xkcd and philosophy

1. Pillar
2. Nihilism
3. Existentialism
PS: I got the above stuff by clicking the 'Random' tab. I guess it calls:PPS: For people who haven't yet discovered the web comic of romance, sarcasm, math and language:

Madhva Philosophy - Prameya Shloka

This is the original Sanskrit version of the basic nine tenets of Madhva Philosophy by Sri Vyasa Tirtha. I found this today. Thought i would post it here. This reads way better than the same verse in English. The gist of each phrase in the shloka is posted in the previous post [Lectures on Philosophy - Madhva Philosophy]PS: @evilsense: 'Just Mu' right now, man. Will reply to your comment later. [:-P]

Lectures on Philosophy – Madhva Philosophy

[This evening, I brought Eckhart Tolle’s ‘A New Earth – Awakening to your life’s purpose’ from the library near my house. My dad, Prof. P S Nagendra Rao, saw the book and commented that these books have no real philosophical or spiritual basis. So, he started discussing Madhva (Dvaita) philosophy. We talked for about a hour or so.
I have tried my best to post the main ideas here.]

“Dvaita, Advaita, Vishsitadvaita etc. are Vedantas. They are interpretations of the Vedas by brilliant sages, so that the common man can understand and follow righteous paths, leading to pure happiness – Nirvana or Mukti”

The basic tenets of Madhva Philosophy:

Sreeman Madhwamate Harihi paratarah ||
[Hari or God is the ultimate. He is omnipresent. He is independent of all other entities]

Satyam Jagat ||
[The world is real. This includes all that we see, observe, experience etc.]

Bhedha ||
[Existance of differences. Five kinds of differences are recognized, between living-living; living- non-living; non-living - non- living; living – God; non-living - God]

Jeevaganah Hareranucharah ||
[All living entities are controlled by God]

Neechochcha Bhavadgatah ||
[Existance of hierarchy in all entities]

Muktihi Nija Sukhanubhutihi ||
[The manifestation of real happiness is attained only at Mukti*]

Amala Bhaktisya tat Sadhanam ||
[Mukti can be attained by pure devotion]

Hyakshadi Traya Pramanam ||
[The basis for all these tenants are these three – Aagama, Anumana, Pratyaksha*]

Akhilam Nayeka Vedyo Harihi ||
[The ‘God’ that is propounded in all Vedas refers to Hari himself]

The above stotra is attributed to Sri Vyasatirtha, when he was just a boy of five years.
As the story goes, Guru Brahmanya Tirtha passing along a forest area one evening comes across the boy, Vyasa, walking along with some cattle.
He asks the boy– ‘Dear child, how far is the village from here?’
The boy replies – ‘Dear Sir, The Sun has almost set. I am a five years old. I happen to be taking my cattle home at this hour. How far do you think the village can really be?’
The Guru, pleased with this reply, asks him – ‘You appear to be very smart for your age. What else can you tell me?’
The boy says – ‘I can tell you more than just this. I live near a Matha and occasionally I hear talks on philosophy.’
Intrigued, Brahmanya Tirtha asks him – ‘Well then, what can you tell me about Madva Philosophy.’
It is then that the above stotra came to being.
The stotra has nine lines and it is the shortest form in which Madhva philosophy can be almost fully explained. He was five years old.

A few concepts:
*Mukti: This is eternal salvation. There is a concept called Anadi. Anadi refers to infinite souls existing for an infinite amount of time. God doesn’t create souls. They always exist. Have always existed. Each soul is associated with a Svabhava – a behavior, again unique. God is only responsible for giving life to a soul in this earth. A soul attains Mukti – or eternal nirvana, real happiness, only when it can get out this infinite cycle of births and deaths and suspended animation in between births and deaths.

*Aagama, Anumana, Pratyaksha:
Aagama: What is evident from the Vedas, Upanishads and The Gita
Anumana: What is evident from deductive logic and questioning
Pratyaksha: What is evident from what we can observe ourselves

The Object, The Illusion - Take Four

This post is the fourth in the series of The Object, The Illusion
The previous posts regarding the same topic can be found here – Post 1, Post 2, Post 3

Consider, this time, that there is a table in a room. We can agree here that what we associate with the table – like color, shape, feel depends from person to person, and the depth of knowledge of these properties change as we move to either macroscopic or microscopic levels. The senses/ sensors do not give us the truth about the table, only the appearance of it.

Thus it becomes evident that the real table, if there is one, is not the same as what we immediately experience by sight or touch or hearing. The real table, if there is one, is not immediately known to us at all, but must be an inference from what is immediately known. Hence these questions arise:
(1) Is there a real table at all?
(2) If so, what sort of object can it be?

Define a few terms: [from Bertrand Russell’s “Problems of Philosophy” ]

• ‘sense-data’- the things that are immediately known in sensation: such things as colors, sounds, smells, hardness, roughness, and so on.
• ‘sensation’ - defined as the experience we have immediately because of the above.
• ‘matter’ is defined as opposed to mind, as something we think of as occupying space and is incapable of any sort of thought or consciousness.
  

Considering the real table, if it exists, as a physical object; we need to find the relation between sense-data [very similar to the ‘properties’ we discussed in the previous posts] and the physical object.

Bishop Berkeley (1685-1753) in Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists, was the first to come up with the theory that there is no such thing as ‘matter’ at all, and that the world consists of nothing but minds and their ideas.

In the sense as ‘matter’ is defined above, Berkeley denies it exists- he does not deny that the sense-data which we commonly take as signs of the existence of the table are really signs of the existence of something independent of us, but he does deny that this something is non-mental. He admits that there must be something which continues to exist when we go out of the room or shut our eyes. But he thinks that this something cannot be radically different in nature from what we see, and cannot be independent of seeing altogether, though it must be independent of our seeing. He is thus led to regard the 'real' table as an idea in the mind of God. Such an idea has the required permanence and independence of ourselves, without being -- as matter would otherwise be -- something quite unknowable, in the sense that we can only infer it, and can never be directly and immediately aware of it.

Other philosophers since Berkeley have also held that, although the table does not depend for its existence upon being seen by us, it does depend upon being seen by some mind -- not necessarily the mind of God, but more often the whole collective mind of the universe.

'Whatever can be thought of is an idea in the mind of the person thinking of it; therefore nothing can be thought of except ideas in minds; therefore anything else is inconceivable, and what is inconceivable cannot exist'

But these philosophers, though they deny matter as opposed to mind, nevertheless, in another sense, admit matter. Of the two questions above:
(1) Is there a real table at all? (2) If so, what sort of object can it be?
Now, Berkeley and other philosophers admit that there is a real table, but Berkeley says it is certain ideas in the mind of God, and others say it is a colony of souls. Thus both of them answer our first question in the affirmative, and only diverge from the views of ordinary mortals in their answer to our second question. In fact, almost all philosophers seem to be agreed that there is a real table. They almost all agree that, however much our sense-data -- color, shape, smoothness, etc. -- may depend upon us, yet their occurrence is a sign of something existing independently of us, something differing, perhaps, completely from our sense-data whenever we are in a suitable relation to the real table.

There is an interesting experiment by Descartes. Descartes invented the method of systematic doubt. He determined that he would believe nothing which he did not see quite clearly and distinctly to be true. Whatever he could bring himself to doubt, he would doubt, until he saw reason for not doubting it. By applying this method he gradually became convinced that the only existence of which he could be quite certain was own. Because, doubt concerning his own existence was not possible, for if he did not exist, nothing could deceive him. If he doubted, he must exist; if he had any experiences whatever, he must exist. Thus, his own existence was an absolute certainty. 'I think, therefore I am, ' (Cogito, ergo sum). Starting from there, he proves that our particular thoughts and feelings that have primitive certainty.

Bertrand Russell says in one sense it must be admitted that we can never prove the existence of things other than ourselves and our experiences. No logical absurdity results from the hypothesis that the world consists of ourselves and our thoughts and feelings and sensations, and that everything else is mere fancy. But although this is not logically impossible, there is no reason whatever to suppose that it is true; and it is, in fact, a less simple hypothesis, viewed as a means of accounting for the facts of our own life, than the common-sense hypothesis that there really are objects independent of us, whose action on us causes our sensations.

But, he uses instinctive belief, that is every principle of simplicity urges us to adopt the natural view, that there really are objects other than ourselves and our sense-data which have an existence not dependent upon our perceiving them. We should never have been led to question this belief but for the fact that, at any rate in the case of sight, it seems as if the sense-datum itself were instinctively believed to be the independent object, whereas argument shows that the object cannot be identical with the sense-datum. This discovery, however -- which is not at all paradoxical in the case of taste and smell and sound, and only slightly so in the case of touch -- leaves undiminished our instinctive belief that there are objects corresponding to our sense-data. Since this belief does not lead to any difficulties, but on the contrary tends to simplify and systematize our account of our experiences, there seems no good reason for rejecting it. We may therefore admit that the external world does really exist, and is not wholly dependent for its existence upon our continuing to perceive it.

ps: "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K Dick

The Object, The Illusion - Take Two

A different take on what was posted here by sagar in his blog.

Perception of an Object:
Let us consider placing an apple in the middle of an empty room.
Argument:
Apposing to what is in the original post, an object is not a set of properties. Properties are what are ascribed to the object. They are a group of facts about the object that will come in handy when explaining about the object, when describing the object to another person, for cataloging, for demarcating between two or more objects etc. For example, the properties of an apple – like its color, its size and smell etc. can be used to differentiate it with say, a zebra.

The properties of an object have nothing to do it being real. We can always get more information about an object if we go deeper, say, into the microscopic levels. We can always increase the set of properties known. But the depth to which we need to go or the number of properties we need to find out, depends on what our purpose is or what are we looking to achieve at this particular moment. Properties serve as reference for carrying out particular tasks that are presently at hand. For our earlier example of differentiating between an apple and a zebra, we can use very basic properties – like size and color of the apple; than while differentiating between, say, a wood-apple and a normal apple.

All objects that are red, small, almost spherical, with some taste and smell are not apples. Also, it doesn’t imply that an apple can be, in totality, brought down to a group of properties. It is not true that to a person with a very keen olfactory function, the apple appears more real than to a person with a heavy cold.

It is like the experiment of the seven blind men and the elephant. In the experiment, each one would be ‘seeing’ the elephant for the first time, and each one reaches out for a particular part of the elephant, and they arrive at different individual conclusions. The person who touched the leg concludes that an elephant is like a pillar, the person closest to the trunk remarks that is like a snake, and the person who touches the stomach feels that it is like a huge tub. None of these are wrong. Each of these conclusions is an individual property. None of these by themselves give a complete description of the elephant. None of these can prove that the elephant is not real. None of these has any say in the matter concerning the reality of the elephant.

What is an Object without its properties?

An Object is real. It exists. It occupies space. It has matter.
Additionally, an Object has several unique properties that give it individuality. That makes it possible to identify it. What these properties are depends on the senses/ sensors. The more the sensors the more information/ properties about the object can be measured. The depth of understanding about the object keeps on increasing as the amount of details about it increases. But the object certainly does not become more real than it was originally.

Reality:

This brings us to a point where can define reality, using the definition of the Object and Properties.

From the original post - “Our present reality = information from senses + interpretation by mind (thoughts)” is not a really good definition of reality. This is because that senses differ from person to person. An object can not be more real to a person with better senses than to a person with some disability. And the interpretation by the mind should in no way affect the reality of the object.

Reality is absolute.

Let us define an object is REAL if it has matter and occupies space. Then, the ambiguity lessens. Because now, whether we see something or feel something or use other instruments to realize something that is occupying space and has matter, we can universally conclude that the object is real. As mentioned with increase in the number of sensors, we might get a better picture of the object, but the whole fundamental question of it being real is resolved.

Say, even with an apple in the room, suppose all of us had an additional sense of talking to fruits, we probably would have heard a different song from each apple, so that would be a new property. But, it would in no way increase the reality of the apple; or affect the reality of the apple in any way.

Also, let us consider Point 1 in the original post. Suppose, a man perceives a rope as a snake, then it has to be on first glance. Even then, at that point, we can surely say that there is an object, and it is REAL. The question of Reality of an Object is settled. Now, the perception of the rope as a snake is only because of limited data available. If the person looks closely for a second time, it would not be a very difficult task to tag the Object as a Rope. The illusion remains in the brain only till additional information is available. The Reality of the presence of the Object is unchanged

@sagar: It always comes down to definitions, man

Life... Or Something Like It

Red Redding in Shawshank Redemption:

“….But that wasn't the only reason. Prison time is slow time. So you do what you can to keep going. Some fellas collect stamps. Others build matchstick houses…. It was the same reason Andy spent years shaping and polishing those rocks. The same reason he hung his fantasy girls on the wall. In prison... a man will do most anything to keep his mind occupied.”

Well…If you ask me, It’s the same reason I played minesweeper millions of times… even after reaching (almost unbeatable) scores of 2 seconds in beginner, 27 seconds intermediate and 101s in expert. The same reason I played 5000+ games of FreeCell … the same reason I continue to play Tetris and Trivia… The same reason I read all the novels I can get my hands on…The same reason why I watched 700 odd movies (regardless of the fact that the frequency of even reasonably watch-able ones only is about 1 in 25, the good ones are even rarer)…watched some 15 different serials (everything from Friends, House MD to Avatar)… The same goddamn reason why the whole bloody lan is drained and empty…

They say that an idle mind is a devil’s workshop (this goes way back to the twelfth century …Chaucer's 'Tale of Melibee' :

“Therefore seith Seint Jerome: "Dooth somme goode deedes that the devil, which is oure enemy, ne fynde yow nat unoccupied.")

Bollocks. A devil’s workshop? Count me in. Any day. Period.

THIS is what happens in an idle mind… give the useless brains like mine a fart a breathing time and questions like the below keep popping up…

And thus, good people, by induction, using the above question as n = 1, introducing. in the place of ‘INTEGERS’, anything from ‘fractions’, ‘imaginary numbers’, ‘chester barnard’s principles’ to ‘Routh - Hurwitz criterion for determining the number of roots on the right half of the s- plane’ et al.... it can easily be shown that for all n, the damn question still remains unanswered.

The shit doesn’t stop right there… things always go from the frying pan to check out the flames below… if that was a tough question… try this… ladies and the gentlemen… introducing the eternal question …POL… the purpose of life... the reason for human existence...

And, likewise… all other theories from pragmatist, utilitarian, existentialist, humanist, spiritual et cetera to even scientific and individual views on the meaning of life, sound just as ridiculous, and provide just as much satisfaction…

Man...these are some haunting questions…it’s so easy to spend the entire lifetime (well… ages, at least) searching futilely for the ghosts of the answers to these questions…
I don’t want to get caught in that chakravyuha …
I really, really need a new project...
I just can’t stay idle...
This is it for now..
I blog.

PS: Shawshank Redemption is one helluva movie. Also, Bill Waterson is a genius.
Hats off to both of ‘em.