also appears to be a fuelling a culture of mediocrity.

Under the pretense of letting AI do all the hard work, its users become increasingly detached from a particular task, settling either for sloppy code that just works or content that barely passes off as human. In the context of our interface analogy, its not just that AI throws a veil on the machine you use but rather on life itself as it removes you from fully engaging in pursuits that are of inherent value. Both in education and perhaps even in the world at large, AI is assuming the role of an interface for living in a culture that cares more about appearance and quantity than anything else.

A good tool is always marked by an ability to bring you closer to the work at hand. It doesn’t just make things easier but also provides a conduit through which you can understand and derive lasting value from whatever you are doing. In our pursuit of seeking expedience, I believe we have reached a point where mindless work is being praised as technological breakthrough. And if it is anything that LLMs presage, it is our credulity to unthinkingly accept any novel innovation in the name of progress.

Old School Socializing

Tue, 17 Jun 2025 20:18:14 IST

Human interaction has taken many forms since the dawn of the internet. From the humble beginnings of electronic mails, we now live in an era of instant messaging where the experience of communication afforded by platforms like Whatsapp or Telegram is nothing short of seamless. Provided that you have an account in these services, they allow you to call, text and even share any kind of multimedia content to another person using the same service. There are also other platforms like X (formerly Twitter) or Reddit where the structure of interaction is of a different kind. Instead of talking with people you already know, these platforms widen your exposure by allowing you to follow whoever you want, serving content based on your interests and preferences. Reddit, in particular, allows a user to subscribe and follow a “subreddit” where people come together to talk about a specific area of interest.

Of course, it would be rather naive to assume that this is all there is to the picture. The recent decisions taken by some of these platforms is a testament to how they have come to corrupt regular user experience. Either by aggressively pushing ads or censoring posts under the pretense of dubious regulations, such platforms have come to serve content that has little to no relevance to actual user preferences. I feel that most of these digital places which now connect billions of users all over the world have entirely forgotten the purpose of their existence. Their contemporary allure consists entirely of the sheer quantity of users they host, rendering meaningful exchange of ideas into a distant memory.

Before my hiatus from these digital hubs of socialization, I used many of these platforms as a means to connect with people. Growing profoundly dissatisfied with Instagram, I temporarily found respite in a few subreddits where communication, fortunately, was not contingent upon how popular you were. However, even Reddit eventually succumbed to the demands of corporate greed. Despite my sour experience with online interaction through social media, I remained confident that there must be alternatives. A place where the spirit of the old internet still endures.

Due to my abiding interest with the GNU/Linux operating system, I stumbled upon many old and alternative protocols used by people for communication. Internet Relay Chat or (IRC) is one such protocol that grew to popularity in the mid 1990s. It is essentially a text based chat system where users joined various channels that were hosted on IRC servers. Many open source projects have a channel on the Libera network in order to offer assistance to new users. Despite the evident lack of features offered by IRC such as image sharing or storing messages when a client is disconnected, it still seemed to me a better alternative than its modern counterparts. Although you could still share images or files by uploading them to null pointers (a server that temporarily hosts files for sharing), what caught my attention was how there was enough room to pause and gather your thoughts.

There were no read markers and users in a channel always took time to respond to your queries. But despite the lack of “spontaneity” you see in modern applications, IRC still appeared to be more alive than its novel replacements. I think this was mainly because the protocol and the plethora of client side applications that leveraged it existed solely to fulfill their purpose and nothing more. There were no ads or companies motivated by vested interests. The entire infrastructure was predicated upon free and open code, effectively precluding any form of centralization that characterizes contemporary social media.

There’s a plethora of IRC networks with hundreds of channels where users discuss, debate or simply just lurk in the shadows. These networks seem to have also birthed their own subculture with netiquettes and common practices. Users login only when they want to engage or discuss, replacing spontaneity and instant responses with more enduring and thought provoking conversations. IRC channels encompass a wide array of subjects from technology to philosophy. And the lack of a rigid structure gives each channel a distinct flavour of its own. Although the protocol is text based, the words shared by users in these channels truly come alive.

The IRC protocol is just one instance of the many alternatives that exist that serve as viable replacements for popular messaging or social media platforms. There’s mastodon which I have started using recently that is part of the fediverse, a collection of federated networks enabling communication and sharing of information. A blogging platform called write.as has also recently caught my eye, although I still prefer to publish in my own site. So underneath the seething mass of advertisements and AI generated or SEO optimized content, the spirit of the old internet still lingers, patiently waiting to be discovered by those tired of being confined by programs that are meant to serve and not undermine user interest.

On the Necessity of Mediation

Sun, 18 May 2025 13:06:44 IST

This is a continuation of a previous essay I have written titled That Which We Seek

My encounter with the works of Kant and Hume thrust me in a direction I seldom anticipated. Although I was acquainted with the idea of the “unknowable” written about in many great religions and myths, somehow Kant’s formulation of the noumenon made it for me a living reality. Something we can no longer evade under the pretext of dismissing age old superstitions because Kant justified its existence through purely rational means. However I remained unconvinced that it was simply the idea of the “unknowable” that had gripped me so tenaciously. Notwithstanding the fact that Kant provided many arguments vying for the noumenal world, it was still unclear what relevance it had in our earthly pursuits. By delineating the frontiers of human knowledge, Kant has once and for all given us the map beyond which no pursuit of truth could ever take place. And this seems to be its only consequence. The unknowable permeates all of life and despite our most ardent efforts, we shall forever remain ignorant of the true nature of the world.

Given that fact, it seems natural to simply content ourselves with matters where do we have a say, taking each step in view of our abject limitations. As much as Kant had formulated a problem central to the study of philosophy, this was the reaction he prevalently elicited. If the “unknowable” by its very definition cannot be understood in any meaningful sense, why does its existence even matter? In other words regardless of the fact that you believe all of reality can or cannot be known, you would conduct yourself all the same. Although I was thoroughly convinced of the paramount importance of Kant’s worldview, I could go no further than this in stating its relevance. Clearly the noumenon is of paramount importance in illuminating the nature of reality but in matters of practice where we are faced with the choice between good and bad, it appears to have little to say.

This problem of choosing in the absence of certainty, especially when the choice itself concerned another individual is, in my opinion, one of the fundamental problems of morality. Although Kant had attempted to formulate an ethical philosophy in his second publication “Critique of Practical Reason”, I found the works of another great thinker far more insightful in this respect. Being a profound admirer and an astute student of Kant’s work, Schopenhauer had done for more than any philosopher to elaborate on the former’s worldview. And he did this mostly by pointing out the fundamental error in Kant’s perception of the noumenal. According to Schopenhauer, Kant viewed the noumenon from a purely conceptual lens and rightly derived its implications in the realm of thought. However in the sphere of immediate experience, we encountered the noumenon in stark lucidity. As much the distinctions we have made to understand the nature of the world mire us in endless paradoxes, Schopanhaeur believed in direct experience a knowledge of the noumenon could still be attainable.

It would be a misnomer to call this “knowledge”, as the noumenon negates the very preconditions of understanding. Knowledge presupposes differentiation and any potential experience of the unknowable annihilates that, leaving no room for thought itself. Unlike his predecessors, Schopenhauer ascribed profound significance to the arts because he believed it was the primary means through which we obtained this knowledge. He proposed that art and especially music allowed us to transcend the limitations of the phenomenal, creating almost a fissure in time and space where we could glimpse, however fleetingly, at the unknowable. I considered this as an insight of particular genius because on some fundamental sense, it shed light on the motivations of all human beings. I could see the operation of this instinct to grasp the “unknowable” not only in art but in almost every human endeavour. The greatest of writers, artists and poets invariably proceeded on the tacit recognition that the substance of their work was always too narrowly confined by their medium of expression. Therefore through the creation of art, they perennially endeavoured to articulate the ineffable. To show the immeasurable distance between the world of representations and the world of actual things. Or rather the actual thing “in itself”.

But the existence of this distance also posed a peculiar danger. Despite the fact that a work of art allows us to pierce through the veil of the phenomenal, it still remains momentary. In light of this, it is tempting to conclude that most of life is simply a pursuit of the noumenal. An attempt to steal a glimpse at the ultimate mystery in moments scattered across time. Nonetheless it is important to remember that as much as the noumenon is a testament to the fundamental unity of all individuals, this unity is achieved by a complete eradication of differences. Differences necessary for the genesis of life itself. Therefore the very conditions of existence emerges at a crossroad. In a cradle of the primordial paradox where we are faced with two opposing instincts, one of which beckons us into the noumenal abyss while the other cautions us from being swallowed by it. The consequence of this polarity, of the need to apprehend the perennial void from the realm of what is known produces the vagaries of living. Every effort we have made since the dawn of civilization consequently serves as a monument to capture this mystery. An attempt to instantiate, atleast symbolically, the primordial calling that lies at the heart of man.

But what of the danger? In virtue of our existential positioning, we remain tethered both to the unknowable and to the ephemeral world of our senses. Kant was able to justify the concept of free will within a deterministic world because he believed our existence could not be fully encapsulated by phenomena. As much this explained human feelings such as compassion and love, it also revealed a deeper problem. Although we have grown accustomed to judging truth and falsehood by taking recourse to our senses, we cannot deny the fact that we are children of two distinct worlds. Worlds not wherein we exist but those that arise in virtue of our existence. Our situation is further complicated by our inability to obtain even the faintest of knowledge about one of these worlds. Something we have termed as the “noumenon”. Despite art providing us with a conduit to fleetingly apprehend this in experience, we can never obtain any total understanding of it and therefore remain ignorant of both the noumenon and consequently to a part of ourselves. Torn between these worlds, logic would necessitate confining our pursuits to the world of sensory apprehension. And since the advent of science this is the path we are encouraged to take. The path of reason, illumination and sober empiricism.

As a result, the contemporary landscape is characterized by an exaltation of the phenomenal. Even outside the laboratory of the scientist, rigorous experimentation has generally become the way of life. The world of today refuses to believe anything without resorting to the stock of experience, relegating notions of faith to the antiquities of the past. But in their place a new form of crass materialism has taken root. The unmitigated progress of science that epitomized rationality has paradoxically also constricted the horizons of an individual. The skepticism which was once a luminary in the pursuit of truth has now become mere pretense to remain ensconced in the luxurious comfort of the sensory world. Therefore in the place of meaning, we now seek opulence. In the place of truth, we remain content with certainty. In the name of progress and the vilification of the doctrines of the old, we have abandoned the unknowable not as a concept but as an enduring facet of human experience.

Art is perhaps the only relic of the past that remains where we become faintly aware of other modes of knowing but even that is momentary. The distance between the noumenal and the phenomenal is either too far removed so the former becomes nothing more than a bleak reminder of our limitations or it is entirely annihilated so the individual is subsumed by that which he apprehends. In both cases however, the consequences remain more or less the same. We come to blatantly deny the incommensurable conflict at the heart of being that makes us both a part of a whole and the whole itself. Faced with such a seemingly insoluble problem, we make a myriad of choices. And those reactions to the unknowable, ultimately, defines the course of our lives. In view of our individual differences, it is difficult to arrive at any viable means to discern these choices in terms of “good” and “bad”. To reasonably conclude what one “should” do in the face of the noumenon. But in another sense, there still appears to be a general answer to this problem.

Much like Schopenhauer’s understanding of the arts, the morality that emerges from our existential roots is largely devoid of rhetoric. Given our two fold nature, I think what remains to be discovered in the course of living is a process of mediation between our dichotomous roots. Similar to the immutable laws of music that distinguishes sound from rhythm, there appears to be a certain movement through life that cuts through the phenomenal and the noumenal. This movement is both general and specific and evolves quite similarly to a piece of music where the notes periodically converge to a point of symphony, eventually assuming their own individual paths. Through this light, morality appears as an attempt to liberate art from its temporal confines. To essentially trace the rhythm of life which expresses our noumenal and phenomenal nature in its entirety. As much as a study of ethics enlightens this perspective, it seems that a true understanding of morality consists of learning to hear the music rather than reading its notes. Without the melody of experience morality devolves into a science of platitudes. And without sober reflection art becomes a vessel of escape rather than a means of enlightenment. Therefore the fundamental task of art and morality appears to be one and the same. To offer a guiding lantern in the face of the primeval darkness that engulfs us all.

Should You Use the Commandline?

Sun, 04 May 2025 09:02:04 IST

A large part of Linux might seem daunting to a novice user because it involves the command line. Unlike Windows or MacOS where the graphical interface is intertwined with the operating system itself, Linux’s GUI is simply another package that is installed. The system can function just the same without it because at its core it relies on something called “tty” to communicate with the user. Essentially ttys are virtual emulations of an old device called teletype which was used as one of the first input/output mechanism for computers. Although originally users communicated with computers primarily through text, we have come to replace this with a more appealing visual interface as it was easier to learn and navigate.

This course of events merits little explanation because using the tty required a reasonable grasp of commands and how the system itself functioned. The general public would not have been particularly enticed by the necessity of having to learn commands and syntax just so that they could use these machines. Most operating systems, as a result, have come to entirely replace this mechanism with a visual interface, making tty, even if it existed in certain systems, only a vestige of the past. Linux, on the other hand, still retained this part of history. One of the first things you would see when you install a minimal Linux distribution is just a black screen with a blinking white cursor, patiently waiting for you to programmatically express your will. Graphical interfaces are installed on top of this but you could still communicate with your system even in the absence of such mediation just like how you would 60 years ago.

Coming from a world where immersive visual experience is heralded as the biggest achievement of technology, this kind of decision appears a little strange. One would generally expect the whole practice of using ttys to be relegated into the past once computers became capable of rendering visual graphics. However, with Linux the command line continued to survive. Although users still preferred to use a “terminal emulator” within a graphical environment, the necessity to communicate with computers textually did not wane in the least. On the contrary, most Linux users prefer to use the terminal over GUI despite the latter’s aesthetic appeal. Why exactly might this be?

From a purely technical perspective, using the terminal to interact with the operating system provides more control. A certain subset of users like programmers and developers might prefer this fine tuned approach because for their use, textual interactions are far more salutary. However, as I had implied, Linux users regardless of their technical expertise come to develop a particular affinity towards the terminal, eventhough it appears painfully tedious. My initial experience with Linux provoked similar feelings and as I had grown to nurture that very affinity, the reasons behind it had only become more inexplicable. I constantly found myself asking, and perhaps still do, that why exactly did I use the command line?

Answering this question, at the outset, brought into consideration all the different ways terminals are better than GUIs. Although learning commands and their syntax might prove to be difficult initially, with a little persistence any task you perform with a computer becomes blazingly fast. From copying files to downloading programs, whatever effort you expend typing commands stays more or less the same regardless of the magnitude of the task itself. And this scalability of commands is, in my opinion, one of its biggest advantages. And with shell features like aliasing and scripting almost any series of tasks can be automated. Given the fact that you are willing to learn and forsake expedience for some time, the possibilities of this world are endless.

Although mastering the command line requires years of practice, obtaining a fair understanding of it can be done rather quickly. And unlike the general impression, learning commands does not require any kind of formal expertise as a programmer. However it does demand sustained curiosity and here is where the ways of men part. Some users might regard computers as simply a means to an end so they might not be inclined for such adventures. For such people the GUIs in Linux are good enough for most of their use.

However it is important to remember that the visual interface as much as it simplifies also veils what is underneath a system. It limits the possibilities of what a user can or cannot do, sometimes making errors themselves virtually undiagnosable. As much as Linux mitigates this, it is a problem that arises with the creation of GUI itself as simplification entails relinquishing control over to someone who does the simplifying. A subset of users, I believe, are fundamentally disenchanted by this process, making ttys the means through which they peer into the visual facade.

Although both GUIs and terminals coexist in most Linux systems, the latter still remains the primary channel for any user interaction. And more than providing control, such unmediated channels enlarge the possibility of creative expression. Any part of the system can be changed, erased or used in combination in any way that is deemed necessary. More than being machines that passively receive input, for these users computers become the tools through which they explore the world. Thefore every Linux system, far from being generic, unmistakbly bears the imprints of its user. Through customizations or the mere writing of scripts and programs, each system eventually becomes tailored to the needs and preferences of its user. And this kind of invovled personal computing is primarily why I use the command line but to the question of wether you should use it, I leave that entirely up to you.

Introduction to SSH

Sun, 27 Apr 2025 09:01:55 IST

SSH is a word that you might often see thrown around when talking about servers and connections. It is sometimes used as a noun in sentences but also as a verb. Its colloquial and sometimes unconventional usage in certain contexts might leave you confused on what exactly it means. Is it a program or does it denote an action that we do? Well, its technically the former. SSH abbreviates to “Secure Shell” and it is a program written by Tatu Ylonen to serve as a replacement to the telnet program. Ever since the early days of computing, users often found it necessary to connect to another computer from their local machine. This computer, often called a server, had specific pathways or ports open for users to establish a connection if they had the proper credentials. Telnet was widely used in these early stages but one of its biggest problems was that it transmitted all data in clear text.

This essentially meant that any malicious actor sniffing the traffic could not only intercept the credentials of the user but also any information that was being passed to and fro. Telent had to be relegated to the past primarily for this reason which made way for its faster and more secure replacement, SSH. The Secure Shell program brought in several mechanisms to address the limitations of telnet. It introduced asymmetric encryption so that all the traffic remained indecipherable. It also protected the integrity of the data that was being transmitted, while also providing alternate ways of authentication. Within a few years of its inception, ssh was adopted worldwide as the de facto standard to establish connections to servers. However unlike its daunting capabilities, using ssh is quite straightforward.

If you have ssh installed on any operating system, you can access it by opening the terminal and simply typing “ssh”. You would most likely see an output quite similar to this:

usage: ssh [-46AaCfGgKkMNnqsTtVvXxYy] [-B bind_interface] [-b bind_address]
           [-c cipher_spec] [-D [bind_address:]port] [-E log_file]
           [-e escape_char] [-F configfile] [-I pkcs11] [-i identity_file]
           [-J destination] [-L address] [-l login_name] [-m mac_spec]
           [-O ctl_cmd] [-o option] [-P tag] [-p port] [-R address]
           [-S ctl_path] [-W host:port] [-w local_tun[:remote_tun]]
           destination [command [argument ...]]
       ssh [-Q query_option]

This enumerates all the different parameters that ssh provides. You would not be needing most of this when you simply want to connect to a server. The syntax for establishing an ssh connection in its generic sense is “ssh user_name@domain_name/ip”. If for example I want to connect to the server jetbrains.org with the username martian the syntax would be:

ssh martian@jetbrains.org

Depending on the server, this would prompt for a password or directly drop us into a shell if public key authentication is configured. The ip of the server can also be used instead of the domain.

ssh martian@100.54.11.24

This is all the syntax you would need most of the time when connecting to a server. There can be instances where a server is not running its open ssh daemon (a background process listening for connections) on port 22 and the aforementioned commands assume this port when establishing a connection. In cases where the server is listening for ssh connections in a different port the syntax will have to be slightly modified with the -p flag.

ssh martian@jetbrains.org -p 2121

The flag slightly modifies the behaviour of the command so that it connects to the ssh daemon running on port 2121 in the server. Most users who regularly connect to servers through ssh find it tedious to enter their passwords each time. As I had fleetingly mentioned, SSH also allows for a form of authentication called Public Key and this is mostly what is used. This form of authentication works on the basis of assymetric encryption. On their local machines, users generate a key pair using the command

ssh-keygen -t ed25519

The -t flag specifies the kind of keys you want to create which in this case is “ed25519” but ssh also provides other formats. After issuing the command, the user will be prompted to decide the location of the key and a passphrase. Although the passphrase can be left empty, using one provides better protection as it requires the user to enter the passphrase everytime the keys are used. After this stage, two keys will be generated with the designated name and one of the keys will have a “.pub” extension. For instance:

secure_ssh_key secure_ssh_key.pub

Any kind of information encrypted by one key can only be decrypted by the other and this is the foundation of assymetric encryption. Once both the keys are generated the “ssh-copy-id” command can be used to copy the public key to the server.

ssh-copy-id -i secure_ssh_key.pub martian@jetbrains.org

The -i flag denotes the path to the public key that is to be copied to the server. This command only works if the secure_ssh_key.pub file is in the current directory. If the keys are stored elswhere, change to that directory or simply provide the full path to the -i flag. Once the command is executed, the user will be able to authenticate to the server without a password using the command

ssh -i secure_ssh_key martian@jetbrains.org

The -i flag denotes the path to the private key that was generated. If the name of the key was left to the default, the -i flag is most likely not required. However if the name has been changed, -i must be specified to instruct the command which private key to use. Some users might copy the same public key for all their server while others might generate a new one for each of them. Regardless of your choice, it might be wise to use the ~/.ssh/config file to manage all your different servers and keys. Each entry in the file takes the form of:

Host jetb
	HostName jetbrains.org
	User martian
	Port 22
	IdentityFile ~/.ssh/secure_ssh_key

Host refers to the term you would use to connect to the server. Hostname is the actual domain or the ip of the server. User and Port are self explanatory and IdentityFile is the path to my private key. With this entry in ~/.ssh/config I can simply connect to jetbrains.org with the following command:

ssh jetb

This would automatically look for the host “jetb” in config file and apply all the specifications required to make the connection. Although programs like anydesk allow you to perform similar functions through a GUI, using ssh is certainly more immersive. With a few keystrokes you are literally inside a computer that could be millions of miles away and any initial experience of that is nothing less than magical.

For a novice user ssh might be his first introduction into the world of UNIX so the syntax might seem a little cryptic at first. I think it is important to understand that each command and its syntax have a clear underlying logic to them that can be applied to other commands. The arguments and flags might vary but the essential structure itself remains the same. So this is partly not just an introduction to ssh but also to how commands themselves are in the UNIX world.

What is a Linux Distribution?

Wed, 23 Apr 2025 09:01:46 IST

If you have been persuaded by my argument to use Linux or atleast to see for yourself if any of my comparisons hold water, perhaps the first confusion that might arise is why are there so many flavours of Linux? I had mentioned previously that “Linux” strictly speaking in and of itself is not an operating system. What we refer to as Linux is only the kernel which essentially is the core of an operating system on top of which other utilities are added to make it useable. These utilities, in our context, belong to the GNU (GNU is Not UNIX) foundation which incorporated the Linux kernel to produce what is properly called as the GNU/Linux operating system.

To digress a little, the GNU foundation was started by Richard Stallman an American programmer who wanted to create an operating system like UNIX without any of its proprietary code. Stallman had started his foundation to rewrite most of the core utilities found in UNIX under a license where the software could be freely and openly distributed. The foundation, however, was persistently troubled by the development of a proper kernel until Linus Trovalds entered the picture, with his new pet project. Perhaps through luck or sheer happenstance, the meeting of both these projects birthed one of the most influential operating systems to have existed.

Since the kernel itself was developed in isolation and remained unfettered by a monolithic operating system, it allowed for the possibility to package the Linux kernel differently, keeping in mind the various needs and preferences of the user. This is what produced the plethora of Linux distributions that often overwhelms a user in his forays into the world of UNIX. But most distributions that exist are essentially “forks” or derivatives of 3 major flavours: Debian, Fedora and Arch. These distributions come with different package managers and adopt fundamentally different philosophies on what constitutes the ideal distribution. Debian and Fedora for instance place an emphasis on stability whereas Arch is willing to make some compromises on it to provide quick updates to its users. The distributions are managed by a host of maintainers who are responsible for the overseeing the distribution’s core repositories and its releases.

It might seem quite surprising for novel users to discover that such elaborate mechanisms governing the release and the management of these various flavours of Linux are brought about by sheer collaboration. A significant proportion of contributors who help these distributions grow are not in any way financially rewarded for their support. The ethos of this community is heavily colored by a sense of understanding and respect its members hold for each other, making collaboration a product of not obligation but a concern to return the favour. The organic nature of this process is what propelled the development of these distributions in the absence of any large scale corporate oversight.

But the question still remains, which Linux distribution might be the most ideal for you? For a person with little to no understanding of the internal workings of a computer, any derivative based on Debian and Fedora might be a reasonable choice. Distributions like Ubuntu, Pop OS, Linux Mint come with a graphical environment post installation, which makes it somewhat intuitive to a user formerly mired by Windows all his life. These distributions can also be dual booted, a process where two or more operating systems can be used in one or multiple storage devices attached to a computer. Dual booting can be somewhat tricky to implement with distributions whose installers require a manual configuration of partitions. With the little distributions I have used, Ubuntu’s installer comes with an option to install Ubuntu alongside Windows so no manual configuration is required in that case.

Despite the sheer number of distributions available some of which might appeal to your uncanny tastes and sensibilities, it would be prescient to choose a flavour with a fairly large community. Stable distributions with a wide user base will mostly not cause problems with regular use. However there are instances where even such distributions pose issues in which case community support would help immensely. Whatever your choice of distribution maybe, I think it is important to remember that the growth and the maintenance of distributions is largely a social process.

Using a particular flavour of Linux puts you in a position where you have a shared experience with millions of users the world over. In communal spaces, these users often exchange ideas and insights pertaining to improvements that can be made or issues persistently bothering them. Sometimes you even find them talking about technology or even life in general. In my experience it has always been fruitful to engage in these communities not only for the support they offer when you are struggling with problems but also that its often nice to meet people who share your interests and even technical issues that might at times make you feel you are the only person in the entire world cursed with such a problem. I assure you, you are not.

That Which We Seek

Wed, 16 Apr 2025 21:45:26 IST

It has become unfashionable to use religious language to describe any human experience. I believe the disrepute religion has fallen into over time is not entirely due to prejudice or blind disdain. It was widely felt that the understanding once afforded by the frameworks of faith was subordinate to that of reason. I have found myself in the crossroads of both these sides, unable to give up one for the other. However I am still far more sympathetic to the pursuit of truth and prefer its uncertainty to the comfort of staunch belief. Yet despite such sympathies, I have also found that I take recourse to mystical notions when I try to grapple with problems of deep significance. Words belonging to the religious fold such as “curse” and “sin” seemed to me animated despite my recognition of its dubious metaphysical foundations. It seemed natural to ask what was so special about these words that they often impressed themselves upon me. And to ask whenever I pursued a line of thought deep enough why did I often reach a point where language and rationality ceased to be the luminaries they once were. At the deepest of my reflections, I was invariably surrounded by a blackness where no differentiation existed. Where no categories could be drawn. Where no thought could arise in solid footing. I sought refuge in these arcane words because they were the closest forms of expression I could find in communicating something so real and yet so nebulous. I could not see or touch this blackness but it certainly underpinned all of what I thought or felt.

As far as my understanding of knowledge was concerned, the source of this experience seemed atleast partially comprehensible. Observations that we make of the world and of ourselves are fundamentally tentative. A philosopher of great renown named David Hume, coined this as the problem of induction. He demonstrated, through reasoning, that our observation of event B followed by event A does not necessarily indicate a causal relationship between them. Despite observing both of these events follow one an other, there still exists possibilities of observation that might entirely contradict all previous knowledge of those events. Therefore any statement that posits causality is by nature an assumption. An assumption that holds water in our daily lives but an assumption nonetheless. Accepting this proposition entailed a defeat in the quest to achieve knowledge that was certain. If statements based on observations, despite being validated for millenia, could still be open to contradiction, then is there anything that is certain at all?

This question had plagued the minds of many great thinkers until a philosopher of equal brilliance reformulated it, much to the dismay of those who wanted to solve Hume’s predicament. After several decades of wrestling with problems of perception and observation, Immanuel Kant published his “Critique of Pure Reason” where he completely redefined our notions of the world and the limitations of reason. Until Kant, it was customary to assume that the world “in and of itself” was quite similar to the way we perceived it. This assumption conformed with much of daily experience because an object simply doesn’t cease to exist just because we don’t observe it. When you return home from a long day’s work, your home is still there and all the places you had just travelled through to arrive at your home will be there as well. So the realization that our perception of the world at a given moment is limited and that the world which lies outside the bounds of what we can see and hear is similar to the world we perceive seems plausible.

However Kant’s reflection on the problem of causality led to a radically different conclusion. Despite the fact that Kant agreed with Hume’s remark on causality not being logically necessitated by the observation of two subsequent events, causal principles still hold. And they have enabled us to make strides in our understanding of the material world. Therefore what is the origin of causal relationships and by extension of even space and time? Kant’s investigation into the nature of these concepts forced him to conclude that the form the world takes for us, a world of objects localized in space and time causing one and another was largely determined by the nature of our sensory apparatus. In his terms, the phenomenal world, the world we perceive and can perceive and which comprised the totality of all possible human knowledge borrowed its fundamental characteristics of space, time and causality from our perceptual apparatus. He completely rejected the notion that the world would remain quite similar to the way we perceived it in the absence of an independent observer. According to Kant, the coherence of the world was something that we had ourselves fashioned, indicative far more of our inability to comprehend without elucidation than the nature of reality itself.

All of this begs the question, if it is our impositions that give continuity to the world of phenomena thereby demarcating a fabric of reality which can be perceived and comprehended, what is the nature of reality devoid of such impositions. This Kant termed as the “noumenon”, the world in and of itself which by its very nature was unknowable. Kant’s conceptualization of the noumenon was widely different from those who came before him. Despite the fact that the noumenon was fundamentally unknowable, he was able to infer its characteristics simply by contrasting it with the phenomenal world. The noumenon knew neither time nor space and in it objects could not cause one another because objects themselves did not exist. The noumenon remains unknowable because concepts of space, time and causality are not merely characteristics of the material world but rather constitute the very preconditions of knowledge itself. Therefore the noumenon did not consist of a plurality of objects abiding by laws of science and logic independent of our perceptions. It was instead a gaping void of sheer mystery that defied all understanding and whose boundaries were visible only in virtue of it being related to a world that we can see and understand.

The precise nature of the relationship between the noumenal and the phenomenal, between the world that can be known and its antithesis that will forever elude human knowledge is of profound significance. Kant was able to explain notions of free will and morality by situating individuals at the intersection of both these realms. The individual, he proposed, could initiate actions out of volition and felt compelled to do right by others because a part of his existence was rooted in the noumenon. And it reminded one that whatever difference he observed between mine and thine was only of this world behind which an absolute singularity was always peering through. There were many questions that assailed me when I first encountered these ideas but the most important of them all was why is the noumenon even important?

The blackness I had mentioned initially that confronted me at every juncture of thought and affect could be understood as this unknowable which pervaded all of life. If this blackness was something neither you nor I could escape, why must we even bother ourselves with it? Wouldn’t it be insanity to pursue insight into something which at the outset is recognized as an impregnable mystery? Or perhaps there were different ways of understanding that were unfettered by the limitations of thought. Whatever it may be, it seemed fruitless to speculate on the unknowable. Even more so to suggest that it could have any great relevance in the quest of furthering human understanding.

Despite such reservations, Kant was thoroughly convinced of the importance of the noumenon. Arthur Schopenhauer, a philosopher who greatly contributed and built upon the foundations of Kant’s ideas, even vehemently opposed those who entirely rejected its existence and proposed that all of reality can be known. I believe the fundamental conflict which Kant laid bare, atleast for me, is that we were essentially creatures given enough intelligence to know nothing is definitive yet put in a world where we must act definitively. To me the more interesting question was not how we can penetrate this mystery but what must we do in the face of it? Is it even reasonable to talk of “musts” and “shoulds” when the unknowable threatens to swallow us from all sides?

The sight of the noumenon and any experience of it should leave us paralysed. Paralysed to move, think or even say anything and yet it does not. Accepting Kant for me necessitated embracing the paradox that lied at the heart of the human condition. We can know nothing for certain. All human knowledge can be contradicted. Our judgments of right and wrong, true and false are all mere assumptions. However we are still forced to arrive at conclusions. Some of us appeal to reason while others to faith but regardless of where we go, the noumenon confronts us in all its ambiguity. The word “curse” appealed to me because at the core of our being there was a dichotomy. An either/or where through thought we can always determine nothing is certain yet must live as though something were. This curse, to me, did not seem like a misunderstanding or an inadequacy from which we could liberate ourseleves through enlightenment. It was rather life itself.

If I had somehow been right in formulating this paradox, all of human pursuits became equally elusive. I could recognize in some form or the other that all endeavours were essentially a call to the unknown. Art, most of all, reminded us of how ephemeral the distinctions that separated one from the other truly were. And even the distinction that separated one from the world. When enjoying art we feel ourselves to be one with something we seldom understand. And yet those moments are transient. As much as we seek to extinguish the separations between the phenomenal and the noumenal, to glimpse at the unknown even only for a fleeting moment, the “I” would cease to exist without such separation. Intellectual pursuits, morality and art always reminds us of the fundamental similarities between us but the will to live emphasized the difference. We might feel compassion for our fellow men but we still have to eat and fend for ourselves. It seemed to me that as much as we sought the demise of the “I” through all these different pursuits we also equally sought its solidification. And life did not consist of escaping this but rather emerged because of it. I know that we might eventually become one with the unknown but for the time, we remain separate from it, forever torn asunder between what we can know and what we should do. Yet despite such a dismal state of affairs, we cannot help but fight the conditions that bring forth life. And perhaps that is all we seek at the end of the day. A good fight.

Why Use Linux?

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 21:41:29 IST

A Dismal State of Affairs

The indifference that people show towards technology has always surprised me. By indifference, I do not mean a general lack of interest. It is quite evident that people like to use the latest technology if they ever have the means to and do prefer to invest a lot of time before purchasing any electronic product. However this interest is almost never sustained when it pertains to how technology itself operates. To an end user the only thing that matters if they purchase a smartphone or a laptop is its purpose. If it lets you click a good picture or browse the internet with reasonable efficiency what more is there to know?

The underlying workings of a machine are obviously irrelevant to anyone who intends to simply use them as a means to an end. After all none of us wish to learn the principles of thermodynamics just so that we can drive a car. I think this kind of functional attitude towards technology is prevalent and arises naturally as a response to the increasing complexity of the world. In light of the colossal advancements we have made in the last few decades on several fronts, there is a pressing need to simplify the fruits of human progress. Technology’s continued march towards the mastery of our environment is quite useless if it isn’t accessible. And what makes it accessible is commonly known as “software”

In the broadest terms, software represents an attempt to simplify and use the inherent complexity of machines, specifically computers. Any complex machine in order to be used requires a good interface. A link that establishes a connection between the way you want to use it and all the possible ways it can be used. Similar to how a car requires a steering wheel and brakes to be maneuvered properly, computers also require software to utilize its computational power. But unlike cars whose use is limited to transporting a person from one place to another, computers aren’t necessarily confined to solving mathematical problems. It could potentially solve any problem given that the problem itself can be translated mathematically and this is precisely what good software intends to do.

Although most of us are aware of software or more commonly called “applications” for our day to day use, I think the most essential of all, the beating heart of computers so to speak remains outside common knowledge. And this piece of software is the “operating system”. The most popular operating system of all, one that everyone uses regularly, has been Windows. Although operating systems as a concept itself isn’t that popular, Windows happens to be a part of the vernacular and is associated with the graphical interface you see when you open any newly purchased laptop or computer.

For a non technical user, this is where his knowledge ends. He is dimly aware of an entity called Windows that is responsible for producing an overlay he sees every time he opens his personal computer. He goes about his routine perhaps using only a fraction of the functionalities his computer has to offer until he runs into problems. A cryptic error message that usually goes like “Something went wrong” will often leave him wondering what he did. He might then consider purchasing a new product or seeking the help of a technician whilst revelling in his ignorance of what goes underneath the machine that he uses almost everyday.

Is the ignorance tenable?

As I had already suggested, it is quite implausible for all of us to know the nitty gritty details of the machines we use. Therefore a certain amount of ignorance is inevitable and perhaps even necessary. However I think computers in the last decade have grown to occupy a unique position in human life that makes the reasons for such ignorance a little more questionable. It is quite evident that computers play a far more integral role in sustaining societal infrastructure than most of our daily appliances. But more importantly, there’s no other human invention that has had such a decisive impact in the course of individual life than computers. We have become so reliant on them that our lives are almost intertwined with each other. So it seems to me that any indifference towards their inner workings also amounts to being oblivious to a significant part of our own lives.

This might seem like a really long digression from the subject of our discussion. Nonetheless, I think it is indispensable to consider the socio cultural context within which we live in order to have an informed opinion of any aspect of technology. I think it is a grave error to assume that our choice of using a specific application or software does not have deeper cultural implications and this is true specifically for our operating system of choice.

In the current landscape there are two major choices for operating systems. Windows is one of them and currently dominates the personal desktop market. Most laptops or computers that you might buy is likely to have Windows pre-installed. Windows currently holds a monopoly in personal computing partly due to historical reasons but mostly because of its intuitive GUI. Learning to use it requires no formal pre-requisite as it attempts to mimic our visual experience of reality, deceptively hiding the inner workings of what is being used.

Another operating system of stranger origins also presents an equally intriguing choice. Instead of attempting to hide the inner operations of computers, it strives to make it transparent. So transparent that one has unmitigated access to all of the essential files that comprises the core functionalities of the system. The complexity is essentially laid bare in all its glory for the users to behold, leaving the choice of either being daunted or fascinated at the sight of the beating heart to the users themselves.

This operating system is prevalently known as “Linux” or to put it more properly “GNU/Linux”. The history of the Linux operating system and how it came about is quite elaborate and constitutes a significant part of the history of personal computing. I think an average user would find most of it irrelevant and rightly so since it has no immediate bearing to the continued functioning of the devices he uses. A question he would find more pertinent is “What exactly does Linux has to offer that Windows cannot?”

Why Linux?

At the very outset, Linux might seem superior to Windows due to its architectural differences and undoubtedly this might be its biggest advantage. Given its modular approach towards computing, Linux is far more efficient in the way it functions compared to Windows which is monolithic by design. In addition to this, Linux also affords extreme customization and flexibility to users, a variety of GUI interfaces and the freedom to modify and distribute its code which makes Linux free and open source. Due to the technical reasons mentioned and many more, Linux dominates almost every operating system market with the exception of personal computers. But it is also true that most of these advantages, although significant enough for someone to consider switching to Linux, still might not entirely be relevant to a user who simply wants to expedite his work. So notwithstanding these technicalities, what more is there?

In my opinion, the most rewarding part of using Linux is not related to its technical superiority. All of the aforementioned advantages that Linux offers clearly improves user experience in substantial ways but the actual benefits of using it lies in its approach and philosophy towards computing. I had mentioned that how indifferent people were towards technology always surprised me because it essentially amounted to being indifferent to a significant part of one’s own life.

The philosophy of Linux views this indifference as detrimental and perhaps even down right decadent because it divorces the user from a machine he increasingly relies on for his daily functioning. This does not mean that Linux comes with an inscrutable interface that you will have to spend years learning in order to use it properly. Many Linux distributions come with a GUI that is quite intuitive but it still affords the possibility of dwelling deeper into the system. Linux at its very heart is a kind of system that engenders exploration and curiosity about itself and this difference is what sets it miles apart from Windows. Such an attitude and respect it holds for its users also partly eliminates the possibility of capitalizing on the ignorance towards a particular system. Users can either rest content with what they are presented by the interface or dive deeper, trying to understand how all of the intricate components come together as one seamless visual experience he beholds everyday. I think Linux makes evident the kind of sheer wizardry that is involved in making computers work and transforms any menial task you might do on a regular basis as an adventure of its own.

So for both technical and non technical users alike, Linux seems like an extremely intriguing choice for the reasons considered. Given the fact that a user overcomes his reluctance to entirely switch to a different operating system on the whim that the grass might be greener on the other side, I believe he would be rarely disappointed because it is.

An Either/Or

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 22:13:59 IST

I have been preoccupied with a morbid thought ever since I began writing about the limitations of human language. The fact that language sometimes falls shorts in expressing what we think and feel is by no means a novel idea. Philosophers, immemorially, have debated on the nature of human language and perhaps ironically have attempted to demonstrate through words how inadequate they can be. This realization is quite frightening, partly because it implies that regardless of how clearly or brilliantly we endeavour to express ourselves, the essential substance of our experience will remain within us, forever inaccessible to anyone outside our physical self.

However behind this peculiar idea, something even stranger was peering through. I have always conceived words and perhaps even thought itself to be categorical in nature. Words, to me, are a vessel of thought and through its utterance we differentiate human experience. By ascribing symbols to objects and communicating those symbols with each other, we attempt to share our experiences hoping atleast tentatively to bridge the gulf that separates one individual from another. But the purpose of words and as an extension of thought itself is to grasp something for what it is in its “totality”. We do not rest content with symbols themselves but through them always try to portray and infer the objects they represent. Through differentiation, we want to find that which is being differentiated.

This relationship between words and things also seemed to belie the relationship between form and substance. Any work of literature, art or music harboured this essential quality of trying to grasp substance devoid of form. Through words, we try to negate language. Through music we try to transcend sound. Through art we try to push the boundaries of space and time. Every human endeavour is a constant striving to negate form through form. However, the laws of perception dictate the impossibility of apprehending such a formless entity. And besides, differentiation is also the essential condition of human existence. Without form, substance is merely a seething mass of nothingness.

It seemed to me that all of human activity was essentially an attempt to undo the evolutionary gift of consciousness to strive towards this nothingness. We are clearly separate from each other but there is something in us that yearns to be one. That yearns to return to the oblivion from which it sprang. That yearns to remember life before remembering. Such an inexplicable yearning which peered through all human endeavours makes life now for me all the more frightening.

The Inconsistencies of Language

Wed, 29 Jan 2025 22:14:00 IST

Language initially enters the purview of human experience as an instrument of communication. As toddlers, we experience the world around us while having very little means at our disposal to communicate the former. Any kind of articulation at that stage is often monosyllabic where the recipients of our incoherent babbles make all the effort to understand our intentions. Language in such a primitive form proves to be of little value because the need to understand is seldom matched by a clarity in expression. Although one could still derive meaning from them by either accounting for non verbal cues or placing words in their context, language still remains predominantly unilateral.

Without the aid of any formal training whatsoever, our use of language evolves from a mere expression of fundamental desires into a vessel for thought. Thought and language develop almost synonymously, each complementing and reinforcing the growth of the other. We become capable of comprehending complex symbolism and abstractions. Find ourselves correlating the meaning of fictional narratives to real life. We are, in a sense, transformed as the seed of language grows to its fruition, furnishing us with ever new means to not only express what we think and feel but also to peer into the minds of others who deign to do the same.

As much as language attempts to bridge the chasm that separates human experience, it still remains far from obvious if it sometimes does not also have the opposite effect. It seems to me that like any human invention, the utility of an object is partly determined by the manner in which we employ it. So it naturally follows that the utility of language must also be determined by those who can either seek to demystify or elude that which is already obscure. But sometimes we encounter individuals who demonstrate an almost uncanny ability to comprehend what we think and feel, even if our experience is deliberately veiled in abtruse wordings.

There also others who, despite our most ardent efforts to articulate precisely, fail to grasp even the most elementary meanings of what we say, let alone understand our hopes and wishes. In such instances, we often say that that the person speaks or rather fails to speak “our language”. So ultimately language appears to be an affair that exists, not in isolation, but in this nebulous sphere of contact that is brought about by the meeting of two individuals.

If this were to be true, in addition to the plethora of dialects and semantics that superficially demarcate one language from another, there also seems to be encapsulations that develop within a specific language itself. Encapsulations that arise as a result of communication with an individual for a sustained period of time. Within this tenuous fabric, words acquire meanings and connotations that might either agree or altogether contradict that of the vernacular. Nonetheless despite such similarities or differences, for those within the fabric words always mean the same. But they also mean more.

It is quite apparent that there is an element of beauty to this. The fact that language not only facilitates the mere expression of ideas but can also be employed as a medium through which people can often mean more than what they say is clearly a testament to human ingenuity. Writers, after all, find themselves constantly pushing and redefining the boundaries of their own fabric to be able to convey to everyone something only they seem to understand. However for those of us who neither have the time nor the talent to maneuver through the traps of human lexicon, our boundaries tend to exclude far more than it accommodates. Such exclusion seems like a natural consequence of forming human relationships. Or perhaps of even simply being different from another person. If so, is it an exclusion that we must necessarily strive to eliminate?

So underneath these obvious connections that language helps forge between people, there exists a primordial tension where being understood is constantly negated by the very medium that occasions understanding. The moment one articulates anything by giving it shape and form, a part of its meaning becomes incommunicable and remains forever within the confines of our own experience. Although the clear existence of gradations in understanding places an individual closer or distant from oneself, the essential part of any human experience is still a fundamental assertion of our abject loneliness. Therefore the more one has to say, one realizes that words often fail in adequately expressing anything of great concern, even when it comes to our most intimate acquaintance.

Not only do we tend to exclude those who do not share the layered meanings we ascribe to words and things, even with those who do share them the struggle to fully express one’s being is ever present and perhaps becomes even more pressing as that struggle constantly seeks to extinguish the very separation that defines a person. I believe the problem of language fundamentally rests in this fact, that how can one possibly say something that is of profound personal significance to anyone without losing oneself where every word that is uttered becomes a proclamation of both our identity and difference from each other. Isn’t the separation that divides individuals also the separation that defines us? Must we not entirely lose ourselves to be understood?

How to set up weechat relay

Thu, 24 Oct 2024 09:01:16 IST

So weechat is one among many clients that is used to connect to an irc network. Unlike other messaging platforms where you recieve a message that was sent to you even if you are not online, IRC functions in way that requires your client to constantly stay connected to the server to recieve messages. So if your user disconnects, you won’t be able to receive messages nor will you be able to access past messages that you sent in a particular channel. To circuvment this users often employ an irc bouncer like znc or soju that stays connected to an irc network and “bounces off” the messages it recieves when you connect to it using a client. Weechat affords its own kind of bouncer which is called a relay which provides similar functionalities.

In order to set up a weechat relay, you first require a server that has weechat installed. You can create an account in any tilde community if you require a free shell account. Once you have access to a server, you simply open weechat and add the servers you would like to connect to. For instance if you would like to connect to libera:

/server add libera irc.libera.chat/6697 -tls

After adding a server you can sometimes directly connect to it by executing:

/connect libera

However, if Libera requires your server to authenticate via SASL you would need to set the sasl username and password using the following commands:

/set irc.server.libera.sasl_username "mynick

/set irc.server.libera.sasl_password "password

SASL is a method through which a user can register their nick and password on a particular IRC network so if they perchance disconnect, they can still assume their nickname by sending the password they used to register the nick to NickServ in Libera. Users can message other users or bots using:

/query NickServ or /query any_use

This will open a query window and if the user types help once they start a query with NickServ, they will be greeted with a list of commands they can use to register their nicknames.

After a successful connection to a server, the user can start setting up the weechat relay using the following commands:

/relay add ssl.irc 700

This creates a relay in our specificed port. It is usually recommended to use a port range that higher and unspecified.

/secure set relay PASSWOR /set relay.network.password "PASSWORD

So far, the commands we have executed on the server side instance of weechat has established a connection to an irc network and set up a relay. After executing a “/save”, the user can exit weechat and then generate an ssl certificate. SSL or its predecessor TLS, is a mechanism through which two clients establish end to end encryption. The protocol usually sits between the HTTP and TCP layer and facilitates most kinds of encrypted connections. In order for our client to securely connect to the relay in our server, we are required to generate a self signed certificate. In order to do that the user should cd into the weechat config directory which most likely would be “~/.config/weechat/”.

Depending on the weechat version, they should either create an “ssl” or “tls” directory within the config path and then generate a certificate with the name “relay.pem”. (Older versions of weechat use the term “tls”)

export HOSTNAME=example.org
openssl req -x509 -nodes -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout relay.pem -extensions san_env \
  -subj "/O=WeeChat/CN=$HOSTNAME" \
  -config <(cat /etc/ssl/openssl.cnf <(printf "\n[ san_env ]\nsubjectAltName=DNS:\${ENV::HOSTNAME}")) \
  -days 365 -out relay.pem

If the server does not have a hostname, a certificate with jus the ip can also be generated

export IP=192.168.1.2
openssl req -x509 -nodes -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout relay.pem \
  -subj "/O=weechat/CN=my-weechat" \
  -config <(cat /etc/ssl/openssl.cnf <(printf "\n[v3_ca]\nsubjectAltName = @alternate_names\n[alternate_names]\nIP.1 = \${ENV::IP}")) \
   -days 365 -out relay.pem

Once the certificate has been generated, the certificate can be loaded on to weechat by opening weechat and executing:

/relay sslcertke

Afer this, the user can connect to the relay using any client which includes weechat as well. If the user chooses weechat as the client, then once again we are required to add a server using the /server command but this time we use the ip of our server where the weechat relay is running instead of the irc network.

/server add libera ip_of_host/port_number -ssl -autoconnect

The user can also use a hostname of the server if it has a registered domain. After this the user can configure the local client to use a password to connect to the relay using:

/secure set relay PASSWORD (same as the one used on the server

Before connecting to the relay, we are also required to set a password for the server using:

/set irc.server.libera.password "libera:PASSWORD

The “libera” prefix before the password tells the relay which network we would like to connect to. We can simply add more networks on the server side by following the same steps and then modify the password according to the name of our network on the client.

Most often, the server side time does not align with the time zone the client is connecting from. In order to display the time correctly we can set the option:

/set irc.server_default.capabilities "server-time

The final step is to ensure that the weechat on the client side accepts the certificate that the server provides. Most likely this will not be the default behaviour because the weechat client does not accept self signed certificate. In order to configure this we simply set:

/set weechat.network.gnutls_ca_user "path_to_certificate"

This particular option should point to a local copy of certificate we generated on the server side. We can also toggle the “tls_verify” or the “ssl_verify” option for the particular network but that would invariably ignore the verification of all certificates. Once this is done the client should be able to connect to the weechat relay and join channels.

Musings About the Devil

Fri, 03 May 2024 09:02:32 IST

The world of today is not particularly concerned of antiquated ideas like angels or demons. From the contemporary point of view, anything that does not retain an objective existence which can be proved by methods of science are simply dismissed as the whims of human imagination. Such a frame of reference has always struck me as sensible because it grounds individuals on a plane of existence which, they know for a fact, to be true. However, I have also been exposed to a plethora of modern ideas, one of which is the notion of trauma.

Being a student of psychology, I have spent quite some time trying to understand the various ways trauma confines and hinders the will of an individual. Psychological literature records an array of illnesses ranging from anxiety disorders to OCD where the mind of a person is in constant battle with certain thoughts and ideas originating from within. Notwithstanding the fact that such illnesses merit proper treatment, I couldn’t help but noticing that there was often a tendency to associate the illness with the person itself.

I believe the cardinal difference between tragedy and trauma is that eventhough both of those words represent external occurings, in the former the individual is still separate from the tragedy. Although he might might not able to control the circumstances around him, he is still in full possession of his inner faculties whereas with the latter, suffering becomes internalized and dictates his course of action. Trauma, therefore through a process of internalization, becomes a part of the person itself.

In light of these reflections, I understood that these modern notions as much as they shed clarity in certain respects also raise some fundamental questions. And that these seemingly antiquated ideas, like the devil, also served a unique purpose. Initially, I used to abhor this prevalent convention of blaming all the evils of the world on the devil because it clearly absolved the person of moral responsibility. Simply projecting all your decadence and wickedness to a mythical figure seemed deterimental at the outset because it might most often serve as an excuse to remain oblivious to the consequences of your own actions.

However if the devil is the origin of all wrongdoing, the will of the person is also in a certain way protected,. As much as such externalization might lead a person to assume they are not responsible for their own actions, it also ensures that any immorality is not intertwined with a person because the source of all evil is external. The individual is armed with a mechanism that allows him to choose his way, regardless of his past. Perhaps modern psychology still has much to learn from such ideas that are often dismissed under the pretext of being naive superstition.

The Quest for Normalcy

Sat, 09 Mar 2024 22:14:00 IST

With each passing day, I find myself increasingly confronted with valid reasons as to why psychology is an essentially doomed enterprise. It is evidently quite paradoxical for a student of psychology to feel this way but what perplexes me even more is why such a question does not often arise in the minds of individuals who pursue this discipline. Unlike other endeavours whose object of study lends itself very well to empirical scrutiny, psychological inquiry attempts to categorize something which, by its very nature, resists definition. The workings of our mind are always veiled by our inclination towards self analysis, and only reveals itself in its disintegration. This is perhaps why the phenomenon of mental illness has informed much of our knowledge regarding the psyche because pathology allows us to investigate the dark recesses of the human mind which is always concealed in its functional counterpart.

Freud, for instance, conceived an entire theory of personality through his attempt to cure patients afflicted with hysteria. His investigation into the various psychological afflictions of his clientele created an opportunity where he could peer through the pretense of our modern tastes and sensibilities only to find that the mind was still under the sway of primordial instincts. Notwithstanding the insights such analysis has furnished whose influence is perhaps yet to be determined, it still suffers from a grave misconception. The reason a significant part of Freud’s understanding is now subject to disagreement is because his theoretical premise is derived from an investigation of pathology. A pathological mind, as much as it reveals all that which was formerly inexplicable, also distorts our perception of the very mechanism it renders evident.

Although we have come to liberate ourselves from some of Freud’s antiquated ideas, we are still trapped in his old habits. Much like Freud, we still try to understand the psyche and what is ’normal’ by investigating what is dysfunctional. I believe introducing the word ’normal’ here is by no means a sleight of hand because any inquiry into the human mind is premised upon the inclination to discover some organizing principle which enables us to understand and predict human behaviour. The form of this principle might manifest differently in the lives of individuals but its essence must remain the same. The discovery of this principle, I believe, constitutes the fundamental task of psychology.

However, unlike other disciplines, psychology is mired in the paradox that an individual by definition is an outlier. A person is almost infinitely different in the way he thinks and behaves compared to others. He harbours a myriad of hopes and dreams and is laden with as many personal inadequacies. Such a vagary among individuals obviously makes the task of establishing a true normal utterly impossible because to what standard must the individual be even compared to? Social norms and morals are often a product of their time and could not possibly meet the ever changing circumstances in the life of an individual. Therefore it seems quite reasonable to assume that there are infinite ways to be as long as that way of life does not produce any dysfunction.

Such a negative definition of normalcy, although plausible, still fails to address certain fundamental questions. What is the ultimate purpose of the mind’s habitual activity of assimilation and understanding? From where does its relentless need to question, ponder, create and reflect originate? Although tracing the endless chain of causes and effects in explaining behaviour might provide some semblance of understanding, we are still willfully blind if we choose to ignore the simple question of where such causes and effects ultimately tend towards.

One of the cardinal reasons for the infamous rift between Freud and his most prized disciple, C.G Jung rested on this disagreement. Where Freud stayed content with trying to understand the mind by investigating its antecedent psychological causes, Jung saw the obvious limitation of constricting the psyche to a merely reactionary organism. Jung believed that the psyche was as much constructive as it was reactive in nature and discovered that its inner workings often betrayed the existence of an obscure ideal around which all psychological processes revolved. An obscure ideal, which he termed the Self, that not only subordinated all psychological activity but also weaved together the vagaries of living such activity invariably produced.

None of the aforementioned deliberations suggest the imposition of a particular way of living. Psychological inquiry is often too consumed in navigating the labyrinth of causes and effects that it blatantly refuses to acknowledge that there must be some ideal or principle which gives direction to the sheer breadth of mental functioning. Since the existence of such a principle often calls for ways of thinking which push the boundaries of scientific rigour, we rest content with the assumption that normalcy simply refers to an absence of dysfunction. The desire to arrive at such a conclusion and the reluctance to part from it could be ascribed to the misconception that normalcy, in this context, can only be defined in comparison to the majority. However, the true normal of psychology neither lies in the deafening voice of the majority nor in the eccentric opinions of the minority. It instead lies in that very principle which informs much of what we think and feel. A principle which, instead of defining what is normal through morbidity, evinces what it means to truly live.

Correspondent Inference

Tue, 27 Feb 2024 09:02:14 IST

“Hell is other people” - Sartre

I have recently been thinking a fair bit about something called correspondent inference. It is essentially a concept in psychology that represents our proclivity to presume that a person’s overt behaviour represents stable personality traits. Although initially learning the concept didn’t precipitate any kind of reflection, I seem to have suddenly become aware of how often we do that to each other and perhaps even to ourselves.

Attempts at coming to grips with my social reality has been mired with fateful detours. Regardless of how much I have struggled with trying to understand the intricacies involved in social interactions, it has become increasingly clear to me that people require some conception of whoever they interact with. Conceptions they either form at first sight or through sustained conversations. But the need to reduce the person to some finite understanding is ever present in all facets of discourse. It appears to me that more than just serving an operating principle that guides behaviour such conceptions become dogma which we tenaciously cling to make sense of others. Dogma without which the social fabric becomes filled with individuals whose existence defies coherence.

I wouldn’t have imagined that Sartre’s most quoted maxim “Hell is other people” would be echoed within the confines of my own life. For what makes others Hell is precisely this need to reduce the idiosyncrasy of an individual into something finite and comprehensible by thought. But an individual’s essence, if we can speculate upon that, transcends the realm of coherence and thought does it not? Does a person cease to exist or does he commit a grave error against himself if his actions sometimes go against his usually “expected” behaviour? What exactly constitutes the individual?

I find myself returning to these questions whose answers, it is clear, that I must labour for. But what is evident to me at least is that one can never truly know someone by what they say or what they do. Such markers at best indicate the nexus from which the former springs. Words and actions only serve as a means to understand but not conclude of the ineffable mystery that lies underneath the semblance we perceive.

Thoughts on Normalcy

Wed, 21 Feb 2024 09:02:22 IST

With each passing day, I find myself confronted with increasingly valid reasons as to why psychology is a doomed enterprise. It is evidently quite paradoxical for a student of psychology to feel this way but what perplexes me even more is why such reasons generally do not foster thoughtful deliberation. One question that has recently occupied my mind pertains to the task of establishing normalcy within psychology.

It appears to me that, normalcy in the hard sciences is relatively simple to determine. For instance with the case of polydactyly which refers to the condition of having more than five fingers, it only takes mere comparison to understand why that particular condition is pathological. Since the majority of the population only have five fingers any deviations from that norm becomes abnormal. In line with simple observation, pathology seems to correspond to the degree to which a condition varies from the mean of the population.

However, this convention holds very little water in a psychological context because an individual, by definition, is a deviation from the norm. Consequently any study of individuals must adopt a different approach to establish normalcy within its discipline and this is where its inquiry becomes increasingly obscure. Psychological theories that I have hitherto studied implicitly come to define what is normal in an attempt to understand mind and behaviour. Freud’s theories on psychosexual development even explicitly state that any arrest in the stages of development would occasion personalities that could be deemed as pathological. However I believe such theories still suffer from the dearth of a higher ideal which is often what provides clarity in any investigation.

In the study of medicine, it is fairly obvious that the mechanisms of the body operate collectively to ensure the survival of the organism. Although there might be a few instances where our physiology appears to work at cross purposes with that objective, it is still the general direction that it tends towards. However what is the purpose of the mind? Why does the psyche engage in its habitual activity of assimilation and understanding? It seems that psychological inquiry has only resorted to sidestepping the question of “normalcy” by merely looking at the mind in functional terms.

Although tenable, this line of investigation is bound to suffer from the limitation that there are an infinite ways to be as long as the individual is able to function. Such negative definitions only serve to disguise an alarming problem which now confronts psychological endeavours. That how can one define normal without taking recourse to pathology. If psychology ever wishes to escape the labyrinth of subjectivity, it must liberate itself from the perspective of illnesses and embark on the obscure endeavour of seeking the higher ideal which subordinates the psyche. The study of that ideal, I believe, is essential if we hope to free ourselves of the illusion that any manner of being that does not produce dysfunction is representative of normalcy.