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Thebes at War - the third in the ancient Egyptian trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz

Thebes at War , the third instalment of the Ancient Egypt Novels, Naguib introduces us to the vagaries of war, avenging, deceit, suppression, death, love and suffering…. The musicality of Naguib can be heard in the sentences that he pens…. ‘The sun, high in the sky, sent out beams of light that quivered where they drenched the vegetation and sparkled where they touched the water…’ ‘It is the spirit of a master dictating to his slave, of a king incriminating his own people…the latter strives to enslave the former, while the former struggles to hold on to its independence by all the means at its disposal.’ ‘Once they had despaired of gaining anything further by continuing the battle, life lost its meaning for the soldiers, who determined to seek martyrdom on the spot that they brave sovereign had watered with his blood.’ ‘A battle that will be remembered forever has taken place, in which pain and glory alike took part.’ ‘I’m very afraid of them, sir, because, the only ones allowed to ste...
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Naguib Mahfouz - Rhadopis of Nubia - Romeo & Juliet in Ancient Egyptian Setting

Naguib Mahfouz’s sonata continues with his second novel, Rhadopis of Nubi a. Here are some of Naguib’s Motifs… ‘Death is as natural as life. What is the value of eternity as long as we eat our fill after going hungry, grow old after being young, and know despair after joy?’ ‘You may be lucky enough to see her, may the gods protect your hearts from harm….Those fortunate enough to be near her caught glimpses of her jet-black hair adorned with threads of shining silk as it fell about the radiant orb of her face and cascaded onto her shoulders in a halo of night, as though it were a divine crown. Her cheeks were like fresh roses, and her delicate mouth was parted slightly to reveal teeth like jasmine petals in the sunlight set in a ring of cloves.’ ‘Reasonableness is a false and insincere garment in which the weak masquerade.’ ‘Is it not possible that two people disagree and both are right?’ ‘Whoever thinks you beautiful is blind, without vision. You are ugly because you are dead, and ther...
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Khufu's Wisdom - A Treat By Naguib Mahfouz

 I just finished reading the first of three novels of ancient Egypt, Khufu’s Wisdom by Naguib Mahfouz. And what a treat this was.  Just a few snippets of music that Naguib composes….. ‘And what is divinity…. ’Tis nothing if power.’ ‘Who should give up their life for the benefit of the other:  the people for Pharaoh, or Pharaoh for the people?’ ‘You rule according to the wish of the gods, not by the will of men. It is up to you to govern the people as you desire, not to ask yourself what you should do when they ask you!’ ‘If Fate really was as people say, then creation itself would be absurd. The wisdom of life would be negated, the nobility of man would be debased. Diligence and the mere appearance of it would be the same; so would labour and laziness, wakefulness and sleep, strength and weakness, rebellion, and obedience. No, Fate is a false belief to which the strong are not fashioned to submit.’ ‘O Lord! What was the wisdom of making a woman then? What is a woman with...
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Databank and Polls - Limitations and all That

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This is what we are lead to believe is the answer, our decision making tool - Big Data As I was reading Philip Ball’s How Life Works, these sentences, I am paraphrasing to some extent, caught my mind,   Sometimes this rush to next big data challenge is justified with the implication that’s all that is needed. This is done in the absence of framing the how and why question in scientific terms: hypothesis to test. It is almost as if there is a belief that insights will simply begin to seep out of the data bank once it reaches the critical mass.   Mimicking the idea that evolution is not goal-directed and is totally random, patterns can emerge, and we can come up with the ‘right’ relationship and the correct answer, and, that is all there is to human intelligence, pattern recognition. The premise of big data for answers primarily rests on this premise. Artificial Intelligence, the advancement that we see in the computing area, relies on big data to predict behaviour, actions and ...
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The Flood - Then & Now

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  The story of the Flood is threaded through various mythical and religious texts, be it the Noah’s Ark in Abrahamic religious accounts, the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, the Greek myth of Deucalion and Pyrrha or the Hindu Manu Flood or the Mayan myth of Mesoamerican Flood; they all depict an underlying common theme: Excess of Sin, exceeding the limits of moderation, leads to a Divine Judgement. Cleansing of all that is wicked and corrupt humanity. Survival of a select few living beings within the creation of an Ark that protects those who abide in it/by it. Repopulation of the Earth on a new foundation, a new form allowing those who boarded the Ark to go forth and multiply. Etymology of the word Sin can be traced to adoption by several languages: in old English, syn broadly referred to moral wrongdoing; Proto-Germanic, sundjo , meaning fault, crime or failing; Greek, hamartia , missing the mark, an archery term; and; Latin,  peccatum , fault or error; a...
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The Median Reality: Somewhere Between the Absolute Yes or No Lies the Truth(s)

‘The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely momentum is known in this instant and vice versa.’  - Heisenberg. ‘If a system was complete- if you could use it to prove every true statement, then it could never be free of contradictions.’ – von Neumann. ‘Fair is foul, foul is fair’ – Macbeth. ‘The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.’ – Milton.  ‘People generally see what they look for and hear what they listen for.’ – Harper Lee. ‘It is better to live your destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of someone else’s life.’ – Bhagavad Gita. The excerpts of these great thoughts, what is it that runs through all of them? I think uncertainty, an element of doubt, creates room for differences in perspective. Not only does nature tell us this, but numeracy guides us through the same idea; politics of power dictate it, our inner voice shouts at us to consider it, our biases colour it, and finally, accepting the impe...
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The Truth About Cats and Dogs - The Green Credentials of EV

 Let’s take Tesla X as a case study. The carbon emissions for the manufacture of Tesla X’s battery have an estimated range of six to fifteen tons for a 100KWh model, with a midpoint of 10.5 tons of carbon emission. And the battery could last for about 200,000 miles. So, let’s drive this Tesla for 200,000 miles. This would require charging the car 760 times. Based on the energy mix in the US, that would result in 30.4 tons of carbon emissions. The total carbon emissions, excluding the body and all other paraphilia of the Tesla X to drive for 200,000 miles, would be 41 tons. The weight of a Tesla X and similar size petrol car, excluding the battery, is more or less the same and hence an assumption that both would be similar in carbon burden to manufacture is reasonable. Considering a modern petrol car of similar size, the UK average carbon emission per mile is about 200 grams. Therefore, driving 200,000 miles would emit about 40 tons. EV cars are undoubtedly attractive, with ...
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