How we lost to steam

I am sure man knew how to convert water into steam from the very beginnings of the civilizations or even earlier. A slight twist to a straight rod of metal makes what is called a crankshaft. Now, if you combine steam with a crankshaft – you get a steam engine! Now historically we know that the discovery of steam engine led to the industrial revolution in Europe, because the steam engine made work extremely easy. The industrial revolution led to production of goods for which the industrialized nations needed markets. This led to imperialism by countries like Britain and France. I admit imperialism existed before also when Portuguese and Spanish voyagers traveled the world in ships. But, never before was the imperialism so widespread. It was a direct consequence of the industrial revolution, which was kick-started by the steam engine. The world as we know was shaped by imperialism. Even the world wars were its consequence. Had India and China not lost to Europe, they may well have been first world countries.

 

India and China have a 4000 year old history. They have been known to predict solar and lunar eclipses. The Chinese even had the knowledge of predicting the direction of the epicenter of an earthquake. They had discovered porcelain, magnetic compass and what not. Before the industrial revolution, India and China were mass producers and exporters of cloth. The expanse of their trade was such that they even had a trading route called Silk Route. Indians were experts in metallurgy. We had very strong kingdoms during the period of Iron age civilizations – that of Mauryas and Guptas. Ashoka’s pillars are one example of India’s strength in metallurgy. But, why could not they combine steam with a crankshaft? How much innovation it takes to do it? Why did it take as long as 16^th century to design a steam engine? I just don’t understand the reasons, but we all know what were the consequences. How the ability to make a small connection between steam and the crankshaft defined our 300 years of past. And then I wonder, what else is still out there, just waiting to be exploited - that will cause the next butterfly effect? And how to be the first ones to see it? So that we do not lose the race this time.

Stationary solution of thought

Suppose person X acts in a certain way. Now, person Y gets to know about X’s action and interprets it in some way. Now if X understands how Y will interpret his action, then this will influence his actions. But, if Y also understands that X would know how the action will be interpreted by him, then he would interpret X’s action in a different way, under the conditioning of awareness of X. And, if this process goes on and on, we get a stationary or an equilibrium solution of thought, which decides how X will act eventually. But, if the state space is discrete, then the solution may be oscillatory. For example, suppose my brother and I have a comic book, which we both want to take to school for reading.  The comic can be either in a shelf or in a bag. But, the school bus leaves in a minute, and so my brother can search for the comic at only one place. Now, if I know where the comic is and he asks me about it. Then, no matter what my answer is, the stationary solution of his interpretation will be oscillatory in nature.

Brain

The brain fascinates me – different facets of it - which hardly get noticed because we are so used to it. Different inputs get treated differently, and it constantly works involuntarily on those. And, sometimes it generates its own inputs (dreams) which do not get stored in the memory, but sure have some importance which we do not understand. How is so much information packed in our genome? Or should I ask, how does the brain know what to do? I think it is the wrong question to ask. We never ask how a polymer molecule knows how to behave in a given environment. We simply say that if we know the density of states of the polymer, then we will know how it will behave based on the set of rules we have already figured out. The density of states does not need a large memory to be saved, but it defines the polymer completely. I am sure someday we will find the density of states of the brain. Ghosh! What will be the possibilities then!