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The Gospel of Grandpa [part seven]
What Is... And What Is Not

What is and what is not? Is whatever that is perceived "real", or is reality beyond perception? Questions such as these occur to everyone at some point during their lifetimes. With some it happens at an early age, with others later. But none manage to find answers. Even if some were to do so, their explanations are so befuddling that they raise more questions than those they are supposed to answer. Ram Ramakrishnan argues that such is life and the quest for the Truth!

Questions of this kind often occurred in the minds of the children and grandpa. Whether the latter induced them in the former, whether it was the other way around or was it only a coincidence, it was difficult to say. Grandpa explained to the children his understanding of the mechanism of life as we know it. He believed that every point in time-space gave birth to a unique multi-dimensional globe of perception. What physical form each globe acquired depended on the attributes of the time-space point. Every globe would intersect with other globes around. The space of intersection between two globes defined and described all interactions between them. Every globe had a time span of existence at the end which it would cease to perceive and be perceivable by other globes.

The children asked, 'Would grandpa include all living creatures in the set of entities that conform to this definition?' Grandpa answered in the affirmative.

'Would grandpa include abstract concepts—like a government body, a social institution in the set of entities?' The answer was a less confident affirmative.

'Would grandpa include all inanimate objects in the set of entities?' The answer continued to be in the affirmative, but vague.

The trio had been to see the latest sequel of Star Wars just a week before. And in the morning's newspaper there was an article that, about a decade from now, the US Army would be introducing robotic soldiers and other countries would follow suit in the years ahead. Could the likes of C3PIO, R2D2 and the real robotic soldiers to come in the near future be included in the set of entities that could be imagined to be globes of perception?

'Logically, yes', opined grandpa.

'But', said the children, who with time had developed the confidence of arguing every point without being impertinent, 'how could one differentiate between a robot and a human, or for that matter between any two globes of perception if they were to come into being at the same instant?'

Grandpa firmly believed that a point in time-space can give rise only to one unique globe. However, he asked the children to help him in doing an analysis of the geographic distribution of human births in time which would provide a rough estimate of the probability of more than one globe coming into being at a point in time-space. The children were only too willing!

The files with demographic information that grandpa had brought out from his shelf when he and the children had discussed the devastation caused by the tsunami had not been returned to its original place and still lay on the table. They leafed through it to locate the birth rate prevalent in India at this time. The children got out their geography book to find the total area of the country. Grandpa then explained how to compute the number of births per day per square kilometre, which the children immediately did and arranged the computed figures in a table as below.

The birth rate was one child a day for every 100 square kilometres! Grandpa reminded the children that population density is also factor to be considered to arrive at more reasonable figures. For this it would perhaps be more appropriate to study the figures for the national capital territory of Delhi which is almost entirely urban. The basic data for Delhi were as follows:

The children quickly recomputed birth figures for Delhi and arranged them in another table as below.

The figures for Delhi were about 33 times higher than the national average. Even then there were only 2 births in every 3 square kilometres per day. The hourly rate was 3 births for a 100 square kilometre area.

This done, the children were eager to know what the astrological significance of this result was. Grandpa drew a circle with a representative diameter of 11.25 kilometres which would give the representative area of the circle as 100 square kilometres approximately. On the diameter he marked three points—one at the centre and two on either side of it that were two thirds of the distance of the radius, which marked possible places of birth in a given minute. The exercise was to analyse the following:

• the difference in longitudes for three points
• the difference in the position of the ascending degree at each of the three points
• the observable differences in application of astrological rules to such charts

Considering Delhi's latitude to be 17º north, the radius of the latitudinal circle at this point will be 6101 km and the circumference of the latitudinal circle will be 38349 km. A one kilometre distance at this latitude will therefore be equivalent to 0.009387 degree longitude. The assumed birth points marked on the circle above were 3.769 kilometres apart. The longitudinal distance between each point was 3.769 * 0.009387 = 0.03538 degrees = 0º 2' 07" approximately.

Grandpa switched on his computer and drew a chart for an arbitrary date and time (July 1, 1988, 11:30 am) for the terrestrial co-ordinates 17N00, 75E00 and time standard -05:30 off GMT. He then drew two more charts with time and longitude reduced by 20 seconds and 2' 07" respectively in one and both increased by this margin in the other. The results were tabulated by the children as below.

Variant Birth Time		Chart-1	Chart-2	Chart-3
1.	Time	11:29:40	11:30:00	11:30:20
2.	Longitude	074E57:53	075E00:00	075E02:07
3.	Ascendant	09°04'11"	09°11'01"	09°17'52"

The difference in the rising degree between each chart was 6'50" Grandpa described two astrological procedures that immediately came to his mind that could be expected to give divergent results even in charts with such small differences. The first was to do with transits while the second was related to the concept of divisional charts.

Saturn takes about 912 days to cover 30 degrees. In a day this would average 0.03289 degrees = 0º 1' 58". Saturn would transit over each natal ascendant (or any other point of the natal chart) during its apparent geocentric orbit with a variance of 3.75 days. In this time the Moon would have moved about 45 degrees and the Sun by 3.75 degrees. The collective influence of the celestials over the natal ascendants will be different as they will be placed at different locations in the zodiac.

Astrology prescribes use of divisional charts for accurate prognosis. The smallest of these divisions is 1/150 of a sign that spans 6' of arc. As the difference between the ascendants in the three charts is more than this measure, the ascendant in each case will be in a different division. The attributes for each of these divisions can be very different that can result in the globe of perception defined by them imbibing divergent characteristics.

Even though the exercise that had been done so far was very rudimentary and was based upon a number of assumptions, the children were indeed awed at the prospect of being able to verify grandpa's notion of unique perceptive globes. All this brainstorming began after dinner and it was time to go to bed. The children looked out of the window at the night sky. The stars winked at them. Were they also globes of perception? Surely they too should be...