Way of doing things:: Change is the only constant
Evening of November 8, 2016 was monumental for India. The Prime Minister, Narendra Modi announced to ‘remove’ legal tender of 500 and 1000 rupees. This was one of the boldest moves taken by a PM of The Independent India. Everyone round the nation was in a state of surprise and was clueless as to what was to be done for next hour.
People used to transact hefty amounts in cash till that date, and no one had raised eyebrows for that. However, since then nation had seen cash crunch for a timeframe; this was a unique problem for people. There were buyers; there were sellers but no connecting medium between them — Cash! People were in quandary as to how the things would go. The sellers had to sell the things and buyers had to buy to keep the ball rolling.
There the opportunists came and defined the new way of doing things. The next day newspapers were filled with the advertisements of paytm wallet service which helped in doing seamless cashless transactions. Tadaa! That was the answer. Since people had to do things, they adopted this change quickly. Government also proposed and nurtured the idea of cashless society and launched few applications and programs to felicitate the same. Today, along with government’s programme ( UPI, BHIM) we have other market competitors for doing cashless transactions( freecharge, mobikwik, airtel wallet, JioMoney). Both ends i.e. Buyers and sellers remained same, but the medium changed. It brought the paradigm shift in way of doing things and people round the nation are ‘getting used to’ with the idea of cashless society.
Quite lately, the west hasn’t been happy with the idea of globalized world. People think that their share of services and resources are being wrongfully used by other people. This is raising the idea of conservatism which is a different way of doing things for same set of people. UK’s Brexit and election of Donald Trump as the President of United States are the examples of paradigm shift in the mindset of people for getting things done.
In given above two examples, the end results are same. The desired end result for Protectionism and Globalism is same. i.e. Prosperity of People. But way of doing things is different.
This way of doing things is governed by the mindset of people which is governed by the belief system they belong to and which is harnessed by the individual thought process. The individual thought process is controlled by the conscious and sub conscious mind (sometimes unconscious as well). The mind sets a thought process by witnessing the surroundings and circumstances it encounters. And as human psyche goes, it is very hard to challenge a thought process of and individual unless individual’s existence is challenged. Therefore, we sometimes see gradual changes or steep changes according to situation. i.e. Adopting a cashless society is a steep change whereas movement towards protectionism is a gradual change.
In medieval Europe, learning and natural philosophy were governed by a single school of thought, known as scholasticism. The central idea of scholasticism lies in pure and abstract reason as the only path to knowledge and truth. The idea of scholasticism was strengthened by Aristotle who primarily believed that ‘everything in motion is moved by something’. This thought, if we go by reasoning alone — is superficially true. This prime idea led Aristotle to think that earth is the center of universe and every object moves around it and this was believed by the people then.
The scientific revolution in the 16th and 17th centuries, in which the Italian philosopher — Galilio Galilei was one of the greatest figures, involved an assault over the foundations of scholasticism. He moved beyond the idea of seeking knowledge and truth by only abstract and pure reasoning. He incepted the idea of empiricism (doing things practically before believing them) by doing an experiment with falling objects from tower of Pisa. This was a substantial change in the way of doing things which helped to conceptualize many things and helped to nurture future inventors and their thought process, prime example of it being the rise of Classical Physics and Calculus by Sir Isaac Newton (Newton’s apple and Newton’s Cannon! ).
Till the beginning of 19th Century everyone in scientific fraternity believed that all natural problems can be solved with the help of Classical and Newtonian Mechanics and Thermodynamics. But then this was challenged by Max Planck. The pioneer of the field of Quantum Mechanics on whose foundation the current world withholds (Semiconductor Electronics and Astrophysics would have been a distant dream if this hadn’t happened. And without Semiconductor Electronics we wouldn’t have had computer systems). With respect to scientific interventions, the whole idea and the desired end result being to know the truth of ‘nature’, the way of doing things has always evolved.
The same lies in the field of Finance and Economics. The Federal Reserve was created in 1913 to provide the stability for monetary and financial system. This was a paradigm shift in Way of doing things but the end result was same.
During the Second World War, The German enigma was unbreakable and was creating a one man show in the war. It had to be broken for the UK to stand against them. Alan Turing invented Turing Machine which broke the enigma and helped UK to win the War and shorten it. Turing Machine challenged the idea and question that ‘can Machines think?’ and brought subtle change in the world of Computing. The foundation of Modern idea of Artificial Intelligence lies in that rudimentary question which it has successfully answered and which has brought remarkable change in ‘way of doing things ’.
The LIGO recently found evidence of Gravitational-wave. It challenges the idea of considering gravity as a force and to rather consider it as an added dimension. This has shaken the fraternity of modern physicists and belief system of the Astrophysics and fuelled the idea of Einstein’s Universe. This has brought substantial change in way of doing things.
For Humans, Change is the only constant. We constantly thrive to make the world a better place and thrive to know the absolute truth of existence. The Nature is so dynamic that it reveals new every day which challenges ‘way of doing things’. This shall continue until the point of Absolute Truth, the beginning.
originally published: 18.02.17
