Linux Lingam wrote: > [snip] > > sanjeev, thanks so much for these enlightening insights into newton > and > leonardo. these insights are too remarkable and make me wonder, are > these > the hallmarks of modern civilization, or just a particular > civilization?
I am not at all sure of this, but I would answer "neither". I am not sure that "civilisations" is a particulary useful term in this respect. I relate to you as LL, with little impact from the fact that you are an "Indian". To the extent that the only reason we are talking is that we were once in the same city, the concept of a "Delhi Culture" is relevant, but please note that I could have said "Delhi Location", and it would still mean the same; hence I am not sure what culture in particular Raj and I share :-) > for instance, the chinese are known to have invented several things > in their > civilization, you know the usual: gunpowder, sails, etc. what has > been their > attitude towards knowledge they discover or inventions they make? Again, to be pedantic, the "chinese" invented nothing. Some chinese persons invented something. To the extent that the legal system, and their culture, did not suppress them, or kill them, I am willing to credit the "chinese". But intelligence is not a contagious disease, and glory reflects weakly. How should we rate AMS's singing, given that he is from the same culture as Tagore? > what about > india, as in ancient india? i wonder what was the attitude towards > knowledge > of ancient indian scientists, whether in mathematics, or ayurveda, or > whatever else? Please note that there was a never an ancient India. The India we know is 60 years old. If we are willing to exclude people who had a different passport, legal system, rule of law, etc, we can go back another 100 years. But AMS (again!) and I share little in common, neither religion, nor language (usually these two are used as definitions of culture), not even foods. I would not know the corect way to address his village headman. I would starve, trying to explain my vegetarianism in Punjabi, and would lose my head because I broke the taboo of not pointing with my left hand at the Priest's mother. So I do not think that a couple of hundred years ago, my forefathers and his would agree that they were linked in any way. To be sure, we could contrive something (you worship a goddes? so do we! So Kali Ma and Vaisno Devi must be sisters, even the same goddess. See we share a culture. QED). > am trying to see this from a timeframe that precedes > the > arrival of the British to india. I do know that Jagdish Chandra Bose, > for > instance, refused to patent wireless, but that's one exception. I also refused to patent wireless, but no one credits me, do they? :-) No, seriously, patents require a specific format and method. Saying "I could have come first, but I didn't" means little. > what about brazilian ethnic knowledge, or of red-indians, or whoever > else? Any pre-Columbian "brazilian" culture never existed, the name "brazil" is recent enough. And the "Red Indian", sorry "American Indian", sorry, "Natives", sorry, "First Peoples" had nothing in common, not even legends of creation (these also serve as definitions of culture). > what has been their attitudes towards knowledge and inventions? What inventions of theirs are you talking about :-) LL, when I am abroad, the only claim I can make as an "Indian" is my passport. I nothing of Ayurveda, or Subramaniam Bharti, or Thyagraja. How can I claim descent from an "Indian" Culture? More troublingly, once I claim an identity as an "Indian", and generalize (All Indians are mystic. All Indians are hospitable, etc), I quickly slip into "All Indian speak Hindi, which is derived from Sanskrit", so do those who do not speak Hindi lose claims on the Great Indian Culture? We are not even a "nation" yet. Another few generations, and we might be a single nation. Then we can start moving towards a single "Indian" culture. And to make this on-topic for Linux, what in Scandinavian culture did Linus draw on? -- Sanjeev "A tall fair, and handsome Punjabi, dammit" Gupta _______________________________________________ ilugd mailinglist -- [email protected] http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
