Telengana and Independence

Those who oppose Telangana's right for self determination are the same who opposed India's right for self determination at the turn of previous century. They are the same who forced treaties of accession on umpteen numbers of independent states. Those who take pride in externalities of society, in being associated with mighty and rich, in richness of language and culture, in the grand unified country, often support oppression of people and their democratic rights in the name of cultural superiority and pride of a being in a unified nation. Why independence at the first place if it doesn't get you the right to decide your life, your political road ahead. If people of the land do not possess the independence to decide whether they wish to be associated with the rulers or not, when the association is forced, then they are not independent in true sense.

Courtesy: Sikeaux

The basic social structure of a slave society still remains in India though we keep hearing the ego-inflating slogans of the biggest democracy. Our infatuation with riches and power of kingdom is tell tale. I wonder whether it's hereditary to be enslaved, to be proud of the master's greatness (to enslave us). You can see an overflow of pride on a face whose great great grandfather once had a chance to wipe some kings' ass, especially when he explains it to you. You cannot match that sense of pride even if you had written a bestseller or discovered a neutron star.

In a country half the world away, an Indian origin doctor happens to be involved with delivery of a so-called royal baby. The entire media body in India is delighted, almost like being blessed by the lord himself. We just fell short of calling it a national holiday. And this is when not a single doctor is ready to treat runny nose in rural India. I wonder whether India even deserves to gain sovereignty from Britain. Had we been proud of our independence, an Indian doctor serving those who once enslaved us would have made us ashamed, not proud. But alas we love liking white asses and belonging to the family of those who had done this during the Raj.

With our propensity towards kings and kingdoms, we cannot call ourselves democracy. Independence from Britain had merely given us a method to elect the knights and kings, to hold complete command over our lives and liberties. When we leave the decisions of what happens with people of Telangana, Kashmir, Manipur, Chhattisgarh on the elected knights and their collective decisions with complete disregard to what the people actually want, then we know where we belong.

Absence of Darkness

In wake of the brutal gang rape in Delhi and the consequent protests, the social media too flared up and we expressed our views on the matter and on all related matters. Once such meme circulating in the social media is:

"The problem is men... Men shouldn't be allowed to step out of the house after 9pm unless accompanied by his mother, sister or wife !!!" - henceforth to be referred as original phrase.

Many shared the post, some shared the thought as well though seemingly unlikely to be true. Some thought it's funny, some shared it out of concern for women, some seriously believed in it. I have something to say to those who considered this post worthy to any extent.

How would you react if I say "always satisfy your wife's jewellery needs, else she might fuck other men to get those", i.e., ALL WOMEN are potential whores. That's gross, disgusting, and would make no sense to anybody whatsoever. One might say that these words can come only from the minds of a psychopath.

Now, consider the original phrase. Doesn't that mean "ALL MEN are potential sex offenders." This too is equally gross, disgusting, in the same manner. And yet, I see morons liking and sharing this meme all over the social media. It is a proof that most people don't scratch beyond the surface when it comes to thinking and reasoning.

Both the sentences are absurd. The first one may sound funny but is equally sexist and gross as the second one. It is an irony that the same people who think this way also shout that racism is bad. What it is if not racism?

Opposite of darkness is not absence of darkness, but presence of light. There is no such thing as absence of darkness. We often fail to understand this fallacy in our logic. The irony of liberalism is that those who think they are liberal, go to such extent to oppose conservatism that they themselves become conservative of opposite color. Those who oppose superstition with blind faith in science are superstitious as well. Freedom to women doesn't mean curtailment of freedom of men.

Women who hate men are considered feminists  and the society projects an image of feminists as anti-men, men hater who vow to keep distance from men. That's an illogical perception. A women who hates men might not be interested in welfare of women (except self welfare) at all and a women interested in women's welfare might be in deep love with a man as well.

Our prejudiced society gives us molds and we try to put everybody around in one or other mold, and often end up putting ourselves in one such mold.

One can either go with those predefined molds, think, talk, and do what everybody else is doing or think for herself/himself and decide. Those who liked, shared, and loved the original post had given no thought to what it actually means.

We love outsourcing, but don't do it with "thinking."

Have Faith In Science

Courtesy: lifestylekick.com

Now, that title is an oxymoron. Science is understanding the world through observation and emperically evidence and faith is "complete trust or confidence in someone or something disregarding contra-evidence.

The origins of this post is a facebook discussion initiated by an intellectual friend, Tathagata, the enlightened one. The question he raised is as follows:

‎"The earth revolves round the sun and the sun does not revolve round the earth" This I learnt in my school days. heard that science has also proved it. Such proof is valid only for them who can understand such proof. I do not have enough knowledge of Mathematics or Physics to understand the proof. I have never been to the outer space to see such phenomenon with my eyes. Never seen any video sent by satellites. Now, is it fine that I believe in such phenomenon?

To rephrase his question:

"Is it okay to believe science since science itself advocates in evedentialism especially given that it is beyond the capacity of an individual to prove all the so-called scientific facts?" To re-rephrase the question, "is believing in scientific fact same as believing in religious fallacies?"

I tried to answer this question in this post.

Footnote (in the header): I am not a philosopher and do not have the mental capacity to logically connect all the dots of knowledge correctly to reach an answer which would be devoid of any fallacies. Nonetheless, I would try my best to put across all the sense that I can make of all the nonsense collected over decades.

My Answer: To start with, I must tell you that your premise is wrong. The earth doesn't revolve around the sun neither the sun revolves around earth. Basically, sun pops out of my ass when I fart early in the morning. And sunset is when I dip sun in my cup to boil water for my evening coffee.

You would do perfectly fine believing in this theory of sunset/sunrise if sun's schedule doesn't hurt/affect you in any way. For example, you never go out of your sealed house where you download all your food and other needs from internet. However, if it does affect, then knowing the truth about the theory is paramount to your well being. For example, if you are a potato farmer and more sunlight (longer day time) results in a better crop, then it would be in your interest to please me to fart a little earlier and have tea little late. So, you might like to offer me a bribe of puri-aaloo dam. Alternatively, if you are a thief, you might like to have longer night hours and bribe me for the same.

Now, suppose that another person, say Bibhas, claims that it is he from whose ass the sun pops out and in whose tea cup the sun drowns. In support of his claim, he says that he is more handsome than me, taller than me, has longer hands, longer legs, and longer everything else, and consequently has better gastronomical system than mine to house the sun. Also, the sun sets in his tea cup because tea requires higher temperature and long boiling duration than coffee.

Now, you are in trouble as you don't know who is saying the truth and knowing it is important to avoid wastefully bribing a person from whose ass the sun doesn't emerge.

Since you are either a potato farmer or a thief, you have little knowledge about human anatomy and have no instruments to inspect human body. So, now you hire a veterinary doctor to examine both asses and find out whose claim is right. Since the doctor can be bribed by me or Bibhas to give a false finding, you would want the test to be double blind, that is me/Bibhas would not know who is examining us and the doctor would not know whom s/he is examining, etc.

In today's hi-tech world, it still leaves some chance of corruption. So, you hire another vet doc to independently examine both of us to be doubly sure of the results.

Basically, you hired the expertise and services of vet docs to give you an understanding on anatomical truth as you lack understanding in that field. You "BELIEVED" the docs because you lacked knowledge in that field. We need to believe a lot of people because it is not possible to acquire all the knowledge in this universe. However, we still utilized our common sense and make sure the study was double blind and repeatable by different persons at different places. 

Once you are confirmed about who is the person in whose intestine the sun resides, you cut the deal with him. However, from time to time, you hire a vet doc and repeat the examinations in light of the current knowledge/understanding of the time to be sure you are not unnecessarily bribing someone.

This is how exactly human knowledge works.

CONCLUSIONS:

1. Science is about seeking knowledge with empirical evidence which can be independently verified.
2. Believing is a shortcut to knowledge because our mind would do a lot of processing and generate a lot of heat if we have to process entire knowledge tree to come to a conclusion. For example, when someone asks you what is 5 x 5, you jump to say 25 not because your brain gives empirical proof, but because your brain just "believes" it. To give an empirical proof, you would first need to calculate 5, i.e., 1+1+1+1+1, calculate 5 again, add these two 5's, calculate another 5, add this 5 to the previous sum and so on. In nutshell, empirically calculating 5 x 5 would be something like this - (1+1+1+1+1)+(1+1+1+1+1)+(1+1+1+1+1)+(1+1+1+1+1)+(1+1+1+1+1) and this is what dumb computers do. We humans take the shortcut, we just believe.
3. We depend on knowledge base created by generations and generations of human beings that existed on this earth. Newton could discover his laws only because some unnamed human, living thousands of years in the past, had figured out that apple could be eaten. Otherwise, no one would have planted an apple tree for Newton to sit under.
4. So, we do "believe scientific knowledge" apparently in contradiction to the very condition science puts in front of us, i.e., to go only by emperical evidence. However, this belief is only a shortcut as mentioned under #2 and because of reasons as mentioned under #3.
5. Scientific facts are put to test from time to time and we continuously try to falsify them so as to unearth newer avenues of knowledge. This is what differentiates science from non-science, science takes pride in self falsification.
6. Under no conditions, this belief can be held true if emperical evidence advises otherwise. Also, this belief/shortcut needs to change if evidence to falsify the underlying fact is found. Again, this is not the case of other types of beliefs, i.e., religious beliefs.