Pranam In connection with the above thinking of YM and SKB, I thought I can think this way with my old notes as 2 articles one after the other, which is long but wish everyone reads slowly to understand fully and think over also. The only truth is the existence is true and the subjectivity, objectivity perceptions etc are pure duality related to, may be to modern science. Let me hear from every one after a week, maybe it may take . Thank you K R IRS 1121.
1 There is an epistemological optimism, inspired by the Western renaissance, leading to the faith that man has power to discern certain knowledge. The essence of this view lies in the doctrine that ‘truth is manifest’ which implies that truth may perhaps be veiled, but it may reveal itself. If it does not reveal itself, it may be revealed by us. Removing the veil may not be easy, but if we once got the naked truth before our eyes, we have the power to see it, to distinguish it from falsehood, and to know that it is true. There is no problem to recognize the truth. Truth is only to be unveiled and discovered. 2 If this is the nature of truth, then the question arises how we ever fall into error. In this regard, Cartesians appeal ( Descartes) to the theory of conspiracy: the idea that various evil influences perverted our originally pure and innocent mind. And this is science which through its methods and techniques ensure to prevent the conspiracy and to discover the manifest truth. The only thing we need to do is to use the *scientific methods.* * 3 * Scientific knowledge is purely objective, and Scientific knowledge is purely objective, and it is an objective description of the real structure of the world. Any kind of source may be the background of scientific knowledge. We have to give up the idea of the ultimate source of our knowledge and no source has the overwhelming authority. Scientific knowledge may be generated from any humanistic ideas which are mixed with errors, prejudices, dreams, and hopes. Any product of the human mind - such as myth, metaphysics, stories, guesses or whatever– may be the valid source of scientific knowledge. 4 In this way science exposes theories and counter theories to a fiercest struggle for survival. This is a struggle to falsify the previous theory by the new theory. This implies that theories must be falsifiable – a theory to be scientific needs to be empirically falsifiable. To be empirical, falsification must be done on the basis of basic observational statement. But a question can arise: is an observational statement really objective? A phenomenon could be observed and interpreted from different points of view depending on the scientists’ position in the knowledge situation of his time. Interpretation of a phenomenon depends on some other theory; this other theory again depends on some yet other theory and in this way, it goes *ad infinitum*. At this point scientists *decide *to stop somewhere to settle for an accepted basic observational statement as an arbiter of falsification process. There are many human elements in scientists’ decision to stop at a certain position to settle a basic statement –this is a human decision, not a logical end. 5 Creation of hypothesis is a subjective involvement. Observations and their accumulation should be considered as results of the scientific theories. So, science itself throws new light on things; that it not only solves problems, but it creates many more. Theory is produced from the imaginative mind of scientist, and then we observe according to the theory. Our observation needs Science to be interpreted. So, without theory we could not orient ourselves in the world. We observe as our theory suggests. For instance, the Marxists literally observe class struggle everywhere, for their theory suggests that the history of mankind is the history of struggle between classes. The Freudians observe everywhere repression and sublimation; the Adlerian sees how feelings of inferiority express themselves in every action and every utterance. These show that all observations are designed by their theory. 6 Nothing can be built on pure data, because there is nothing as pure data; there is nothing simply ‘given’ to us uninterpreted. All our knowledge is interpreted in the light of our expectation and our theories. Theoretical entities, such as electric field, magnetic field, gravitational field – all are hypothetical constructs. They are metaphysical and speculation of scientists’ minds. So, nature of the world becomes different with the difference of the scientists’ thought. What is oxygen to Lavoisier is dephlogisticated air to Priestly. No experiment could solve their controversy. Two observers do not see the same thing. Observing a protozoon – amoeba, one saw one celled animal, but the other a non-celled animal. 7 The theories that are replete with unobservable entities are grandiose ontological frameworks. This ontological construction is dependent on human ability and personality. How, then, can we produce an adequate solution where we do not have adequate understanding about our problem? In this regard, we can consider another point about scientific knowledge, that is, background knowledge. To produce some solution or its criticism we need some preconceptions that will regulate us. In isolation we cannot say anything. We cannot start from nothing. 8 *If scientific discovery emerges from scientist’s imaginative **mind, how do we conceive of the term objectivity in it? P*ersonal ability to produce any idea is personal, but knowledge produced in such a way becomes objective knowledge if it becomes falsifiable. Conjecture (producing theory) is human, but refutation is objective. This is the demarcation between science and nonscience (religion, mythology, ethics, poetry, etc.). Science is empirically open to criticism, whereas others are not. There are two possible attitudes towards any assertion or tradition. One is to accept the assertion uncritically. The other possibility is critical attitude, which may result either in acceptance or in rejection, or perhaps in a compromise. This second approach makes science objective. A subjective stance may mould theory-production; but criticism of that theory is objective. Verification is never complete, but falsification is conclusive. A theory may be produced from any source, be it myths, prejudices, fairy tales, religions. But the theory becomes objective only after the theory is put forward to criticism. Our conjectures (theories) are produced from the expectation of a solution of a problem – expectation for regularities. 9 Research cannot go with confusion. Thus, paradigm provides a vision for normal science. But this vision of normal science is drastically obedience to the paradigm. This position of scientific community is considered as objectivity within paradigm. Philosophy consists in giving first place not to the truth of philosophy, but to the conditions (in us) of its acceptability. The point is that we, not nature, must authorize what we think about nature. They claimed that it is man’s duty not to believe when the evidence is insufficient. But question of rights and duties are not scientific questions. They are ethical questions. There are, therefore, questions which must be decided by reference to the facts not of nature, but of human nature. If the ‘will to believe’ is to answer the notions of rights and duties, then no veto can be placed on it by science; since it is the business of science to settle what is the case, not what ought to be the case. We do have a right to adopt a believing attitude even when the evidence is not sufficient. He the shifts centre of reference from appeal to the intellect to emotions that stir the heart which is marked out by the term ‘human nature’. The question is not ‘what beliefs are true?’ but ‘what do we say of a belief when we say that it is true?’. 10 To say that a belief is true is to say that it enables the mind to work properly as a knowing and acting being. So, a true belief is one upon which the mind can act satisfactorily. Thus, the facts by reference of which the answer is given to the question, ‘what is truth’, falls within the human mind. It is mind where ideas lie, and where their successful working occurs. Empirical problem is empirical in the sense that it is about the world. Otherwise it originates only in the human mind, when he encounters the world in a certain way. This is why the fall of the apple was a simple event to us but was a great and important problem to Newton. Even many known facts do not necessarily constitute empirical problems. To regard something as an empirical problem, we must feel that there is a premium of solving it. In the history of science, many things are well-known phenomena, but have not been felt to be in need of explanation or clarification. It was known since the earliest time, for instance, that most trees have green leaves. But such a fact becomes an empirical problem only when someone decides that it is sufficiently interesting, important and deserving explanation. Therefore, problems which were once recognized may cease to be a problem at all later on. For instance, the staggering problem ‘how the earth took its shape’ within the last 6,000 to 8,000 years remained no longer a problem to be solved. 11 So, in what way a problem is raised in scientist’s minds. Toulmin says that a problem is a situation where our current scientific ideas fall short of our intellectual ideals. Problems are recognized locating and specifying the intellectual gap between our current capacities and the explanatory ambitions defined by the scientific community about natural order. In short, Scientific problems = Explanatory Ideals – current capacities. H*uman understanding. consists of the two moments: understanding the utterance as derived from language, and fact in the thinker.’ *This dichotomy implies that subject and object are independent to each other – they have independent existence of their own. But the idea of intentionality denies such a claim. According to this idea, there is no subject (thinker) without the object (thought of object), and there is no object without the subject. Subject and object are inevitably linked, so that one cannot be there without another. This relational context can be broken only through cessation of knowing activity- as the relation between text and reader could be broken only through cessation of reading activity. A text is text only to a reader; one is a reader only if a text is being read. There is an I-Thou relationship in any act of understanding. 12 World is like what is understood by scientists through his available concepts; and scientist’s thought is what he gets from the world. So, there is fusion between data of the world and concepts of the scientist; this fusion produces a third position. What occurs in scientific knowledge is that every encounter of scientists with the world takes place within a historical consciousness. This encounter involves the experience of a tension between scientists and the world previously constructed. This kind of understanding about the world is ‘historically effected consciousness’ ; consciousness whose quality is history, better yet historicity, not simplistic being what it is once for all, but it is an evolved and evolving consciousness. *Therefore, scientific knowledge is neither just a creation of the scientist's mind nor a real state of the world; rather it is a subjective understanding of the objective world. *It implies that scientific knowledge is relative to human condition – the condition may be psychological, historical, ideological or conceptual. A deep subjective mode of scientist is essentially involved in science in its nature. Moreover, the world as an object and the scientist as subject both are infinitely complex. So, there is a possibility to construct an infinite number of different views about the world – not objectively one. 14 The objectivity entangled with the subjectivity is duality viz human understanding (vide para 11). If one says that Mukta sango= free from WORLDLY attachments, is the objective for the subjective human understanding, well the walk towards the sattva guna has started (vide BG 18.26). If one says that it is Vedanta, end of Vedam, (antha) it is nothing but true science, unlike the science of the present earth. However, science modern and the science of Veda (any knowledge is science) are not one and the same. Science keeps on faltering as a kid whereas the science in true science reveals the truth which is Vignana. All professions are same as science; as each profession learns from the fallings only so too the science of the world; Vignanam even if unknown in the beginning, makes one the Purusha moulded out of this earth Prakrithi, unchanged, unaltered unfailingly. KR IRS 1121 On Thu, 31 Dec 2020 at 18:43, Sithamalli Balasubramanian < [email protected]> wrote: > Science has promoted that disbelief > Reply: As one who may call himself a 'scientist' I contradict the above > statement. 'Science' requires one to be objective, nothing more, In fact > Vedanta also requires the same thing. I like to say, "objectivity is the > operative word of vedanta." In sanskrit it is called muktasanga. (Gita > XVIII, 26). > The axiom, Satyameva jayate, na-anrtam also means the same. I am attaching > my article on the axiom. > > On Thu, 31 Dec 2020 at 08:57, Rajaram Krishnamurthy <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> Pranam >> Hard work Machine is a human whereas all machines sucks the hard >> work of humanity. As we buy all whether we need or not, so too, money >> spinners are fooling around the world, resulting at the end of the tunnel, >> fooling themselves. K R IRS 311220 HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL >> >> On Thu, 31 Dec 2020 at 07:31, Markendeya Yeddanapudi < >> [email protected]> wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> *Mar*Disbelief As Science >>> >>> >>> >>> When nature was God and adored, our Sages strived to understand every >>> organism, emotionally by breathing, smelling and sensing. A sage could >>> perceive like a dog, or cat or elephant. The perception was emotional and >>> not mechanical without emotions. The Biosphere was one organism, the great >>> macro organism-Gaia. >>> >>> Like the bacterium, one among the trillions living in you, belief in >>> you as a macro organism for them was basic and biological. Bio Logic means >>> the logic of the life forms, which is the outcome of breathing, smelling >>> and sensing, the emotional logic. It is not the techno-logic the logic of >>> the emotion-less machines. A mind by itself cannot develop beliefs. It >>> needs the emotional feed through breathing, and when breathing is >>> repudiated as it creates emotions or bias, disbelief gets promoted as >>> Atheism, or as the techno-dependent science. >>> >>> Emotional perception is not the mechanized reasoning of the mind, where >>> understanding needs connection of a phenomenon, to the basic concept >>> paradigms developed in the mind. Emotional perception, on the other hand is >>> connecting to the air flow of Gaia by breathing and smelling. Science >>> champions the disbelief of own emotions. Every hypothesis needs the >>> upholding of machines-the computers, to be accepted as a finding of >>> science.Today,we do not even accept our own basic understanding itself. We >>> just note and mug and memorize what the computers tell. >>> >>> Once, when one faced a problem, one went to thick nature and inhaled, to >>> get inspiration and answers. Nature or God was inhaled as the method of >>> facing problems. Often solutions and answers suddenly flashed into the >>> mind. Breathing created the needed inspirational emotion answer and flashed >>> into the mind. Nature or God was there, as nature was not axed as part of >>> the economic destruction. Belief was breathing. Today we science away and >>> murdered nature, and we need nose masks to enable the functioning of our >>> bodies as just machines that need machines to live. Artificial intelligence >>> is driving away natural intelligence. >>> >>> A lunatic thinks that all other people of the world are fools and that >>> he alone is intelligent. Science has promoted that disbelief, as the belief >>> that only human beings are intelligent and superior and every other >>> organism is foolish. Because they are not converting themselves into >>> feelings-less machines, like the humans. Science and Disbelief have become >>> synonyms. >>> >>> YM >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to [email protected]. >>> To view this discussion on the web visit >>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/CACDCHCKrUohdshk%2Bv-1Oo5A6nF3UF%3DT6z1cV1RrqQBvf3ZmH_g%40mail.gmail.com >>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/CACDCHCKrUohdshk%2Bv-1Oo5A6nF3UF%3DT6z1cV1RrqQBvf3ZmH_g%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >>> . >>> >> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. 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