The Question of Questions - Argument One

Disclaimer:
The following text comes from an email that I wrote some time back. The thoughts reflected in the following email represent my opinion at that particular time and may change over the course of time. I am not publishing the full content of the email but may share the remaining part in a future date. 
Also, I encourage you to share your thoughts on the subject (you can leave a comment), it may help in the greater understanding of this interesting topic.   

"Dear *****,
You know, I spend good amount of time thinking about things that are bigger than my life. I ponder how the world will be next 10 or 20 or 100 or 1000 years. How technology and science will change our humanity. How human knowledge will transform the world? 

Lately, I have been thinking about something that really got me stuck. I am usually stuck at many things but this particular thought seems like a "full stop" to me. I cannot just ease myself around the question. 

We are studying and learning things to make our lives better, right? Humanity is in search of knowledge to solve the problems that we face. Solutions to the problems. We have problems of war, food shortage, health issues, cancer, social problems etc. So what we are trying to do today is find solutions to these problems, right? This seems to be the purpose of human quest in the understanding of the world.

Now, let's imagine you live in far future. A hyper connected world, with a technology million times more efficient and science that is far more advance than what we have today. Imagine, humans have found cure to all diseases. Imagine humans have colonized other planets and have space colonies. Imagine there are robots working in the fields and there is excess of food. There is availability of clean water to everyone. Every human is educated and has access to all human literature. Imagine we know everything about black holes, matter & energy. Imagine we have 3D teleportation, which enables humans to travel throughout universe in a fraction of second. Imagine, we can meet/see and talk to anybody anywhere. Imagine we have a Theory of Everything (ToE). In simple words, imagine EVERYTHING IS PERFECT.

Now the question is, at this point in time what will be the purpose of human quest of knowledge? What will be our purpose? What should this future-human pursue anymore? Understand the universe where everything is understood by humans?

The question that haunts me is, "Is knowledge finite?"

I have been thinking about this for sometime and to find the answer to the question I tried to look at the basic question, "What is knowledge?" and "what's the source of knowledge?" Like most of the people who think about these things, I had few answers but I wasn't satisfied. 

Today, a random thought struck me. . . "

p.s. Please excuse my casual error prone writing. I didn't write this as a post but was rather a casual discussion. I didn't edit it, wanted to keep it original.

Interesting Facts about the Astronomical Tower in Prague, Czech Republic.

Prague is full of Gothic buildings and you are sure to find an interesting story associated with each one of these buildings. Well, same is true about the Astronomical Tower in Prague. 

Here is one interesting story that I heard about this tower.

The locals claim that when the mechanical figures were created, town officials had the clockmaker blinded so that he would never duplicate his masterpiece. In vengeance, the blind man climbed the tower and stopped his creation. The clock remained silent for more than fifty years. Centuries later, during dreary decades of communist domination, the legend of the blinded clockmaker became a Metaphor for thwarted creativity.

Also, this story is very similar to that of Taj Mahal. You don't know the story? Well, here is the short version.

Mughal emperor Shah Jahan ordered his chief architect, ustaad Ahmad Lahori, to build a magnificent tomb for his most beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died in her early 30s. The emperor wanted to build two tombs. First tomb was built for his deceased wife. After completing the work on the white marbled tomb, the emperor was so impressed by the work of his 20,000 men that he ordered to get their hands cut so that they couldn't replicate it for someone else! (and you thought your boss was bad!)

Shah Jahan's son didn't think that building a second tomb, a replica of the Taj Mahal but build in complete back marble, was not a cool idea so only one was constructed.

Anyway, enough of Taj Mahal.

World's oldest working Astronomical Tower.

30 Best Photos of Prague - The Beautiful.

Prague is beautiful.

So the day after my last exam of my first semester, I was on a train. Destination was Prague. Traveling from Munich to Prague in a Deutsche Bahn was unexpectedly fun. I was in a cabin with some students from Pakistan studying here at Technical University Munich and during the 5 hours (almost) multi-stop journey, the taught me how to play "Bridge." 

I was in the capital of Czech Republic for the whole weekend so got to see many historical buildings, famous tourist spots and took a boat ride on the Prague River. 

I will write a detailed post on this beautiful city but for now, all you need to know is that Prague is definitely a place you should visit!

Just to add here, I took the following photos using my iPhone 4s.

Vltava‎ - Prague River and the Charles Bridge