La Excepcion (The Exception)

``Listless;`` I think pulls it all together. I have not really seen that construction very often- interesting. I am still unable to gather the paradigm, probably will after a couple of reads.

In my opinion I don`t think you need to conclude all your poems. Reading your work, I have seen the last sentence trying to structure all the thought you have been trying to pen- makes it look very, for the lack of a better word ``,arranged.`` You already have clarity and that is important in a poem (not all the time, Celan has no clarity and is still great, leaves people fighting over the relevance and meaning of Todesfuge). Don`t worry about your audience, most of the world has bad taste and most of your audience will not be so intelligent (I remember Rushdie saying something to that effect about 5 years back when he was a decent writer). This is what I think; you might have a different view...

Keep on writing poetry; we need more poets in Pakistan.

Faisal

IT IS AN EXCELLENT POEM WITH AN EXCEPTIONAL COMMAND ON THE LANGUAGE,THE INTLLECTUALLY STARVED PEOPLE PERHAPS FORM THE MAJOR PORTION OF EARNEST HEMINGWAYS LOST GENERATION...

THEY ARE SO MUCH INCLINED AND DETESTED TOWARD THE PREPLANNED COMPULSION TO LIVE ..ANYWAY HAILS

HATS OFF TO THE SPIRIT...

A PERSON TO BE

MAHIM!!!KEEP IT UP

Shahryar #22

Aik Shair Jo Zia Sahib Ke Zamane Se Abhi Tuk Taaza Hai Hazir Hai.

Naa Mera Pakistan Hai Naa Tera Pakistan Hai.

Yeh Ji Ka Pakistan Hai Woh Sadr-e Pakistan Hai.

#: 37

Mahim

Owais, Asim, PM, Sac, Urstruly

Writing poetry in spanish doesn`t `help` Pakistan as such. When I interviewed Umair Khan (for The Friday Times) who is one of the people who started Chowk, he said that you help Pakistan if you do whatever you are good at and retain your Pakistani identity. This applies to Pakistanis living abroad and at home. I try to help, for instance, by teaching Maths and Add Maths to O`Level students in Karachi.

------was going through the posts...which is quite an interesting thing sometimes....

pakistani identity....wow...thats very interesting!

Pankaj #219 The reason IQ is a poor measure, I think, is that we are operating way below the physical limits of the mind. So what we are measuring is how good a use one has made of ones mind to date, and how well trained the mind is at the current time, not the physical capacity of the mind. With advancements in technology, we can expect in a few decades (or earlier) the mind interacting directly with computers (there is a man in England who is experimenting with these things, at the risk of his sanity it is said). When that happens, that will be a first step towards a networking of minds and computers. That would probably be as big a step forwards for life on earth as was the case when the first multi-cellular creatures evolved a billion or so years ago. That is what I think, at least.

Nice poem Mahim,

Your work has definitely come a long way since

the A`level days.

Mustafa Siddiqi.

PM/Tahmed

PM, I read Spearman`s theory some 2-3 years back in my undergrad. Actually it was my interest in such things that prompted me to take a couple of classes in Psychology. There is no problem with the theory of intelligence as such, but there are a lot of controversies over the tests designed to measure it. Another point that may adversely affect the utility of these IQ tests is that not a very strong correlation was observed between the scores in these tests and success in personal life. Perhaps this inadequecy of IQ tests in predicting the future success led many to propose the concept of EQ(emotional quotient) that might correlate better with an individual`s future performance. However EQ tests at present are very naive( non sensical IMO, try some). The questions are poorly designed, and people tend to answer ``what they should do`` given a situation instead of ``what they would do``. The whole field is very undeveloped IMO.

Tahmed

Hey, these IQ tests may not be as unreliable as your wife thinks. I guess she secretly believes your score!(afterall which wife wouldn`t like to have a husband with IQ=136). Ask any of your friends to ask her in private and she might confirm my surmise :-)

Cheers

PM/Pankaj : I happen to think that there must be something to IQ tests. I developed this view, coincidentally, soon after I took a test (from a book - this was before Al Gore invented the internet and google and on-line IQ tests) and came out with an IQ of 136. My wife thinks that this proves that IQ tests do not work... :-)

Dear PM,

RE: blacks being less intelligent than whites.

When will these scientists ever learn...reminds me of the early 18th Century scientists who related intelligence to the degree by which the forhead stuck out with respect to the chin-jaw, thereby giving a diagonal line running from high left to low right or low left to high right.

The whites had their foreheads (wrt their chins)sticking further out than blacks (low left to high right diagonal line.) For blacks it was the other way around and lo and behold...the great apes had their chins and jaws sticking out the most wrt their foreheads.

It was therefor `strongly proven` that whites were the most intelligent, apes were the least intelligent and blacks were somewhere in the middle.

Biases biases biases,

Take care and best wishes

Omar Phoenix

Pankaj,

thanks for the interesting info in #214. it`s always fascinating to fathom (or see the inablility to fathom) a transcendence of time as we know it.

As for #215, I fully agree that `intelligence` tests are often culturally biased, and more than that, measure only a limited number of faculties that contribute to the recipe for success. However, I am reluctant to debunk the idea of a `general` intelligence quotient, though I know of now test that reliably measures it. Spearman`s theory on `g` (general) and `s` (specific, such as spatial, musical, etc.) intelligence levels is quite interesting, I think.

Chris Brand recently revived the theory and earned the scorn of academia by suggesting that blacks were, on average, less intelligence than whites. A better way to have reacted to the `finding`, IMO, would have been to recognize the limitations and culture-dependnce of the notion of intelligence in the first place.

rgds,

PM

PM#213

Well, IMO not much reliance should be placed upon these IQ tests. You can search on google for some of these tests. I do not have much faith in these IQ tests for two reasons. One, most of these tests are culturally biased. For example, in a test on comprehension, some of the phrases that are familiar to a western kid may be elusive to his eastern compatriots. Thus the scores may be different inspite of equal ability to process information. Several of these IQ tests in 1930s were used to prove that blacks had, on an average, 20 points less IQ than whites. Some of the black researchers came forward to turn the table, and designed IQ tests to prove whites lower in IQ than blacks.

Two, it is very difficult to define what intelligence is and still more difficult to devise a test to assess it properly. For example, all these IQ tests, though good at evaluating analytical abilities, are unable to account for the creative abilities of a person that also are an important component of intelligence. It may be of interest to know that many of the great scientists/genius we know had an IQ level(acc to these tests) between 120-140 that is not very high. Actually in such fields often creative abilities become more important than analytical/mathematical talents.

Sincerely

Humsab#201

``An indian boy disapproves Einstein and has been shortlisted for

the Nobel Prize. It`s incredible! But true. An Indian boy in his twelfth

standard has disproved Einstein`s ``Theory of Relativity``. Shocked???

``

Although I have not read in detail about this news previously, I must say that issues of science should not be ``corrupted`` by sensational journalism. Any new theory about the laws of nature never ``disproves`` a previous existing theory that is supported by strong experimental evidences. It only redefines the domain of validity of the previous theory. For instance, quantum theory or relativistic mechanics never falsified Newton`s laws. They only explained why Newton`s laws that work so well for the macroscopic world break down at the subatomic scale. When applied at the macroscopic scale all the relativistic/ quantum theories reduce to Newton`s laws. Therefore Newton`s laws are an excellent practical approximations to a more general theory when applied in the proper domain( in this case it is the macroscopic world). Thus new theories have to be a superset of previous theories.

Now if somebody wants to claim that any particle can ``travel`` at a speed greater than that of light in the space,he would also have to explain the thousands of phenomena where the assumption of light speed as a universal constant explained the natural phenomena successfully. BTW here is some interesting piece of info. As you might be knowing Einstein in 1940`s claimed that quantum theory is incorrect by carrying out a thought experiment. He arguement ran as follows:Take two protons in an ``entangled`` state to begin with. Now separate these protons by let`s say a hundred lightyears. Now if by some mechanism, say you flip the spin of a proton, quantum mechanics predicts that the other proton separated by a hundred lightyears would flip its state ``instantaneously``. Einstein argued that since any ``information`` can not travel at a speed greater than that of light, hence this can not happen and quantum theory is flawed. However with the availability of nano clocks these days, an experiment to this effect was recently carried out in the lab. And guess what was found. The other proton indeed changed its state ``instantaneously``. So apparently in this case, information(if you so call it!) did travel at a speed greater than that of light! However majority of physicists dont agree that this can be called ``information`` in the mathematical sense. The debate is still on.

Sincerely

harimau #209:

``IQ Meter? Ya got to be kidding! There are IQ tests that measure intelligence. What is an IQ meter? Do you hook up a machine to the guy`s head and measure electrical activity? Seems like something that our headshrinker would cook up.``

yeah, the mention of `IQ meter` piqued my interest too. I was about to respond in much the same vein as you did, but then I figured maybe there was a standardized computer test that just wasn`t programmed to handle a combination of certain values. ummmm.. on second thought, it would take someone with a pretty low IQ to invent/program somehting like that :)

rgds,

RE: 210 scout

{``Damn, you broke my heart. I had my heart set on a cyber Lalukhetiya brother :)``}

Gosh I didnt mean to break your heart. However, its never too late; Is your emphasis on ``lalukhetya`` or is it on ``brother``? Cause if its the former then I can connect you with a number of lalukhetya burger flippers in the NY area.....

``Indian whiz kid who developed an operating system superior to Microsoft Windows.``

All OSs out there are superior to the crap produced by Bill Gates & Co.

ali1 #207, ``Okay okay. I wont use the c word from now on.``

thanks, but do it for your own sense of self.

``Unlike your ``c`` (c for cyber) bhai jan, I dont consider you or any other woman my sister.``

Damn, you broke my heart. I had my heart set on a cyber Lalukhetiya brother :)

By the way, I don`t ask for brothers, if someone calls me a sister, I respond in a sisterly fashion.

We all know true brothers are only the ones your mother gave birth to.