Probabilistic Brain: Are we really thinking?

So, we hear this phrase all the time.. "I am thinking"or "I am thinking, if I should go to this place/ buy this coat/ eat at that restaurant and so on and so forth. We are thinking, even when we think that we are not thinking.. Wow that was good. We cannot switch off our brains for a moment, it is always doing something.

So, the question naturally arises, what is THINKING? What are we thinking about and most importantly why are we thinking ? Now, if one defines thinking as a a process which effect our decisions? Probably to an inquisitive mind the question might come, What kind of decisions we tend to make. If our thinking can influence our decisions and our actions, our lives are always deterministic. And if it is deterministic, can we make a model of our decision making process ?

As it turns out, our decisions are influenced by external factors, factors which we cannot control and thus the expression "Oh! I didn't think, it will turn out like this! ", "Oh! I thought this will work, but damn it doesn't." Thus, making all the UNCERTAINTY around us come to life, and for all intent and purposes makes the world around us interesting. If you THINK about it, how it will be if everything and everyone's actions are deterministic. Well it will kind of suck!

Ok I feel I am going round and round the topic rather than coming to the actual point. What I am trying to ask/ say is that if it is somehow possible to model our thinking our thought patters, which influence a certain decision and use the outcome of the decision as a feedback loop to model our next decision.

Feedback Systems (Source: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be)

Talking about feedback loops, the upper schematic shows a system (a world), in which everyone is just doing stuff, without thinking (also known as an open-loop system). That is not very good I guess :), everyone doing stuff without thinking, the world will go to chaos. Now the second system is important, which I was talking about before FEEDBACK, that I think is everything, you can call it the thought process (well I will say it post-action thoughts), reflection upon your actions or whatever may suit your fancy.

Limbic System (Source: Wikipedia)

Now, it is well known in neuroscience (I would like to quote, as much as I know or based on the information gathered), this feedback mechanisms are generally channeled through our limbic system which also is the reward system of the brain. It is the pleasure center of the brain, which rewards us, when we solve a complicated problem, also the pleasure center, which plays a role in sexual arousal or eating choclates :). (excerpt form wikipedia).

That is all to put the context about the feedback system of the brain, how we make decisions. I feel at this point it is pretty obvious, that we like to do things, which rewards us greatly, in either ways direct or indirect.

Now coming back to the title of the blog, are we really thinking ? Well, I discussed this point with few people and it seemed I kind of convinced them on my view point. But, now I am looking for more. Is it so possible that we can model all the thought processes of the brain, everything it think, every POSSIBLE decision, it is going to take. Some research, is going on in EPFL, Switzerland regrading modelling all the neurons and synapses in the brain, with one huge computer, commonly known as the BLUE BRAIN Project.

What I think, is that our brain is always COMPUTING probabilities, down to the smallest thing as talking to a stranger on the street or taking a shower or eating an ice-cream. It is all the outcome of a complex  probabilistic computation, which happens in seconds and we do not even know it.

ICE-CREAM Shop:
For example, suppose you have not tasted an particular flavor of ice cream and your brain just have the prior information that you love ice-cream. Now, in an ice cream store, how likely it is that you are drawn to your favorite chocolate/ vanilla flavor. You are going to get it, but suddenly another signal in your brain kicks in, saying, "Dude! try something new. There are lots of flavour. You always take the same one." Now, the lady over the counter asks, "Which one? " and what do you say , "Wait! I am THINKING". Aha! what you are doing right now is computing the odds of taking the same ice cream and be satisfied, for which your brain has a high prior knowledge, than to spending 2.50 euros to try something new, which might not suit your taste buds. So, in effect you are doing a quick calculation for a most favorable outcome. In this particular scenario, this decision making gets harder, if you have a limited amount of money. One make choose to avoid risk and take the same flavor of ice cream which he always takes or act otherwise, if someone is a risk taker.

This is a simple case, but I am sure it can be extended to more complicated scenarios. Now, how the more complicated scenarios (say marrying someone) are different from a regular day to day decisions.

Graph Model Source: http://www.delphiforfun.org

 One can look at it as a graph model. Since more often than not, one particular decision will affect directly or indirectly your subsequent actions. The longer the graph, or probably the more interconnected nodes it has the more complicated the decision will be. So, ineffect, we can probably give a numerical value to the complication of a certain matter. For example, in case of marriage or choosing your career, the decision is going to effect so many areas of your life, thus adding more and more nodes, compared to eating an ice-cream which might just be a small graph. Thus, the problems can be separated and probably the brain looks for local information on the other nodes to make this decisions. Thus, we hear the expression, "Oh! it felt right at that moment." and each nodes carry the probabilistic outcome of the decisions made on the previous node. So, in fact it is all a conditional probability problem.

Now, the graphs may be close or open, depending whether the brain can re-evaluate the decisions or re do certain things. Thus, eating an ice cream is an open graph, but if you catch cold, after eating the delicious ice-cream you may re-think your decision next time. I have reasons to believe that more often than not the graphs are closed.

Addictions:
There are some other issues with the above arguments, for example, if doing certain things rewards us then by above logic we should be doing it again and again, then why do we loose interests in certain things, if we do it over a long period of time and start looking for something new, something EXCITING. Well, I don't know, how to fit that in this model, but probably a valid argument may be, if we like doing something we have a SPIKE of excitement, a reward, a tendency to go towards it in search of that spike. but too many spike in too frequent intervals, makes the signal flat and thus nothing more happens and we loose interest. Thus, bringing the increased addiction to drugs like cocaine or marijuana, the users keep looking for that spike. Probably, it is easy to explain with conditional probability models. If we iterate over a loops the same process, if the probability decreases in case of same outcome, and things like that. (I am sorry about the last line, I didn't do the math at this point, it is just a THOUGHT, may be if someone has an idea, you can let me know.)

Surprises:
This can be probably related with the previous paragraph. You may have heard people saying, "Oh! I love surprises!", why one will like surprise. It is not something that they thought is going to happen, neither they planned to do it. And I am sorry to say my friends, "No! you do not like surprises. But you only like surprises which are in favor of you, which give you that spike." Suppose, someone is walking down the street and get hit by a car. That is a surprise too, will he like that... I don't think so. Suppose, he finds a 20 dollar bill, How about that? Ofcourse, it will be fun to get money lying in the ground.

I believe, the graphs for the surprises can not be modeled in the regular decision making graphs, for obvious reason that it is not  your decision.

Also, one quick trivia, that human beings are the only creatures, who are aware of their demise, which I think is the biggest prior in all our decisions. The decision, which makes survival possible is more often than nor the best one. Interested readers, can read "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins, which explain the effects of altruism and other similar things on survival.

Well, I can go on and on about it, but I think you get my point. We are all programs and this is a matrix. Everything can be computed and modeled. The question that remains, How can we model them? How can we have a probabilistic model of the workings of a brain. How the decision weights be assigned to certain outcomes based on their probable consequences and most importantly, Are our brains smart enough to compute themselves ?

Dark Souls: Prepare TO Die

So, I have been playing and this is going to be a short post.... :) Because its Sunday and should really get back to work.... But I found that once you have a good build and upgraded your weapons, the game is not that much of a grinding but more challenging in terms of strategy. Most importantly, what I want to share is this AWESOME tribute video for Dark Souls by EliteTarget ... Its is really really good in terms of summarizing the whole game.. If you still dont feel badass and want to play it.... I got nothing to say :D

Also another one from Axel78Mr (E3 trailer), which is a little less hard core :)

And the one which is so divine by TheGoWMetal with "Anthem of the angels

Have Fun collecting souls :)
Later

Dark Souls: The game which sucked the soul out of me

So, finally last week I got the limited edition copy of Dark Souls. Aaaah heard so so much about this game, as in the hardest game one will ever play. Its hard, its not a joke. Reviewers in 3killabytes stretched it as far as comparing this game with dating a celebrity, calling it a high maintenance in terms of patience and commitment required from the player. But, that's what everyone is blabbering about.

Dark Souls Source: euniverse.net

What do I think ?? Oh man ! Let me take a deep breath even trying to start talking about this one. I mean really I can go on and on for hours about it. And trust me, if you have played it, you know what I am talking about.
First of all, this game earned a lot of respect and admiration for the Japanese developers, as in they always have something new to offer (for example Vanquish, super awesome FPS), where as on the other hand EA and Ubisoft, who keep milking the same franchise. Hidetaka Miyazaki, you are awesome.

Moving on,
Why Dark Souls is so GREAT ?
Ok, so I heard and knew this game is hard and I prepared myself before hand for the game. And yes, one of the reasons, this game is so awesome is because, I feel the developers treat the players with certain level of respect. The game starts, with a little back story, you dont know what is going on, you are undead, which is awesome :), and you start like usual customizing your character as in the case of any RPGs. But, the cool part about this game is the starting class is just something to start with, there is lot of flexibility in terms of character customization while leveling up. So, first things firsts, the game looks really good, except some frame rate issues in certain parts of the game, which I think is something people talked about a lot in last year.

The area where the game really shines is the combat mechanics, I think I have never seen such accurate combat mechanics in any dungeon crawler. I died a lot of times, a lot but everytime I died it was my mistake, I was too impatient, or didnt parry the attack, or holding weapons in wrong hands. It was never a computer glitch. (So, finally it was nice to see the accurate collision detection out of the Legend of Zelda series... which made me super happy YAY). Plus, I should mention the enemy types and Goodness gracious the AI is pretty awesome, I mean there were types when I was just dueling with a soldier and waitng for him to make a mistake so that I can attack.. Theses moments are the moments where really one needs to be SKILLED for playing this game and button mashers (yes I am talking to Assassin's Creed lovers), will go to bed crying.

The SOCIAL Element.
When I started the game I was going to one region and getting killed like all the time, until I figured, I am too low on levels to go meet the enemies there, so I went to a different area and progressed. This is what I liked, the game never tells you where to go, just lets you free in the world, go try something fail and then try something else. learn the world. And the best part about such a game is everyone who plays this has their own story to share with their friends. There are so many secret areas, and everything is interlinked.

Dark Souls Map Source: neoseeker.com

So, different players might access different parts of the world as they choose and the story of the world unfolds to them accordingly. There are more nitpicks here and there, than one can possibly imagine and understand in a single playthrough and that leads to awesome discussions in the forums.

So, far I am like 10% in the game. and this blog is not meant to be a review or anything just my thoughts about it. :) Anyways, its 2 in the morning and need to go to work tomorrow, until then ..... Take care. 

Will post more on Dark souls as I unfold more, If someone is interested in playing dark souls and explore the super awesome adventure,  together on a friday evening, let me know :) 

Tristan da Cunha: A Journey of Mind

Recently, I have gotten myself into the habits of searching and reading about random things on internet. Not because I have lot of time but just because I feel there are so so much more to know, there are so many things we dont even care about or just take for granted. Even at this moment, when I want to find more about this amazing place Tristan da Cunha, it is as far as few clicks away. But... in our daily lives do we acknowledge this convenience, Probably not. But coming back to the title of the blog. Tristan de Cunha, recently I have been feeling little withdrawl from the daily routine and I just wanted to go some place quiet, just pack my bags and go and dont tell anyone... So, I started searching for places, and the farthest I could reach was a tiny village on top of a hill called Gourdon in France. Really seemed remote to me as in there are like 100 people living ther, few restaurants and yes overly populated with freaking tourists like me... I don't know, should I feel bad about myself or good, when i visit such small places, Sometimes I feel like an intruder, but again the mentality of a tourist kicks in.. "Aaah, I am not so bad.. I am bringing buisness to the village." Well I dont really think that way, but that is what many will say.. So, coming back to the point, Tristan da Cunha. I can bet quite strongly, that if you are not curious or weird, for all intent and purposes you will  not care about this place or probably not even heard about it. The way I landed on this beautiful geographical feature, is searching for "Remotest place on earth." Because, as I discussed with many friends of mine about my plans for spending one year in Tibet to do some soul searching and really think what should I really do next, I realised I have the tendency to detach. So, I landed on this place and in last 2 days, I have been gathering information about it, as in what is it like to be there? What do the people do there? Is it really that remote ? Turns out, it surpasses everything i have ever expected, and it made me re-think about loneliness, remoteness and my daily life. I am sure, people whom I meet every day won't really understand this feeling. And by no means, I am being disrespectful to them. They are really some of the smartest people, but they wont understand it because, I wont be able to take them to the same page as I am.

So, it turns out this place is a British colony in Southern hemisphere in Atlantic Ocean, a small island with a population of just 290-300 people and just to give you an idea of the remoteness, its 1500 nautical miles from any other piece of land, and if you want to reach there, the only way to go is taking a Royal Mail Ship, which goes to this island once a year carrying post cards, letters and other STUFFs from UK and it takes 3 weeks in the sea to reach there sailing along the Mid Atlantic ridge through St. Helena island. So, that is to give an idea of the remoteness. When I think about it now, I dont know, all my thoughts about going to some place lonely and remote seems more romantic and Hollywood-ish to me. Really it is soooo far.

Source: Amusing Planet

I mean if we take a moment to think about the people's lives there, it is for all intent and purposes a different world, and I do not know, my heart goes out to them, when I compare our lives and theirs. Sure, I am not saying they are not happy, Ofcourse, they might me, from what I can say, for sure, I do not have a sure way of knowing. The stapled food in this island is potatoes, and taking out potatoes from the ground is the communal Saturday activity. I mean there is a place in the world, where probably the whole population has not seen an airplane, ok forget about airplanes, it is in middle of nowhere, the bird sightings are rare too, and here we are complaining about no internet connectivity on the airplanes and sooo amny mundane things, I cannot even start. The place has just one police office and one single road and walking is the only means of getting around. Few years ago, in 1961, there were volcanic eruptions, on the island and it was evacuated for 2 years and people were stationed in UK, and then sent back. There are some videos on youtube about interviews with  them. Really, they didnt know about television, and till 100 years ago, the buisness practice was barter system and probably even today, it will be sole place on earth, where money seems to have much less value than human relationships. For a community of 300 people to be able to live, through centuries, the real values of relationships, unconditional friendships, helping out each other, love and care for your fellow beings, those are the currency of Tristan da Cunha.

Volcano in Tristan da Cunha Source: HowStuffWorks.com

But, the volcanic eruptions bought the whole world's attention to this tiny island, and they got the modern facilities, which changed the island forever, but they are still far far behind the lifestyles you and I have. From what I could read, the means of communications is just one telephone in the island, so probably we should not consider high speed internet being a possibility. Even reading books, and getting to see pictures of outside world is a real treat for the Tristanians. And I get bored with playing the same video game second time. Somewhere deep down I feel ashamed and really small, when pity the people who complain about things they do not have and really forget to appreciate what do they have.

So, by this time, you might be wondering, ok it is a British colony, if they do not like it there can't they just come to UK. and I am sorry to disappoint you my friends, no they are not British citizens so no they cannot work in UK or other places. They cannot get the education or skills needed to survive in this world, so I am amazed that the UK cannot grant citizenship to these 300 people, just to give them a choice for their lives.

Talking about gender discrimination, you will be surprised to know that in this place, the men and women connot sit together as per customs. The women still have to do the daily chores of the house and really looking at the interviews, it seemed that they really do not have a choice to do things otherwise, and they have just accepted the tradition.

The most famous thing about this amazing place are the stamps, they are really cool, and is a really worthy of collection, if you are a collector. I am not but I think I will still get some. For interested people, you can order them here http://www.tristandc.com/postoffice.php . And I think you should, just to support this island and show them that we care. And you will have something with you coming from the remotest place on eath, which is awesome.

 Source: Tristan De Cunha Post Office

Also, I am torn between the thoughts, that whether to consider this place a heaven or a prison, because of obvious reasons. On one side, there is the serenity which we long for day in and day out in out busy lives, and on the other hand also it is just too far. So, it makes me question, what we really want? Which brings me to another point, that more often than not, we are unhappy because we want contradicting things, we want serenity but we dont want to be soo remotely located too. We want good grades, but also dont want to work too hard. We want the latest technologies, but we do not want to pay for it. Life is indeed an interesting optimization problem.

So, at the end of the day, now that I think about my life and things surrounding my life, I am really really grateful for every single thing I have starting from something as small as being able to just see different people every day as I walk down the street and hear a different music anytime I want, being able to talk to anyone anywhere in the world and eat different food every day if I want to. But, most importantly I feel we all should value choices that we have in life and be thankful for that, because some people don't have them.

Dead Space 2: The game which ruined all the shooters for me

So, the last blog I wrote was about how painfully boring and tiring Crysis 2 was. :(. Since then I tried to play some games which are not in the main stream and I have been successful in fishing out some of the best in the market, though they are not as famous as Call of Duty or Halo, I think they really really are putting milestones in terms of Gameplay mechanics. For example Vanquish, a really fast paced shooter. But, this blog is not about Vanquish its about Dead Space.......... Oh Yes !

I just finished the game. I mean just now, and it was so epic, I really feel that I have accomplished something., and I will like to share this. If I have to rate all the games I have ever played this one will easily make it in top 5 games I have ever played and that is because this one does so many things so right. I tried to explain to some of my friends about it and they just dont get it (You all know who you are if you are reading this blog :) ). There is some satisfaction in strategically dismembering your enemies and then stomping on their head until it gets all bloody mess and then pick up on of the dismembered pointy limb and shoot it on the approaching enemy to pin him on the wall.Yes, you guessed it right, this game is scary and scariest in the recent video game industry i will say. You are never safe, never, just when you think you got the situation under control, there is a necromorph jumping on you from the back. 

The sound design, the lighting effects everything just adds to the experience, and dont even get me started on the enemy types. Goodness gracious i had probably one new enemy type on each levels. and you cant just soot them on their head and kill them like the main stream shooters. you need to keep your cool, and dismember their legs and then arms to kill them and you are always short on ammo and health so yay strategy!! So, you are always always running for your life :). 

Did I mention, there is one enemy type which are just a bunch of toddlers. There is some level of fun attached to shooting bunch of babies. and ok dont get me wrong here I am not a cruel person, who likes to shoot babies LOL just in the game :). 

There is another type of necromorph call STALKER. I think they are the scariest. for me because you just hear them scream and you dont see them, they just hide from you in the dark and attack on you when you least expect it. Now thats something hearing your enemies, but not being able to see them. I must admit, I was really scared myself few times.

Stalker Source: Gamernode.com

What about the story? I wont say anything very special about the story. Usual space colony sci-fi stuff, earth's colonization has gone wrong, as we meet other species. Anyone with little interest in Ridley Scott's movies can almost predict the story line. But the best part is even though the story is so mundane there is always a sense of urgency to save yourself and your partner who is talking to you and trying to fix things.

So, what makes the game so amazing, is even though i am used to such gory cut scenes and the bloody mess after playing the game for like 10 hours, there are parts, where i found it rather disturbing and messed up. If a game can do that make you feel Ouch! what did I just do, now that's a keeper. I just couldn't keep my controller down and kept on playing. There are sequences, where one needs to operate on his own eye or the player dies because of mental trauma leading to shooting a javelin in his own face. Now, I dont want to say about this too much as probably I will ruin the game if I say too much about it. 

Other than strategic dismemberment, you upgrade your weapons and suits using power nodes and an upgrade tree thus adding some RPG elements and replay value. 

Also, I will conclude with just saying that this game's ending is probably one of the best and will make one feel like a hero. It is just right paced and just when you think its all gone, something more happens. :)

Can't wait for Dead Space 3 to be released NEXT YEAR :) So, anyone who like survival horror and shooters will probably do themselves a favor by picking this just near perfect game. An epic I must say.

Zero-Gravity Boots

AND did I mention you get Space thrusters in your boots. If doesn't motivates you, God knows what will.. :)

Crysis 2 Is so boring

So, I was pretty psyched about the crysis series, I must admit I wanted to play this since the first game came out on PC, but unfortunately as the Crytek games requires a really high configuration on PC. So, regarding Crysis 2, I am utterly disappointed by the boring story, as well as the gameplay. And to top these shortcomings, the Xbox version of the game seems to be full of glitches at numerous places. The previous games of Crytek (FarCry, which I played on PC), has an awesome AI, but in this game I found the enemies, particularly the Aliens are so so stupid. More than often, I find them running around in circles, without doing anything in particular, or just running into a wall, as if they got stuck in the environment geometry, and only attack you when they you go in front of them blatantly. I am half way through the game and every time it seems there are same kind of enemies, the nanosuit's power and usage is not well explained. May be, if I play this game in supersoldier mode, the AI will be probably improved, but the graphical glitches are far from less. In addition, there is a subsequent amount of load time, everytime you power up the console.

When it comes to story, it seems very linear but it is so confusing, the guy who is giving you missions, doesnt know who exactly you are, most of the times you dont know what is the final objective its more like running between check points and shooting down the aliens, which gets so boring after a while, the bosses are also same in most of the levels.

I started the game with all good intentions, and as I saw the reviews on IGN and gamespot.com, which claimed the game to be one of the best looking games of 2011, and praised many aspects of it. I still find the game story in-captivating, the graphics look better in the beginning, but the glitches in the graphics and kill the pleasure. The guns are not so varied. The games are the mundane ones found in any FPS game for that matter. Towards the later part of the missions, its dark and it seems so repetitive. After a while, I get really bored and leave it. The game has good music, which is cool, but that credit goes totally to Hans Zimmer, who scored the tracks. I will just like to add one more comment on the voice acting, it is not so good as well. It doesn't seem personal at all. Infact they are so monotonous I just dont care what they are saying, I just go from point to point taking down everyone in between. The nanosuit though looks pretty awesome.

I will still finish till the end of the game, just for the heck of it, but so far it has been a little disappointing... :(