Science Philosophy and Discovery

"Only problem I have with Ayurved is that it is unscientific" , said a fellow blogger. ​

"Well, that depends on how you define science" , I retorted.

 

"Science isnt philosophy. It has one certain definition. There has to be experimentation, theory, equations, repeatable applicability involved in being scientific. A thing being useful is different from it being scientific. I use Ayurvedic medicine and Meditation myself. It is useful but it doesn't make it scientific."

 

"Can we say that it is a science that we don't understand?"

 

"No, it will be science if we make efforts, and detail fundamentals of it for our understanding".

 

"But science and the scientific equations and the math you are talking of is also based on assumptions. Aren't those assumptions what they call 'faith'?"

 

And the debate went on for more than an hour. But you got the crux, didn't you? Neither one of us might be completely right, nor would either one of be completely wrong.

 

Science in that case is has to be as Wikipedia says "Rationally explained and reliably applied". Well may be it makes it closer to what he was viewing science as. So that brings me to a point where I find science inadequate.

 

You can rationally explain something for which you understand the fundamentals. You can reliably apply it when you understand the application of these fundamentals. But then there are so many things in this world for which we do not really have an explanation. Philosophy comes in for help at all those places. It seems strange to think that Science and Philosophy weren't two different streams if we go back in time. Science is about eliminating options and creating certainty. Philosophy is about elucidating possibilities and creating prospects. Philosophy hence builds itself over observation and thoughts, and science over experimentation and "facts".

So what does it tell us? Well it tells us that if we rely only on science (and here comes an opinion) we will mostly have innovations but no discovery. I am saying that as discoveries are done by either exploring unknowns or hitting up on them by chance, while innovations are basically approached "rationally" and applied "reliably" by design. Think of it, what was the scientific basis of Copernicus to think that the world was round, or the thought that we are not the center of the universe? There was nothing in it from the explanation of science that we just discussed. There was something beyond it.

 

I might be taking it a little too far, but can that be the reason that century or so, we really did not have any "major" discoveries but have had a lot of innovation.

 

I want to read our ancient Indian scriptures / literature, whatever few things I have read has made me feel that thinking that we are human beings who are still evolving psychologically (biologically of course we are), might not be correct. One thing that I realized reading and knowing about it is , almost all of it highlights that Memory, intellect, Mind, Conscience/ awareness are all different entities. There is no parallel to it in our scientific knowledge. Philosophy had been driving the discoveries of those years; we did not bring our philosophy as far with us in our pursuit of science. May be it is a time to reconcile. (But alas, I am just a voice without influence :))

 

Rediscovering History

Our schools, teachers, parents and elders, all took a great care in exposing us to so many varied subjects and point of views. Many a times we do not realize its important when we went through it and rediscover it at a later point of time.

There are 2 things about history that I remember from my school days. One I never liked the subject and two that I used to rote a lot of dates and name of kings during those days. But those were school days, and like everything else, my perspective towards history has also shaped differently over time. I feel fascinated by history now. Think of it, history is not just an account of great men and women. History is a collective story of the times. Ottoman Empire, Mauryan empire, Aztecs, Incas, European conquests - of course all the accounts of their times have given us heroes and villains (based on who wrote history), but history is not about individuals. History gives us a view into why things are the way they are. And it is so exciting to know that.

Today morning I was hearing one of the history lectures from one of the princenton professors, Jeremy Adelmen. Today he was recounting and discussing about Older worlds of Eurasia meeting the newer worlds of Mesoamericas (14th to 16th century). He took a painting of interaction between columbus and native Indians in America.

What is it that would have happened then? He asked his students to think. He asked us to consider that Incas and Aztecs were developed empires, so when Spanish people first contacted them, they would have been easily been outpowered in numbers. So how did they manage to defeat and rule these new worlds? It was an interesting point.

And there were 2 reasons that were sighted in the discussion - one of it was ofcourse the spanish strategy, where they did not destroy the cities and places the way say the mongol did in 12th and 13th centuries in Eurasia. They just decapitated the elite ruling class and kept the political and social structure as it is. Another interesting reason was "Germs". Now this is particularly interesting. Within a few years of contact of Aztecs and incas with Europeans, their total population (and as the professor said, the numbers are debatable), decreased from 12 crore to 2 crore. The entire races were being wiped off by small pox, measeles, Typhus - Imagine that. A small army conquering bigger empires with weapons they did not even know they carried.

These themes are beautifully covered in two of the books I read in last couple of years. I would like to suggest the same to you (both of it also had a BBC series made) - Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond and The Ascent of Money by Niall Fergusson.

Guns Germs and Steel basically discusses the history from a biological and social perspective and asks the questions why history was shaped the way it did. Why did Africas, even after being the oldest human habitat did not become the richest. Why did Europe develop Guns germs and steel (and not the Americas) and why did they end up colonizing the world. It is a dry factual book, full of intersting stories at places :).

The other book , the ascent of money, is a brief history of money. How it originated and went across the world. How it got the value it does. What about gold? and the stock exchanges? and the tycoons, and the business families of Europe? How Money from medicis fostered renaissance in Italy and how stock exchanges were built in Amsterdam? It is a fascinating account and the author unlike Jared diamond is a flamboyant Niall fergusson, someone who doesnt shy away from expressing a strong opinion.

There is so much to learn from our past. The customs, the traditions, the worlds that once existed and that has shaped the world we live in today. Now that I am finding that one subject interesting am sure, if we look back at our NCERT textbooks of civics and geography, science and Languages, Craft and Physics, Chemistry and biology, Business and Economy, we might end up suddenly cultivating a lot of interest in some of it. It also brings me to one of the typical subjects we used to have "Moral Science". Isnt that an important subject for kids. Shouldn't morality be taught in a structured comprehensive way. How can we do that? It is a good point to think through. In some ways, our vedic and ancient literature did take this at the core of all its material.

Is interest in a subject a function of age? I mean, things like stories appeal better when you are kids, history when you want to explore the world in your 20s and 30s, science when you want to contribute in your 30s and 40s, philosophy and spiritual science in your 50s and 60s as you near the end? Can interest be a function of age?

Are you rediscovering something these days. What is it?

 

Thoughts After Attending My Son's Kindergarten Annual Function

Yesterday my son’s school celebrated their annual function for kindergarten kids. A small festival of sorts celebrated with performances put up by the little kids and their teachers.

We had reached the school in time and occupied our seats to watch our little one dance on the stage. He had not practiced well we knew as he wasn’t well for some days. While seating there, we watched people around as the seats in the amphitheater started filling. Parents, grandparents, younger / older siblings – all excited and waiting for the performances of they loved ones.

 

Kids came one after the other and danced to various tunes. A couple of kids clearly loved dancing. They enjoyed the attention from the audience, they danced to the tunes without really worrying about where the rest of the 9-10 kids on stage are dancing. Some were visibly bored; like those 2 flowers sitting on the side of the dancers in the song “awara bhanwre”. They started chatting with each other. In no time they were engrossed in their own play on stage intruding the dancer’s space. And some were dancing, the way they rote 1 to 100 – without expression, extracting all the dance move information from their mind, and trying to follow the 1-2 1-2-3. Many of these kids were tense when they arrived on the stage, and many searching for their parents were shouting “mommy” the moment they came on stage. The frown of fear changing into a smile of excitement as they saw the folks who would support them.

 

These delicate little men and women were cute. My son was also a part of one song. When the dance started, from the right most corner at the back of the stage, his eyes started searching for us. He found 2 waving hands in a moment and was back to his steps. He danced, partly remembering the steps, partly copying his partner. I saw those free spirits following instructions and getting “trained”. At the end of the dance though, when everyone went back, and music did not stop, my son felt like doing a “free style” and started jumping, alone on the stage. He loves attention, but knows not how to get it J.

 

Looking at these kids, I realized they aren’t shadows of their parents. They are their own self- they are individuals. They are strong Individuals. They are open to learning, are not weighed down by their emotional self. There is no baggage – yet. There is lightness in being themselves.

 

And then when I looked back at those gleaming eyes in the crowd, I saw the irony. School is such a positive environment that cynics like me always sees irony in the air there. All of us, reaching their tired from the office, had ourselves hooked on to our kid’s performance. Those little boys and girls were like anchor of the dreams, aspirations and sheer joy of their parents. They were like the shore for these ships, rather shipwrecks being battered by winds. Shipwrecks– which are naturally carried towards the shore which is their only hope –even when nothing remains, hope does.

 

We the people are emotionally fragile- the daily chores and the social life has extracted so much out of us, and created such a lot of pent-up within us that we are vulnerable. We might snap at the slightest instance of disturbance in our life. And we anchor our happiness on these little kids. They are strong individuals; they don’t feel the weight though. As they will grow up and as we will grow old, these anchors will turn into some sort of bond (both in good and bad ways). And they will soon turn in to us. I hope they don't.

 

On Writing and Courage

For the last few days I have been reading about writing and it kind of helps align your thoughts and inspire you to put the pen to the paper (or rather hands on the keyboard). There is something I read today morning which I felt worth sharing. Two things actually.

One was about writing being cathartic (I want quote it verbatim). About it opening up doors to your inner self. ​It is about sitting, thinking, dreaming, opening up your innerself to your rational mind. Looking at the multitude within you to come up with characters and feelings that are to be given to those little men and women on paper. In this very beautiful article on writing based on Dani Shapiro's book, she talks about looking at the wilderness within us world without the blinders on. Found the following words from the article inspiring and hence thought of sharing it with all the bloggers :

" The page is your mirror. What happens inside you is reflected back. You come face-to-face with your own resistance, lack of balance, self-loathing, and insatiable ego—and also with your singular vision, guts, and fortitude. No matter what you've achieved the day before, you begin each day at the bottom of the mountain. … Life is usually right there, though, ready to knock us over when we get too sure of ourselves. Fortunately, if we have learned the lessons that years of practice have taught us, when this happens, we endure. We fail better. We sit up, dust ourselves off, and begin again."

While reading on with the links in the article, I came across this beautiful article by someone called Debbie Millman (I never heard of these people earlier, just like you :)) and want to quote something from that article as well.

"Every once in a while, Often when we least expect it, we encounter someone more courageous, someone who chose to strive for that which (to us) seemed unrealistically unattainable, even elusive. And we marvel.We swoon. We gape.Often we are in awe. I think we look at this people as LUCKY, when infact, luck has nothing to do with it. It is really all about the strength of their imagination."

I found the words very inspiring. It takes a lot of strength as a creative artist to open up and accept these truths. Not all characters, and people you think of and write of are you. It would be terrible if you but in your writing lies the secret path to your innermost feelings, and you and only you are able to identify it. It might be in bad grammar on paper, it might be with spelling mistakes, It might as well look entirely impossible and not at all easy to understand, but there in lies your inner self. These article in a way inspired me to treasure my writing, however old and badly shaped. It really is what I once was.

*******

The blog triggers a few old memories , would like to quote a couple of poems from past (2009-2010) here. Most of these are negative and pessimistic. But pessimism is only a part of one's personality. I remember the sad things without hope and on the other side, there are the positive thoughts, like the ones above, that one gets , which will help fight the negative ones. SO go ahead and tell your self "अबकी बार ये उम्मीदों का शहर मेरा होगा"

2 lines from a pome on how the moments define us:

एक दोराहे पे खड़े, उलझे ख़यालो से मिलाते लम्हे,
सोचो तो आलीम बड़े , खेलो तो खिलखिलाते लम्हे,

ये कर लेता, वो कर पाता, अफ़सोस, मौत की रातें लम्हे,
"काश" की क़ैद में है बँध, मुर्दो पे मक्खी से बिन-बीनाते लम्हे

And

उम्मीदों का शहर
-Jaykumar Shah

आस के वीरान जंगल में, उम्मिदो के कई शहर बसते है,
सब बाशिंदे, ख्वाब से सिकुड के घरों में महफुज़ रहते है,
भरे भरे से हमेशा, उम्मिदो के गाँव, कभी खाली नही होते,
हर घर यहाँ, अपने ही या किसी और के हाथों से बनते है,

जब धीरे से, आहट को दबाए, खोला पहले घर का दरवाज़ा.
देखा तो अपने माँ-बाप के ख्वाबों में मुझको बनना था राजा,
फिर दूसरे घरों की और, एक बॉज़ के साथ बढ़ता रहा तो,
देखा मेरे बच्चों के भी ख्वाब भी इसी शहर में ऐसे रचते है,
उनके लिए कुछ अप्रतिम सी उँचाइयाँ सर करनी है और कही
संगनी की खातिर घरों में अलग ग़ज़लें-महल भी पलते है,

फिर इस शहर के किसी कोने में लावारिस एक खन्डर देखा,
सूम-सान सा लग रहा था तो मैने झाँक के थोड़ा अंदर देखा,

एक टूटी चार पाई पे, एक बीमार, अपाहिज़ उम्मीद पड़ी थी,
सालों पहले कुछ कर दिखाने की, मुझमे जो एक ज़िद बड़ी थी,
भूल गया था कब से इसके बारे में यहा फिर मिल गये हम,
तुमको विकलांग बनाते वक़्त जैसे, दोनो हीथे सहम गये हम,
फिर आज यहाँ उम्मिदो के खंडहर में भूले यार से मिल गये हो,
ये जो पर तुम्हारे, मैने अपने हाथो से, गीत लिख सवारे थे,
अब इन परो के पास मखियाँ की आवाज़ पे जुगनू जलते है,

मेरे इस शहर में बस ये घर मेरा है

छत के उपर जब जाके देखता हू,
कितना बड़ा हो गया है ये शहर कुछ सालों में,
कितने घर, कितनी इमारतें,
कितने लोगो की उम्मीदें,
पर ये शहर तो मेरा था ना?
और मेरी उम्मीदें यहाँ,
इस खंडहर के कोने में सीमित क्यों है?

सोचत हू अबकी बार ये शहर जला दूं,
और फिर तिनका तिनका जोड़ के इससे अपने,
नये पंख बनाऊंगा
अबकी बार ये उम्मीदों का शहर मेरा होगा