Languages: Ever wonder how Wonderful they are?

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As I near half century mark, feels like patterns and links  jumping at me from everywhere. A snippet here, a para there, some  serious faced actor mouthing deep philosophical dialogue, you know, all  of a sudden there pops a surreal link something else that I read, heard a  while ago. It feels quite strange sometimes, like lots of déjà vu, like  there are only limited original ideas and then there are millions of  shades out of them.

This weekend was going through ‘Treading on  Python Series: Intermediate Python Programming by Matt Harrison, and  found this code for a normal imperative filter:

>>> nums = [0, 1, 3, 4, -2]
>>> pos = []
>>> for num in nums:
>>>   if num > 0:
>>>       pos.append(num)
>>> print pos
[3,4]

Now python has beautiful list comprehension that looks like:

>>> pos = [num for num in nums if num > 0}

Gives same output, Quite artistic right?

Funny was the pop to this unbelievable shloka in Samskrit, which uses only one consonant य (ya) and आ (ā). यायायायायायायायायायायायायायायाया | यायायायायायायायायायायायायायायाया ||

Proper prose order is यायाया आय आयाय अयाय अयाय अयाय अयाय, अयाया यायाय अयायाय आयाया, या या या या या या या या !!!!

And the meaning is ‘The  sandals which adorn the Lord, which help in attainment of all that is good and auspicious, which give knowledge, which cause the desire (of  having the Lord as one’s own), which remove all the that is hostile,  which have attained the Lord, which are used for going and coming from  one place to another, by which all places of the world can be reached,  these sandals are for Lord Vishnu’.

Now can you beat that!!?? Samskrit seems to be a perfect finished language that can pack difficult concepts like astronomy and logic in highly compact verses, no  less admiringly like the new age python list comprehensions. Language is tool, but it takes human comprehension to come up with these extremely intelligent constructs. Will cover more in a later post about interesting pieces of codes in python and Sanskrit for  Euler’s chess and knight problem.

Oh, by the way don’t think it is  only us homo-sapiens that excel at this. Yual Noah Harari came up with this in his book ‘Homo Deus’:

‘Both whales and humans process emotions in a part of the brain called limbic system, yet the whale limbic system contains an entire additional part which is missing from the human structure. May be that part enables whales to experience extremely deep and complex emotions alien to us? Whales might also have  astounding musical experience which even Bach and Mozart couldn’t grasp. Whales can hear one another from hundreds of kilometers away, and each whale has a repertoire of characteristic ‘songs’ that may last for hours and follow a very intricate pattern.’

So if not language and comprehension, what makes us successful than whales? Its unnerving to think of us as biological ‘algorithms’, that consciousness can’t be  established as separate existence than ‘algorithm’ and even scary that we have successfully decoupled the intelligence with the consciousness. Think of AI.

Now you know what I mean the world is lighting up with meanings and interconnections? I have been blessed to be born at this era, to my parents, to be able to connect to all of you who touched my life however briefly. 🙂

Hope you all have had a good weekend, stay safe and stay home!!!!!