Monday, September 27, 2010

From light to darkness

Tamaso jyothirgamaya is a famous quote from tha Upanishads which basically say that let me go from darkness to light. But now I think we have to reverse the quotation. Let us go from light to darkness. I am not pessimistic here but the dark underworld is much more interesting.
First concerning the nature of the universe. Scientists say that the visible matter accounts for less than 1% of the total universe's mass. The rest of the universe is made up of dark matter and dark energy. Dark matter is said to constitute around 10% of the universe's mass and dark energy is said to constitute 90% of the universe's mass. Nobody has any clue what this dark matter and dark energy are. But the effects are quite visible. Galaxies are tearing apart from each other at phenomenal speeds and this cannot be explained by the visible matter at all. Scientists say dark energy is responsible for it, a sort of anti-gravity. Dark matter is also present as black holes and WIMPs (Weakly interacting Massive particles) which are hard to detect. There are talk of hidden dimensions and multiple universes in physics. So all of 21st century physics is in quest of darkness.
Second is the human organization and nature of dealings. There is a black market for goods, which forms a substantial portion of our GDP. There is the unorganized sector which accounts for 50% of the GDP. Things are accomplished without explicit rules and mainly through relationships and word of mouth. There is vast amount of black money in excess of $1trillion which is hidden from the formal world. Most of the stock trade in US happens in dark pools in which players do deals privately. The amount of derivatives and the OTC trade which happens discreetly is $2400 trillion which is mind boggling. Much of world trade is for transfer pricing and tax evasion. 70% of the internet traffic is for torrent downloads and other filesharing. In other words most of the formal world is just the tip of the iceberg. The real business is deep within hidden from the public.
The third is the human mind. There are so many things within in the subconscious that we do not know. It is all hidden deep within us. Our values, our biases and our desires all stem from it. We do not want to know about it or we do not have mechanisms to uncover it. It is deep within us, hidden from the conscious mind, but they are the ultimate drivers of our behavior.
We either have to redefine the unknown and stop calling it darkness or we have to go and explore the darkness since we only see and learn the tip of the iceberg in our everyday lives but the real action happens underground

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