Cause & Effect

walking in circles

Math is absolute. In many occasions it consists of points arranged in a random pattern, but always the result is a straight line. That’s good about it. However, sometimes it proves how stupid or inflexible math is. It’s always 1+1=2, this is boring. In my field, medicine, and in many occasions, it’s hard to prove that 1+1=2. It would be much easier if it were that way. Results, even in most controlled circumstances, can’t be predicted. Life itself, is it mathematics or medical equation? Can we apply strict rules that never break? Is it just a bunch of chaotic events?

Some oriental cultures believe in Karma. It’s the cycle of cause and effect.  Simply, you do something good, you gain something good, in current or later life. To tell the truth, karma reminds me of 1+1=2. On the other hand, some Muslims believe that good people always end up with bad things. Job is a good example for this. Some say more Allah/God loves his worshiper, more tests, difficult once, has this poor believer to pass.

If Job were taken back to his initial state, being rich and healthy, what’s the possibility of the recurrence of same condition? Well, Karma presumes that doing something good, he may miss doing, may change the result. Islam will keep saying since he’s a good guy, bad events would keep happening to him. Yet, let’s take it one step deeper, and make it more complicated. Let’s take a peek to the big picture, it consists of many tiny components; one of them could be a butterfly or mosquito wing flapping. For some stupid reason, like the mosquito was killed by a young boy, the chain of events in Job story would change in a dramatic manner. Again, this could be expressed in a mathematical equation to predict the behavior of a point in the space.

Butterfly effect, or the chaos theory studies a dynamical system that is highly sensitive to initial conditions. So, it’s not good or bad things we do. It’s how things happen in our life. How we act, respond, and do stuff.  It's not why, it's how. And as long as it’s judged by an equation, I think it’s justice and fair. So, can we predict the future using the chaos theory?

Let’s forget about the rubbish I just mentioned. I have a friend, an enlightened, educated, inspiring, and cute guy. These feature qualified him to know a lot of girls, in Saudi Arabia. Most of you know that it’s really difficult to contact or be in a relationship with an individual from the opposite sex. Sometimes, I think Saudi Arabia is a paradise for homosexual people. I can spend days and sleep over in my friend, or who is called a friend, and nobody would question me. Even if we suppose that the family knows about their child homosexual attitude, most families would ignore it. Back to my friend, in these harsh conditions we live and suffer, he managed to know like dozen of girls in a short period. I don’t care about the aim of his relationships. Yet, the outcome of those relations was awesome, many of those girls changed their life style to better one. To tell the truth, I think my friend made of his girls, better females, enlightened, smart, and ready to survive in the wolves’ world.

I would like to apply the 3 assumptions I mentioned in the beginning of the article on my friend case. According to Islam, this man should be punished, in current and later life. And most likely, these relationships effect would follow him when he gets married. They say; who knocks other doors, people would knock his door. A guy briefly with prohibited relationships should expect his sister, mother, wife, or daughter, even granddaughter to be involved in a prohibited relationship.

This may take long time explanation, and I wanna end it early. Logicians say; whatever is based on wrong establishment, must end up with wrong result. That’s why Muslims don’t justify his initial actions by the results. Yet, karma, the lovely karma would go another way with him; he caused good things to those girls, so the effect he gains would be good. In the fact, I’m concerned about him when he gets married. What do you think he would end up with, a wife with millions of relationships before him?

I think the last resort for this troubling issue is chaos theory. Let’s hope a prayer from one girl or one drip of saliva would change the whole equilibrium in his dynamic system. 

Karma

Butterfly Effect

Chaos Theory

Job

I Chose Death

I’ve arrived to the wrong life. Have I had the option to choose the time, place, or form of my creation? Could I change any quality of my life? To tell the truth, I think we’re very helpless in all life aspects. We all are fixed like a logo cubes. And sometimes, when I observe the chaotic scene in this life, I doubt the presence of an order, or even a higher power to fix this chaos.




Every morning I drive my car to the hospital, I could think of 2 manners of life; either working or sleeping. Do we have a third option? Does anyone of us have the gut to break this cycle and do something else?


On the Valentine’s Day, it was my first session in the ER department. The place was very busy, and full of life. It felt like bee’s nest. I couldn’t imagine, even for a moment, that death could break through to such a place. I overheard much information in disarranged sequence, and in different places all around about many patients. However, at one point, I noticed a crying woman, praying her god to save her child. In front of her there was a bed, a lot of doctors and nurses. The monitor of her vital signs was reading ZERO pulse. The child heart stopped beating, and all doctors were trying to bring her heart to beat again. Finally I could understand the overheard information previously; the child was a female, 14 years old, with mental retardation, recurrent brain tumor, which had been removed twice, untreated fever for 1 week, and aspiration of stomach contents into the lungs. I thought such troubles can’t gather in one patient, therefore, I assumed that they’re many patients. As time progressed, her mother wept louder and louder. The doctor asked about how many minutes had passed since the resuscitation?


For sure I can’t participate in her resuscitation process, as I’m not trained. I was left with one option: PRAYING. Still, should I pray for her to live or die? I chose death. Life is a journey, from the early moment of birth until death, through pain and suffers. And I think this girl had her enough dose of pain. An old wise man said one that a baby cries at birth because the feeling of sorrow to arrive this crude world. A baby wishes to stay at his mother womb or never been created and born. So back to options we have in life, I find it very funny and ironic that we, helpless people, keep trying to do something helpful. I can’t choose to die or live, to be born or be uncreated. So, how can I stop death reaching somebody else?


2 days ago, 15th Feb 2010, a man was driving his car to King Khalid University Hospital at Riyadh. This man doesn’t work there, nor was he sleeping in early morning. He went to the morgue, to retrieve his beloved daughter corpse. I’m sure his head is full of flashbacks, as mine is. When doctors stopped the resuscitation, 3 nurses came to clean the place, the dead body, and cover her face with a white sheet. Finally I’ve been introduced to the third party of people, those who deal with death very closely. Those are the most important and most neglected party. This’s not the closure, since they’re endless questions in my head.


Could I fit better if I had been recreated in another place, time, or form?


Could the child be saved if her parents had been brought her earlier?


Could she have a better treatment if the doctor weren’t the idiot Egyptian doctor who doesn’t know the doses of necessary medications?


Was the sequence of events change if any minor modification happened, before it was initiated in the first place?