This article on the theatrics of one of the evangelical heroes of Vedantism of the late 20th Century, Sw. Chinmayananda was an attack on both his style of evangelism and his portrayal of the doctrines of Vedanta.
Though this article did not attract the attention of Vedanta apologists initially, recent comment-responses in the defense of Vedantic nonsense seemed to exhibit what can be called as a resort to revisionism.
Revisionism of the variety shown in those comments looked like an exercise of historical reinterpretation of the concepts of Upanishads and Vedanta to make them conform to modern concepts of cosmology and physical phenomenon.
Capt. Mandrake while responding to these types of revisionist spin on the so-called phenomenalism of Vedanta, used the term most appropriate for the inanity of Vedanta, ie BS or Bullshittery. Capt. may perhaps have not realized the tragic and comic irony of this characterization of Vedanta which is closer to the truth than all the lofty, vain and pretentious encomiums that have been heaped over the ages on this oddity.
The force and weight of this supreme irony will be felt even more when we realize that even eminent academicians and intellectuals like BK Matilal, JR Mohanty and Amartya Sen have credited these and other bogus metaphysics and ideologies of medieval India with praises, essays and the honor and title of analytical philosophy and skepticism.
While it cannot be denied that the ancient ideologues of the orthodox darshana systems came up with a lot of arguments, theory and reasoning methodology that can be considered as epistemology, it cannot at the same time be missed that the ultimate purpose of all this was the defense and legitimation of absurd religious dogmas and false ideas like soul, deliverance, transcendence and scriptural authority.
Other than discrediting and trivializing the significance of naturalistic approaches to and philosophies of life, existence and worldview, and instituting a predominantly religious and mystical mode of thought throughout the entire society and culture, these debates, treatises and commentaries on Vedanta, Sutras, Sastras and Darshanas played no role of any real benefit to the society and nation and were in fact very harmful and deleterious to the material, scientific and creative potential of India's progress.
To defend and even elevate such species of perverse intellectual dishonesty and idle pastimes as the pursuit and enquiry of a higher truth is stark irony indeed!
Challenging the orthodoxy of intellectual elite on the imposture and hypocrisies of medieval Indian ideologies is a very big subject in itself that I will try to return to it shortly. But the conspiracies of silence and evasion on the obvious absurdity and vacuity of the texts that underlie these pompous ideologies is in itself very revealing of the attitude and pathology of neo-conservative elitism on philosophy and intellectualism.
I have no pretensions that the bravado of small bloggers like us can really prevail against the vanities of the neo-conservative and neoliberal elite of today. Yet the breath of fresh air that the no-nonsense attitude of people like Capt. to cultural idiosyncrasies brings to criticism, is an inspiration for critics and skeptics like us to continue on our path of tireless tirade against Vedanta and other such irrationalities.
I tried to follow to some extent these exchanges between Capt. Mandrake and Arun Nair.
While I compliment Capt. on the way he has responded to the red herrings strewn by the apologists, we must realize that these are part of the bait-and-switch tactics of the Hindu religious brigade.
The bait that is thrown at skeptics on Vedanta is to keep harping on the false correlation between the presiding dogma of Vedanta/Upanishads about Brahman/Atman and the theory of phenomenon / reality and/or phenomenalism / phenomenology and entangle the skeptics/critics on the circular chase of arguments and counter arguments about this.
Once the critic is stuck in this rut, the switch is made to the similarity between Quantum and Vedanta’s non-duality (Advaita) and the critic is flooded and sought to be overwhelmed by the most ridiculous kinds of quantum quackery.
With these kinds of trickery, we are made to lose sight of the essentially dogmatic nature of Vedanta, its mindless rubbish and inanity, its ideological and metaphysical justifications for superstitions of karma,rebirth and Moksha and its subservience to ritual and abstraction of the void.
Vedanta as a ‘Theory of Everything’ or an approximation of Grand Unified Theory (GUT) is the height of the supercilious vanity of Hindu nationalism. It is unbelievable what depths of idiocy the Vedanta apologists will plumb, to show Vedanta as the diviner of all modern science and theory.
It is a canard and a fabrication that Vedanta has anything to do with the investigation of phenomenon or reality and has a credible theory about it. Far from it, Upanishads totally deny the phenomenal reality as mithya or falsehood and blame the senses/perception as victims of avidya or ignorance that can only be overcome by transcendence borne out of meditative and abstracted torture on the pain/penalty of transmigration and a false/agonizing life. In the overall scheme of Vedanta, Brahman is not a theory, but a state to be attained.
It will be noticed that these apologists are conveniently silent on how the connection between Brahman/Atman and Karma, Punarjanma and Moksha can ever be validated or established. Also there is a studied silence on how is Avidya the causative agent of Punarjanma and delay or denial of Moksha without avoiding the trap of scriptural axioms.
The quantum blabber and the word soups of substrate, substratum and projections/impression of phenomenon on/thru the senses is all new age drivel used by the Hindu religious brigade to rescue the Vedanta from the charge of absurdity and inanity that is obvious on a normal reading of the texts and the commentaries of its prophets from Badrayana thru Adi Sankara to Madhava and Ramanuja.
I have also tried to call all this revisionist bluff and bluster in my comment responses and blog posts, but the skin of deluded Hindu religious vanity is very thick indeed and their ears are also very hard of hearing.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe author does not seem to be strong enough and ready to accept rational arguments against his irrational and emotional thinking. Only suggestion is to keep at it and someday it will dawn on him of the fallacy of his of his arguments which are based on not his but someone elses interpretations of ancient writings. In effect his complaints are really about the interpretations but not of the original thoughts of the ancient sages.
DeleteM Rao,
DeleteI deleted your earlier comment by mistake. Sorry about that. But If I remember your earlier comment about my use of translation, it is neither a strong nor a rational argument. It is very amusing that you are charging me with emotional thinking, when you should be applying that to yourself. It is not someone else interpretation that I am using as one of the bases (not the sole criterion) of my refutation, but that of the professed and proclaimed pandits of Vedanta like Badrayana and Adi Sankara.
Your charges are vague and general and you need to be more specific and illustrative in your arguments. Then we can take the debate forward.
I managed to retrieve this absurd comment-response of M Rao and is quoted below:
ReplyDelete"The author says that the ancient documents are not comprehensible based on his norms and rules of literary representation. Without understanding what was written it is not possible to make an intelligent and rational judgement. If he really wishes to dispute the meaning of those documents he must first read them in their original language on his own and not depend on the translations. To understand the contextual meaning he must also read the prior documents on which they were based on. A rationalist does not pick and chose isolated pieces of translation to justify his argument. The author's arguments are irrational and emotional based on his reading of third party translations. He is NOT really a rationalist"
In order to understand the bizzareness and absurdity of this translation argument (though it is a routine tactic of Hindu apology), let me try to rephrase this.
What this argument is telling us is that in order to refute, object to or criticize a Vedic, Vedantic or Puranic doctrine, the critic should read the works in their original Sanskrit and not rely on translations to form any opposing opinions on them. What is very conveniently left unsaid is that in order to agree with these doctrines (which is the default religious option) there is no need to know any Sanskrit or read any of the original works. The commenter does not say so but it looks very likely that he may not know any Sanskrit himself. But that does not stop him or other Hindu defenders from insisting that critics should be knowing Sanskrit and not using translations.
The irony is that most of the knowledge of Hindus about Puranas and epics is via oral story telling and similar methods which use translations into Indian languages from original Sanskrit texts. Very few Hindus/Indians have read any of their scriptures or commentaries in the original Sanskrit form. Yet they have no problem in believing the events of the Ramayana, Mahabharata or Puranas and doctrines of the Vedas and Upanishads. But they find all sorts of problems and objections when those same sources are used for criticism and refutation.
This is like saying that to understand Buddhism and its doctrines and teachings and to form an opinion on them, one should read the Pali canons and suttas in Pali or Prakrit only and not use its translations into other languages. Adi Sankara is not known to have any grasp of Pali, Prakrit or Magadhi, but that did not stop him from refuting Buddhist doctrines of Sunyata and Annata, though they are reported to have been derived from Buddha's teachings to his disciples recorded in the Pali canons and suttas.
Put this way the fallacy of this translation argument which can also be termed as the 'fallacy of special pleading' will be become obvious and one can see through the hypocrisy and double standards of this type of argument of Hindu conservative defense.
I have problem with any translations or interpretations of the ancient writings because most of them start with preconceived personal ideas, self interests, and prejudices of their own. I don’t mind reading those translations but do not attribute them to the Vedic thoughts if they don’t make sense. They are only the translator's interpretations and not necessarily the true thoughts of the ancient Maharishis. The Maharishis were scholarly men of high intellect and spent their lifetime in forests and mountaintops in contemplation. The subject of their contemplation can only inferred. One can be certain they were powerful thoughts because they gave rise to the most colorful civilization of beautiful arts, literature, and philosophy, and world's religions Buddhism and Jainism. With such profound influence it is not rational to consider those thoughts as hallucinations of senile old men sitting high on mountaintops deprived of oxygen. If the Rishis talked about Agni, Vayu, Varuna, and Aswins were they worshipping the physical elements and horses? Why did they constantly worry about the strong man Bala stealing cows and hiding them in his cave. Veda Vyasa was a scholarly gentleman but why did he bother to write a treatise about what appears to be a common family quarrel between brothers and their cousins about a piece of land? Why is a kidnap thriller a holy book? If they don’t make sense all this about Hinduism could be BS as you have noted. Or those thoughts and the puranas are not interpreted as the Rishis intended. I strongly believe that it must be the latter. The key perhaps lies in the metaphorical style of Rishis in expressing their thoughts.
ReplyDeleteThe Acharyas. Shankara, Ramanuja, and Madwa did not agree with each other about their interpretation of Vedas. So you have company if did not like Shankaracharya's Vedanta. The three hated each other so much that they have their own communal followings with the segregated communities prohibited some years ago from not even dining together. I would read their interpretations but do not wish to become a blind follower nor needlessly get agitated with the interpretations. Historians say that the rise of Buddhism all over India during Emperor Ashoka's time was a big headache to the Acharayas. They ultimately managed by elevating Buddha to an Avatar level but banished Buddhism from its place of birth. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar who advocated conversion of untouchable into Buddhism hated all three Acharayas because he considered they were responsible for all the social ills. He too read Vedas but came to his own biased interpretations which naturally are all negative. He talks of historical evidence that Lord Venkateswara temple in Tirupati was originally a Buddhist shrine but taken over and converted to a temple by the Acharyas with help of local kings. He says that ceremony of offering hair to the Lord really came from the Buddhist custom. The story doesn’t end there. Initially the temple was said to be controlled Advaita group and so the Lord was branded on his forehead (namam) with horizontal bars. Subsequently the Vaishnavites became stronger - took over the temple and changed the horizontal bars into vertical bars. Even after all these historical turmoils and upheavals the mystery of Vedas still remains.
"The force and weight of this supreme irony will be felt even more when we realize that even eminent academicians and intellectuals like BK Matilal, JR Mohanty and Amartya Sen have credited these and other bogus metaphysics and ideologies of medieval India with praises... the ultimate purpose of all this was the defense and legitimation of absurd religious dogmas and false ideas like soul, deliverance, transcendence and scriptural authority."
ReplyDeleteDear Ranganath,
I believe that this is an undue generalization. Certainly, much of Indian philosophy has metaphysical language in it, but if you wade through it you will find many interesting ideas which can be brought into modern conversations if one keeps an open mind. I am not speaking of the metaphysics which you critique, but rather, philosophy that has remained nascent thanks to the efforts of people like Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan.
And while deliverance, etc. may have been the ultimate telos of many of these philosophers, it doesn't undermine their arguments any more than a belief in God undermines the philosophy of, say, Leibniz.
Matilal's student, Jonardon Ganeri, has published a book titled "The Lost Age of Reason: Philosophy in Early Modern India 1450-1700." I would encourage you to look into it should you get the chance. You can find the Amazon link below.
http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Age-Reason-Philosophy-1450-1700/dp/0199218749/ref=la_B001JG8UB0_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1386532493&sr=1-3
Best,
Hi
DeleteThanks for taking the effort to parse my remarks. The way you put it, it I have to grudgingly concede that my perspective of extreme hostility towards epistemology of ancient and medieval India may need to be looked into again.
I cannot deny that I have been very deeply influenced by the Ambedkarite perspective of the socio-politics of the post-Vedic age. I somehow feel with a lot of conviction that motives and actual consequences of philosophical exertions matter as much as expressions and manifestations of them. Something feels very anomalous and perverse when high flown rhetoric and debate is practised and carried out by a minuscule privileged elite about ontology, perception and theories of knowledge and their validation (pramana), in a language (Sanskrit) that is progressively structured towards parsimony of expression and licence with semantics, and placed beyond the reach of the general populace while more than half of the populace grovelled in degrading and exploitative conditions under the strictures and the iron hand of the sastras and sutras.
Even people like us who in our moments of vanity feel like being at the vanguard of some emerging incipient radicalism cannot most of the time escape the charge of hypocrisy and have to make compromises with the conflicts of our responsibilities and the ambitions of activism and console ourselves with these exercises of arm-chair intellectualism.
But then how much more twinge of compunctions and guilt, must the Nayayikas, the mimamsakas, the sankhya theorists and the Vedantiks feel and yet did not, who with all their intellectual vigor and genius could have decried the falsehoods and feudalisms of the Vedic and Upanishadic doctrine, but did not. All of them continued to pay lip service to the Vedas and Upanishads and were fiddling away with their high-minded pursuits of knowledge and phenomenology, while the society was decaying under the onslaught of casteism and feudalism. This charge may apply as much to Nagarjuna ( whose originality is peerless) and Dharmakirti as to Adi Sankata and Bhartrihari.
That the shpota and shabda theories are today being acknowledged as harbingers of sophisticated linguistic theories, is an irony indeed as neither of them found any practical research outcomes in their heydays.
The decay of Indian civilization inspite of so much of the potential of its medieval philosophers may be one of most unfortunate tragedies of history. I don't know how convincingly it can be argued that so much harm can befall a nation and society without any fault of its leaders and philosophers, but I am sure it is being done.
Digressions apart, it may be possible I am judging our forebears a little too harshly. Thanks for sharing the links to alternative perspectives on Classicial Indian philosophy. I will hopefully get to them and improve my perception of topic of interest.
Regards and best wishes.
Hi Ranganath,
DeleteThanks for the reply and in-depth description of your views. I would have to disagree with the following statement, however:
"Something feels very anomalous and perverse when high flown rhetoric and debate is practised and carried out by a minuscule privileged elite about ontology, perception and theories of knowledge and their validation (pramana), in a language (Sanskrit) that is progressively structured towards parsimony of expression and licence with semantics, and placed beyond the reach of the general populace..."
But isn't this what philosophy and science has always been-- and today, still is? That is, beyond the reach of the public? I do not understand higher-level mathematics or the theory that goes into formulations such as string theory. I also don't know enough to understand the Journal of Symbolic Logic. That philosophy is technical is, I believe, inherent in the field-- the unfortunate reality that social conditions in India prevented certain people from getting an education should not diminish the value of the education itself (assuming there is such a value).
I also don't believe that Sanskrit is inherently an obscurantist language. If we say that, we would have to call Latin obscurantist as well. Authors themselves can choose how obscure to be. Derrida, for example, is a modern example of a philosopher who writes in French but makes his sentences very complicated. Critics say that they're complicated in order to mask the fact that they're nonsense! Verbose Sanskrit writers certainly did exist in the past-- and have been made fun of by their opponents at the time. Yet other Sanskrit writers also lived who were very clear in their expositions.
That the philosophers did their work at the backdrop of casteism is unfortunate. But European philosophers and scientists also did their work at the backdrop of grave iniquities. I would not brush off their work just like that because of the historical backdrop against which they worked.
Finally, I don't know a thing about sabda, but sphota-- while not a theory I subscribe to-- is certainly an interesting idea. In Bhartrhari's formulation (as interpreted by BK Matilal), what sphota says is that the speech act is accompanied by a similar speech act that occurs in the mind. The implication is that thought is impossible without language. When I read this, it immediately reminded me of the Western hypothesis of "mentalese." (Please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentalese).
Hi Nice Job,
DeleteThis is an interesting defense of the legacy of medieval Indian philosophy (assuming the intense debates of the post Mauryan but Pre-Adi Sankara era). Some of the arguments for recognizing the merits of the theories of such philosophical schools has some validity and it poses a challenge to the position of anti-scholasticism and anti-Brahminism taken by skeptics like me. So it is something that cannot be justly treated in a comment-response like this and may need a separate blog post.
The response of treating the social conditions of medieval India that prevented our tryst (so to say) with Enlightenment of reason, as a happenstance and consequence of peculiar political and social confluence of circumstances is also liable to the charge of being a benign and indulgent perspective of the crimes of the feudalistic elites of those times.
While this calls for closer analysis, the value of the Ambedkarite view of disputing the liberal ideology that is cozy or has fewer compunctions with the compromise of explaining away the social decadence and feudalism of Indian civilization as a historical accident or misfortune, is not completely misplaced.
Hi Ranganath,
DeleteNot a problem-- I look forward to reading your forthcoming blogpost, should you choose to talk about these issues in it.
Ranganath, you are dead wrong about sphota. It goes to show that you should probably know about something before you let your mouth loose on it.
ReplyDeleteTake a look at sphota's Wikipedia.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spho%E1%B9%ADa
You can glean from it Frits Staal's statement that "Noam Chomsky's concept of "deep structure" and "surface structure" seem also to have been influenced by Bhartrhari. "
Bhartrhari was a medieval genius, and your comments against sphota stem from an ignorance of the philosophy of language. Look into the Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Language and familiarize yourself with the field before ranting against it.
Sphota,
DeleteAs against my initial instinct of moderating this comment out for its incivility and use of bad language against the blogger, I decided to publish your comment.
If you are really serious about a debate or argument, please keep it civil, relevant and specific.
This post makes no mention of Sphota theory, so I am not sure why this was brought up here. I have read about Sphota from a different source which I cited on that blog post, though I had not gone thru the Wiki post on it.
Reading your provided reference from Wiki does not change my opinion about the motivations behind the sphota theory. I do not question the genius or greatness of Bhartrhari as a grammarian or theologist. But I am free and have good reasons to criticize the motives and goals of their theology and philosophy.
The elegance and intricacy of the Sphota or sadba theory does not necessarily mean that they are robust or scientific theories. There is no denying the metaphysical foundations on which they are based and the agenda that they sought to fulfill. That is what I continue to point out and criticize.
Two points.
DeleteThe Argument Itself: My issue with you was that you had not even bothered to understand sphota before giving an argument about it. You instead tried to make conspiracy theories about "motivations." Even assuming you are right, does it really matter? The motivations of religious scientists may be to "understand God's creation," but in the end, through the process of peer-review, they have produced good science whatever their motivations may have been. I provided the Wikipedia link to show you the relationship between sphota and modern linguistics. In a previous post, where you talk about sphota, you don't seem to have understood it or its context (the philosophy of language) at all, and for this reason, I invited you to familiarize yourself with this field by giving you the Oxford Handbook.
About My Style: In stating my opinion that you don't seem to understand that which you try and criticize, I don't believe I used "bad language." But even if I did, in the other comments I have read on the blog, and in the comments by your friends on Nirmukta, ridicule of other commentators and frequent use of ad hominem attacks against them seems to be the norm. So you cannot blame commentators if they are using a style of speaking that you yourself have made the norm. To your credit, your recent comments have been very civil. Maybe your friends at Nirmukta should learn from you.
Sphota,
DeleteIt is very interesting to note that criticism is being labelled as conspiracy theory. So to question the motivation and agenda of ancient theology is a conspiracy theory!. Can you elaborate why such an exercise would be a conspiracy theory. And how are these theologians being given the name of "religious scientists" What does that oxymoronic term really mean and how is it being assumed that this world or Universe is God's creation?.
Also what is this peer-review that happened of the Sphota theory and how is it good science?. Motivations matter a lot and I don't think it can conveniently be ignored as you are trying to do. If the real motive of Sphota was linguistic development, linguistics in late ancient and early medieval India may have taken a different direction and trajectory. The so-called science of Sphota did nothing to encourage linguistics or science in India of those times. Since Sphota was not conceived with nor at stage in its life ever have any scientific or secular pretensions, it remained a handmaiden of bogus religious and spiritualists theories and the metaphysical mode of life.
It is no use of now pointing to 'connections' between Sphota and modern linguistics, when Sphota's moment of glory is long past and when in its peak of glory it did nothing but perpetuate the obscurantism of Sanskrit.
Since I am not in the field linguistics, your generous offer of the Oxford handbook has to go a begging. As a critic of religion and metaphysics I don't have to get hung up on the red herrings of the putative glories of Sphota or Sabda.
The sins of the elitism of ancient and medieval Indian Brahmanism are too numerous to be rescued by merely the apologetics of Sphota.
I am not blaming you for your tone or tenor. I am just letting you know the rules of my blog moderation. That's all! There is a difference between polemic and abuse. Maybe you don't get it. This blogpost and others are about some ideas and not about you or other individual. Bhartrhari or Jamini are being attacked because of an attack on the ideas or metaphysical position they represented. That does not by itself provide you or any aggrieved religious person the liberty to attack me personally. Regarding your objections to what is responded in Nirmukta, more or less same argument applies. The ridicule that you object to is in response to uncivil apologies that are the first blood drawn by people like you.
I am sure even Nirmukta guidelines allow a lot of uncivil commenting on both sides to go thru. That is in the inherent nature of this exercise. But believe me we Skeptics are far more tolerant than religious bigots! We cannot afford to be as intolerant and overconfident as the religious.
Ranganath, I see where you misunderstood me. My previous post is more important than this one, so if you choose, I'd rather you post that. But take a look at what I wrote and how you interpreted it:
ReplyDeleteThe motivations of religious scientists may be to "understand God's creation," but in the end, through the process of peer-review, they have produced good science whatever their motivations may have been.
And you wrote:
And how are these theologians being given the name of "religious scientists" What does that oxymoronic term really mean and how is it being assumed that this world or Universe is God's creation?.
Can you not tell the difference? Nowhere did I use the term "religious scientist" or presume that "God" had created the world. I merely said that a philosopher or scientist's motivations don't matter if peer review is there to check it. As Odysseus said in the 2004 film Troy, "I don't care about the man's motivations, I care about his ability to do battle!"
It is regrettable that your posts are not only filled with ad hominem, but also purposefully distort what others have said to make for easy targets. Your blog is filled with "cross-outs" you made after wearisome debate where reason could not find your ears. It took 52 comments to make you do something so simple as to admit that Satyavati is not a mermaid. I wish I could speak with you like an adult, but I just don't why you refuse to hold honest debate.
Sphota,
DeleteThis is may be last of your comments that I will be publishing. I specifically did not like the muck-racking comment of yours on the Satyavati mermaid feud on my earlier blogpost. I have already admitted my methodological and reasoning errors on the Mahabharata bestiality issue in a following post. Your raking that up again is in really bad taste. I also did not like your comparison of my critique to creationist tactics. You fare no better in the so-called distortion game.
This is precisely the reason why I have turned on comment moderation on my blog. I have better things to do than publishing and fending off needless attacks from frustrated commenters like you
You used the terms "religious scientists" and "God's creation" on your comment and of your own accord. You alone are privy to what they mean to you. If they were distorted the fault is entirely yours. You are entitled to your own opinions and definitions of ad hominem as I am entitled to my opinion of what is a response and polemical counter to opposing comments.
But what I don't intend to tolerate is this kind of badgering style of sending me email id's and challenging me to refute historians and authorities. I am not seeking your concurrence of my credentials or my style of criticism. If you cannot keep rancor and provocation out of your responses, I am not dying for a critical duel with you.
Dear Ranganath.
ReplyDeleteHere is my challenge. If life is ultimately nothing but a combination of inert chemicals and there is no such thing as soul or spirit or consciousness....... then.....
Can you or any scientist in the world mix chemicals in a laboratory and produce life? You may take any amount of chemicals you want, but you must produce life such a bee, or mosquito or a housefly. That is real science. This is my challenge to the entire atheistic community! Mix chemicals and produce life! If you are unable to produce life by mixing chemicals all your talk and critical thinking is another type of intellectual nonsense. Demonstrate practically that life is nothing but a combination of chemicals! My email id is mkmdasa@gmail.com.
Respond if you can!
MM Das,
DeleteWork on your challenge has been going for many years and recently some breakthroughs have been achieved. You are too busy in your religious and spiritualist nonsense to notice where the strides of science and technology are reaching.
A news item as recent as today is here: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/major-synthetic-life-breakthrough-as-scientists-make-the-first-artificial-enzymes-9896333.html
Here are some other links on efforts in stimulating life using laboratory and other such controlled conditions:
http://www.salon.com/2014/05/08/creating_alien_dna_on_earth_lab_creates_life_with_genetic_code_outside_our_own/
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/eureka-scientists-unveil-giant-leap-towards-synthetic-life-9219644.html
Life is a very complex thing which we do not fully understand as of yet. You say that creating life in a lab is "what science is all about". You're wrong. Science is a tool for investigation and discovery. To say that life is nothing more than a combination of chemicals is to reduce such a complex problem to the point of absurdity. Stop mindlessly repeating Srila Prabhupada please.
ReplyDeleteBut Enzymes, amino acids etc are not life. Scientists are trying to smartly evade the problem by trying to redefine what life is. And their promise of creating life is like giving a post dated cheque. To quote
ReplyDelete" The scientists must admit that they still do not know the origin of life. Their claim that they will soon prove a chemical origin of life is something like paying someone with a postdated check. Suppose I give you a postdated check for ten thousand dollars but I actually have no money. What is the value of that check? Scientists are claiming that their science is wonderful, but when a practical example is wanted, they say they will provide it in the future. Suppose I say that I possess millions of dollars, and when you ask me for some money I say, "Yes, I will now give you a big postdated check. Is that all right?" If you are intelligent, you will reply, "At present give me at least five dollars in cash so I can see something tangible." Similarly, the scientists cannot produce even a single blade of grass in their laboratories, yet they are claiming that life is produced from chemicals. What is this nonsense? Is no one questioning this? "
MMD,
DeleteYou are right in maintaining that enzymes, amino acids or other proteins by themselves are not life as we commonly understand it. Scientists and other practitioners in scientific and technical/behavioral disciplines know and acknowledge this. But there is lot of evidential and experimental support for the theory that these enzymes, acid and proteins are the building blocks of life. Consciousness does emerge from specific constructions of such building blocks.
The gulf and bridge between these building blocks and consciousness is a very long, arduous and painstaking one. Scientists are aware of the difficulties and hurdles involved in getting to consciousness from matter. It is a work in progress and we need not get there in a hurry just to humor the impatience of frustrated believers.
A lot is already being compiled, studied and understood about the origins of life. There is still a lot more to research, study and understand. The only way to improve understanding of life is to keep pushing the boundaries of observation, experiment and research. Science is tentative and incremental apart from its other features. So the learning does not end, unlike in religion and faith where the end of everything is god and other supernatural fancies
Understanding origins of life and stimulating it in a lab and other controlled conditions are two completely different things. There is a long way to go. If scientists start taking positions of ignorance like what gullible faithful, there would be no progress in our understanding and use of phenomenon and other aspects of life.
“The only way to improve understanding of life is to keep pushing the boundaries of observation, experiment and research. Science is tentative and incremental apart from its other features. So the learning does not end, unlike in religion and faith where the end of everything is god and other supernatural fancies.”
DeleteThere are two parts to the universe – manifested and unmanifested. Science is based on observation with senses, microscopes, telescopes, and other instruments and so is limited only to the physically manifested. A scientist BELIEVES something that is not observable as nonexistent. One sees the empty space in the front and a scientist would believe that there is nothing there. It can only be inferred that the “empty” space is filled with enormous information because you can see what is happening in the entire world as your computer translates and displays that information into an observable form. Then, there are Blackholes where the physical laws as we know do not apply and so can never be observable. A scientist has to resort to theory, belief and faith that the universe does contain such unmanifested entities. The “God Particle” – Higgs Bosom which is believed to come from massless nothing and to give mass to the elementary particles. Physical laws based on conservation of mass fail. As to your statement that religion and faith limits the enquiry is completely wrong. There are ancient enlightened Hindu Maha Rishis who did not to bring-in God if the phenomena can be explained by observation, inference, or testimony. Those sages were labeled as atheists by their peers and the modern pseudoscients consider those philosophies as “supernatural fancies” because their inability to grasp the thoughts of the enlightened thinkers.
Many atheists and agnostics are not comfortable or in agreement with the use of the term 'unmanifested' because there are multiple problems with the term and its usage. Its definition is not very clear and its association with mysticism is another reason to be wary of its application is explaining phenomenon. It is interpreted variously by its users and it is hard to get a broad agreement on what it means and signifies.
DeleteYour opinion or claim " A scientist BELIEVES something that is not observable as nonexistent" is not a valid one. The scientist's definition of observation is very broad one. Unless you are able to provide a proper and formal definition of space or empty space, we cannot determine whether your understanding of the scientific or physical view of that element is coherent. I suspect you are making some very general and layman type claims and assumptions about what science perceives as unobservable elements or phenomenon. But because of the imprecise descriptions and definitions made, I don't want proceed on a further analysis of your probable fallacies. But for now all I can say you are grossly underestimating the scientific view or comprehension of reality around us.
Black holes and other puzzling phenomenon of space, universe and astrophysics may have been sensed and/or suspected by ancient thinkers, astronomers and philosophers. And these are not just restricted to Vedic seers. Many Greek, Roman and Arabic thinkers have pondered about such things and recorded their thoughts. But the kind of theory that is needed to explain and support our research and inquiry into such phenomena have only come from contemporary astrophysics and astronomy.
You cannot make a post hoc rationalization of the wisdom and/or enlightenment of ancient Vedic Rishis by using modern scientific knowledge and benefit of hindsight. If they clearly understood such astrophysical phenomena, they should have clearly recorded that or left some verifiable evidence in the form of artifacts. Cryptic verses and mantras cannot be substituted for clear and detailed explanations and proofs. Their conception of enlightenment is very different from and almost contrary to the modern concept of enlightenment which is rooted more in reason and evidence than on intuition and mystical insights. You cannot mix up Brahman and Maya with concepts of current astrophysics by using the trickery of language.
We can divide the Vedas and other scriptures into philosophical and empirical parts, if required and subject the empirical parts to a critique and see if they really contain any prescience of modern discoveries and inventions. What the religious conservatives are doing is conflating and mixing up the two by retrofitting and distortion of current empirical and scientific knowledge.
Skeptics are examining and protesting this sleight of hand and trickery by the religious conservatives.
Any theory to understand the ancient Vedic concepts must fit the jigsaw puzzle of the original Vedas and their subsequent explanations. The seemingly disjointed ideas must have a central theme. The ideas must be understood in the context of the times of their origin and subsequent explanations which may have been distorted for self-serving purposes by the people of the times.
DeleteVedic Maha Rishis were inward looking and they had little to do with astrology, nuclear weapons, and airplanes and missiles. They had much preferred to be left alone to meditate on the high peaks of Himalayas. The physical concepts came much later to explain the Vedic thoughts by metaphorical stories. The physical concepts themselves were of little significance other than to explain the Vedic concepts. It is completely irrelevant if they had scientific knowledge of nuclear weapons and missiles. Even their concept of God was not firm. Atheism was quite acceptable. The highest Hindu God Lord Vishnu was said to be only a minor figure to those Rishis but was elevated much later to His current highest position.
One may ask what is this all about Vedas! No one can give you the explanation. Only you yourself can find the answer. You may read listen to others but factor their personal social prejudices and distortions. Punching holes in their explanations by modern sciences will not get you anywhere to get the answer if you are seeking one.
There is no such thing as nothing. Universe contains manifested and unmanifested, The physical space is only a small part of the universe. Laws of physics only apply to physically manifested objects with mass. You are attempting to apply methods of the subset of physical space to the superset. What you need to do is to determine universal laws that apply to the whole set. Furthermore, physical observations are never 100% accurate and only fall on a bell curve. We use these imprecise measurements for beneficial purposes. Engineers can design a building to withstand an earthquake within specified confidence levels. Scientists prefer to call an earthquake "an act of nature". In fact, Nature is "Prakriti" in Vedanta and so scientists do occasionally resort to Vedantic ideas.
DeleteThere is nothing magical or holy about science. A scientific theory is only a best estimate of physically observable processes fit to mathematical equations. Mathematics itself is an abstract mental construct by humans. As a result, most scientific "truths" in reality fall on a bell curve or some other statistical distribution curve. An astrologer's predictions may be right 50% of the time. The odds of a scientist’s predictions are better but imprecise because of the statistical nature of the measurements and the uncertainty of the scientific model itself. Stochastic methods, fault tree methods of failure analysis, and factors of safety are used in practical applications.
DeleteUnmanifested in the present context is that which is non-observable and cannot be quantified by scientific theories and instruments. Thyagaraja one of the greatest South Indian musician had lived long ago. But his music lives on. The great composer "communicates" with many even today to bring out in them what they describe as deeply personal and divine feelings. Feelings, many scientists agree, are associated with chemical changes and electrical activity in the brain. A doctor can bring about the same effects but with chemical substances. The causes in the former case are unmanifested where as in the latter they are manifested.
Meditation was well studied in recent years by scientists who firmly concluded that it does beneficially alter mental activity. People like you may argue that Meditation is nonsense and trickery and peace of mind should be induced by accurately measured doses of chemical substances — which is possible. The causes in one are unmanifested and the other manifested.
The effects in both examples above are manifested and quantifiable by brain imaging techniques.
"Consciousness does emerge from specific constructions of such building blocks"
ReplyDeleteIs this not a faith? A belief system? No scientist has ever
been able to practically demonstrate this.
Till the day scientists are actually able to generate consciousness
by combining chemicals, they should desist from making such tall statements.
They must humbly acknowledge that they have a hypothesis at hand.
Science means hypothesis, practical experiment, and observation.
The statement that "Consciousness does emerge from specific constructions of such building blocks"
is hypothtical. But very cunningly such hypotheical statements are taught
as "facts" in all the universities of the world. Text books donot acknowledge the hypothetical
nature of such a statement. Rather, atheistic professors encourage innocent students
to accept them as "proven facts".
This sort of sublte cheating is going on in the name of science and rationality.
That statement is not based on faith. The alternative explanations like god, intelligent design and supernaturalism are implausible theories and their inadequacy, falsehood and lack of evidence has been exposed and demonstrated.
DeleteThe problems and difficulties in explaining consciousness have been acknowledged many times and some philosophers and scientists have gone to the extent of admitting that a complete explanation would be beyond our reach given the nature of our reality. There are videos on TED about this. So please inform yourself and look for sources before assuming the arrogance of the scientific community.
Even that granting that this statement is a hypothesis, it is still a far superior hypothesis than the magical and wishing thinking supernatural theories of the religious conservatives.
Even in my earlier comment on this statement, I prefaced it saying that there is plenty of observational and experimental support for such a conclusion. Replication and proof are two different things and they cannot always be conflated without regard to the specific case and context.
From the few of your comments, you come across as extremely hostile to scientific perspective and have attributed positions and claims to science which have never been made.
If you think that we are waiting for replication to happen at its own sweet time without any damage to the current theory of consciousness, you too are waiting for your god who is yet to show up and take credit for his/her/its work. I don't have to say what that does to your tall claims of rationality.
For all your mockery of the claims, theories and works of science, can you explain how your god 'created' consciousness. Before puncturing holes in the works of reason and science, please take care of the wide and gaping holes in your religious theories.
Insistence on god and divinity is the greatest instance of cheating and deception. Science is capable of providing its explanations unlike the beating around bush of "Vedas have to realized" and "You have to seek truth for yourself" and all that pontificating BS that religious hypocrites routinely spout.
I have said enough. It is time you heal yourself of your religious malaise.
"Insistence on god and divinity is the greatest instance of cheating and deception"
DeleteDo you mean to say Jesus, Muhammad, Guru Nanak, Ramanjuacharya, Sankarcharya, Madhvacharya, Caitanya Mahaprabhuwere all cheaters and deceivers?
All the above mentioned personalities insisted on God and Divinity....
"Do you mean to say Jesus, Muhammad, Guru Nanak, Ramanjuacharya, Sankarcharya, Madhvacharya, Caitanya Mahaprabhuwere all cheaters and deceivers?"
DeleteThis is almost exactly the kind of rhetorical challenge thrown at me by one of the founders of a Chinmaya Mission center in US, when I mentioned that the Ram seen by Tulsidas and other saints could be the result of a hallucination or delusion induced by their religious experience and obsession with deification.
He did not let me answer his challenge and digressed into ridiculing the lack of faith. But mercifully here I have a chance to respond.
I would class Caitanya Mahaprabhu with Tulsidas, Soordas, Meera and saints of the Bhakti cult. There were deluded about their beliefs, but given the times and the socio-cultural influence they were surrounded with, they can excused their beliefs and thoughts. The same goes for Guru Nanak with the difference that his philosophy was somewhat closer to deism than to theism. Jesus's existence and history is doubtful one almost everything about him comes from the fables and myths of Bible. He is a creation of the New Testament, so he is a pawn and instrument of the likes of St Paul and other evangelists before him, who wanted to build an alternative to Judaism.
Ramanujacharya, Sankaracharya, Madhavacharya are characters that fit into a very different class; very shrewd and cunning Brahmins who crafted the interpretation of religion and scriptures to suit the savarna agenda and willing to adopt any means, fair or foul to uphold the primacy of Brahminism and keep the sudras/dalits and Buddhists in an inferior intellectual state. More than saints or prophets, they were revivalists who variously devoted their skills and energies in undermining progressive thought systems of Sankhya and Buddhism. These were the real enemies of any social progress and reforms in medieval India and highly learned and intellectually sharp scoundrels.
Is it not very instructive and remarkable that you make no reference to Gautam Buddha?
It does not matter who insisted on divinity or what their reputation is, it has to make sense which it does not. A falsehood is a falsehood regardless of who endorses it.
“Ramanujacharya, Sankaracharya, Madhavacharya are characters that fit into a very different class; very shrewd and cunning Brahmins who crafted the interpretation of religion and scriptures to suit the savarna agenda and willing to adopt any means, fair or foul to uphold the primacy of Brahminism and keep the sudras/dalits and Buddhists in an inferior intellectual state.”
DeleteI doubt that the acharyas were that bad! They were mostly apolitical and were pretty harmless fellows. They were intellectuals who had their own interpretations of Vedas some of which they had spent considerable time analyzing and are worth reading and understanding. Their sphere of influence was limited to their own select groups – Ayengars, Ayers, etc. Sometimes the lower level acharyas did not like their boss and spinned-off to form their own sub groups like Ayengars of type A and type B, etc. The Acharyas did not dictate who gets into their club because membership was ( is ) ordained by birth – usually by patriarchal system. There was (is) no mechanism to admit others into the club other than marrying a man who is a club member. The archaryas themselves were content with sitting in their Pitas. Their daily rituals consist of waking up their dolls, bathing them, singing them lullabies, and other childish plays. The lower castes have their own clubs. There was no question of intermingling. They want to preserve the caste system intact with the current Indian system of lower caste reservations and preferences. Well, there is nothing unusual about it because ultimately it is economics and self interest that dictate human behavior. The system today is pretty much live-and-let-live maintaining the status quo.
The above is social evolution – interaction of the ancient Vedic religion with daily chores of living. There are occasional glimpses of the profound thoughts of the great Maha Rishis buried deep in the customs and rituals.
"Do you mean to say Jesus, Muhammad, Guru Nanak, Ramanjuacharya, Sankarcharya, Madhvacharya, Caitanya Mahaprabhuwere all cheaters and deceivers?"
ReplyDeleteYou have not answered my question completely.
Muhammad has accepted the existence of God. You have not spoken anything about him.Looks like you scared. You know the reasons very well :)
As for Jesus, even Richard Dawkins has agreed to his historical reality in a debate with John Lennox (Oxford University Professor).
I did not want to get started on Muhammad, arguably the worst of the lot of prophets and godmen. If such a character can talk about religion and divinity at the point of a sword, that by itself is a very good reason to doubt the validity and bonafides of religion and god.
DeleteThis person is the most unworthy of and unfit for the role and title of prophet hood. I will never get it how such a barbaric and murderous marauder, who had little to no respect for women, and considers any non-Muslim as Kafir, could be regarded a prophet and a messenger of great teachings. The less said about what Qoran is and what it stands for, the better. For a skeptic, there is not much difference between Islam and Christianity in terms of idiocy, but definitely from the perspective of how it is currently practiced, Islam is the worst and and an insult to all that humanity has achieved, stands for and seeks to preserve and advance.
I have not read the news or detail about Dawkins' acceptance of the historicity of Jesus. So I cannot comment or respond to that. That anyway is not the final word on that topic. Yet regardless it makes no difference to the point that the divinity of Jesus is pure bunk. Anybody including Jesus can insist on anything, but they need to prove it. Which they did not. Whether they were liars or not is irrelevant to this consideration. Regardless of the mistaken innocence, sincerity or delusions of these people, we can establish the deception, bigotry and fraud of religion.
To your other point, there is a fear of Islamic intolerance and backlash. But for a scared skeptic like me, there are many others who are standing up to the bigotry of Islam. Please do not belittle the struggle and courage of people like Taslima Nasreen, Avijit Roy and his friends, who have paid with their lives.
I am not under any illusion that I can take on Hinduism and Islam and overthow them in my lifetime. But I will try to keep at my small endeavors for whatever they are worth. Fending off trolls like you and many other is also one of the hazards and consequences of this kind of thankless blogging.
I have engaged with you more than what it was worth and deserving for the legitimacy of your positions. Since you have nothing more than tired, worn out arguments to offer and counter, it is time to put and end to this harangue.