Monday, May 16, 2011

DAVID HUME'S IDEAS AND THEIR CRITICISM

Hume denies that man is born with ‘innate ideas’  He argues for this 1. By dividing the contents of our minds into two kinds of phenomena  -  a)  ‘impressions’ or direct perceptions that include sensations, passions and emotions AND b) ‘ideas’ which are faint copies of impressions, such as thoughts, reflections and imaginings THEN 2. Asking how ideas and impressions relate to each other.

In doing this Hume calls into question our most cherished beliefs not only about logic and science but also about the nature around us.

He seems to have a point. For if we examine various types of statements we see them to be broadly of two types:

1.     Demonstrative statements whose truth or falsity is self-evident. Like the statement 2+2 = 4. Denying this statement would lead us to a logical contradiction where we may fail to grasp the meaning of ‘2’ or ‘4’ or ‘+’ or ‘=’. Demonstrative statements and deductive reasoning are known to be true ‘a priori’ meaning prior to experience.

2.     Probable statements whose truths are not self-evident for it is concerned with matters of empirical fact. E.g. Shakira loved Deepak. This is a probable statement because it requires empirical evidence for it to be known to be true or false (most likely it is false!). One needs to experience things to find out its falsity.
HENCE, IN THE LIGHT OF THE ABOVE, WE CAN ASK OF ANY STATEMENT WHETHER IT IS DEMONSTRATIVE OR PROBABLE AND IF A STATEMENT IS NEITHER THE ONE NOR THE OTHER, IT IS MEANINGLESS.

Hume’s reasoning really takes on an edge when it is applied to inductive inference – our ability to infer things from past evidence.
We may see the sun rise every morning and infer that it will rise again tomorrow morning. But is this claim justifiable? CLAIMING THE SUN WILL RISE TOMORROW MORNING IS NOT A DEMONSTRATIVE STATEMENT, AS CLAIMING THE OPPOSITE INVOLVES NO LOGIOCAL CONTRADICTION. NOR IS IT A PROBABLE STATEMENT BECAUSE WE CANNOT EXPERIENCE NOW THE SUN’S FUTURE RISINGS.

The same problem applies to causality. The statement ‘Event A causes Event B’ may be able to be verified, BUT THERE IS NO LOGICAL CONTRADICTION IN DENYING THAT EVENT A CAUSES EVENT B as there would be in denying 2+2=4. Nor can it be proved empirically because we cannot observe every event A to see if it is followed by event B. Hence it is not a probable statement either.
We make connections due to human nature and human habits where human minds read uniformity into regular repetition and a causal connection between constant conjunctions of events. Despite the temptation to interpret our inferences as “laws” of nature, this practice cannot be justified by rational argument.

HENCE IF WE REALLY GO TO SEE, IT IS ONLY BELIEF (a lively idea related to or associated with a present impression), GUIDED BY CUSTOM THAT LIES AT THE HEART OF OUR CLAIMS TO KNOWLEDGE RATHER THAN REASON. Hence Science, Hume says, deals with only theories and can never yield a “law of nature”.
This does not mean that inductive inferences are not useful (though not provable). In the absence of a rational justification for inductive inference, custom is a good guide. BUT THE MENTAL HABIT OF CUSTOM SHOULD BE APPLIED WITH CAUTION.

TAKE THE CASE OF THE TWO EXAMPLES GIVEN BELOW:
Case 1 : We can reasonably predict that when we let go of an object it will fall to the ground, because this is what has always happened in the past and there is an obvious connection.

Case 2 : Two clocks set to ring a few seconds apart will chime one after another – but since there is no obvious connection between them, we should not infer that one clock’s chiming is the cause of the other’s.
Criticism of Hume: Ayn Rand observes that if it were possible for an animal to describe the content of its consciousness, the result would be a transcript of Hume’s philosophy. Hume’s conclusions would be the conclusions of a consciousness limited to the perceptual level of awareness, passively reacting to the experience of immediate concretes, with no capacity to form abstractions, to integrate perceptions into concepts, waiting in vain for the appearance of an object called ‘causality’. To negate man’s mind, it is the conceptual level of his consciousness that has to be invalidated. In Post-Renaissance philosophy – the one consistent line, the fundamental that explains the rest is: a concerted attack on man’s conceptual faculty. As Ayn Rand says “the philosophers were unable to refute the Witch Doctor’s claim that their concepts were as arbitrary as his whims and that their scientific knowledge had no greater metaphysical validity than his revelations”.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

A Re-reading of Western Philosophy - 2

Talking about Empiricists and Rationalists - the latter believe that we are born with some ideas and concepts that are innate. Locke rejects this idea and considers Man at birth to be a Tabula Rasa - A blank tablet on which man's experiences writes out whatever knowledge he acquires through his senses.

I feel like agreeing with Locke in this aspect because a human baby (in contrast to the young of other animals) does not seem to have an awareness of what is perilous to its safety. I had read many years back that a small child of about 6 to 8 months tried to grasp at a passing cobra somewhere in Tamil Nadu, India and was repeatedly bitten. It did not seem to have an awareness that a cobra is dangerous. Hence there appear to be no truths available to humans at birth. Further, as has been told by many others, such a presence of ideas would have resulted in UNIVERSAL IDEAS found in people of all cultures at all times. Even the idea of God and divinity is not universal in the sense that it is not held to be true universally by all people at all times. Rather, as I've expressed earlier in my blog, much of mythology varies quite sharply from culture to culture.

At this some people may cite the example of mathematics - that 2+2 is 4 and 7+5 is 12 in India, Peru, Qatar and Greenland. But if you look into it, these truths are the way humans EXPERIENCE the universe in different parts of the world! These basic truths are experiential to begin with and only later is it that reason is applied. But yes! As I said earlier, reason may then proceed on its own steam to discover further mathematical truths, but what I am stressing here is that Man does not seem to be born with innate ideas even though he may have found truths that are universal. These truths are rather derived from the commonality of experience and the common way in which man experiences the universe.

A Re-reading of Western Philosophy - 1

Over thirty years ago, when I was a research student at the Delhi University, I used to browse through various books on Western Philosophy for which I had a passing interest. I seemed to have got familiar with some of the ideas of philosophers like Plato, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Spinoza and a few others too, but these ideas were largely lost to me as I had not kept up with my readings and had not nourished the incipient curiosity that I had. Since yesterday I've been re-reading some of these aspects from a very basic book and I now feel like recording my shallow and rambling thoughts in this blog which, in fact, is meant for such a shallow pursuit.

As I was reading the chapter on John Locke I was struck by what the book says about Locke - that all knowledge is gained from experience. As has been explained Locke was a British 'Empiricist' who together with George Berkeley and David Hume generally thought that all knowledge must come directly or indirectly from the experience of the world that we acquire through our senses alone.

This contrasts with the Rationalist philosophers such as Rene Descartes, Benedictus Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz who hold that in principle, at least, it is possible to acquire knowledge solely through reason.

In this sort of debate I am tempted to side with the rationalists because of what I have learnt from the advances in physics in the 20th Century.

For instance, many of the conditions that Einstein visualised in his theories of relativity are never in the ambit of general human experience. We never travel at such high velocities; we never experience such high gravitational fields; we never experience those physical conditions, and yet Einstein and his associates could predict the curvature of space-time around massive bodies. He could predict that starlight would be bent as it travels to the earth by grazing the Sun. Other effects of time distortions are proved in high energy particle accelerators where the decay times of subatomic particles are found to slow down at high velocities.

All these were the fruits of Man's Reason as contrasted with his experiences or sometimes were even counter-intuitive. Even the prediction of the existence of a positron by Paul Andre Maurice Dirac. He used his famous Delta Function to predict the existence of a positron which was detected only later!

So all these instances seem to indicate that humans can glean out knowledge by the use of rational faculties alone.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Dangerous Trends !

The Ted Talk, the link of which is given below, is scary!  Mankind has generated a BUGBOT, a RATBOT, an ELECTRONIC INSECT whose activites can be manipulated - the whole array of 21st century genetic engineering and biotechnology whose implications can be very dangerous for man. I invite you to click on the link below and watch the perilous aspects of modern biological and biotechnological research. Are we really prepared for such a thing? See for yourselves! (Click on the link below)


http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_root_wolpe_it_s_time_to_question_bio_engineering.html



Deepak

Friday, May 6, 2011

Jill Bolte Taylor's Experience of Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev's Experience

Jill Bolte Taylor, a practising neurologist or neurophysician, I am not clear which one, suffered a brain haemorrage. She watched her thoughts and feelings as she progressed deeper and deeper into her affliction. She has recorded in very graphic terms her experiences of the brain haemorrage that she suffered, and as I can presently see there is a remarkable concurrence with the similar experience that Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev had at Chamundi Hills in Mysore. Can we program ourselves to have this experience consciously the way Jaggi Vasudev suggests we can, rather than the purely accidental way in which Jill Bolte Taylor experienced it?

For an exhilarating trip down consciousness, even if caused by a lesion please click the mouse on the link below (ALLOW A MINUTE FOR THE PROGRAM TO LOAD)

http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html


Deepak Bellur

Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action | Video on TED.com

Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action Video on TED.com

Sean Carroll: Distant time and the hint of a multiverse | Video on TED.com

Sean Carroll: Distant time and the hint of a multiverse Video on TED.com

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Dangers of Ideological Gatekeepers !



Just yesterday (May 4th 2011) I was viewing a very interesting site called TED TALKS which presents eloquent speakers who have examined in some depth some quirky aspects of the world around us and are so enthused to share their findings with the public, that they use this platform to present their ideas in concise talks that could range in time from five to twenty minutes. TED stands for ‘Technology. Entertainment. Design’ and not, as I had mistakenly thought, a forum sponsored by someone called Ted.

Yesterday’s Ted Talk that I viewed was by a guy called Eli Pariser and was titled ‘Beware Online Filter Bubbles’. It referred to what is innocently being done by computer algorithms, what otherwise humans do more insidiously and directly in an almost callous way.

Pariser yesterday was talking about how search engines like Google, Yahoo and even other internet sites like Facebook use algorithms that are designed with the innocent objective of being more efficient, but end up dangerously filtering out data that may be of critical significance to the user. These internet sites are designed to collect information from the keystrokes or mouse-clicks that a person makes and use that information to build up your on-line personality, and depending on the sites you would have visited or the ideological leanings of the friends whose personalities have similarly been built up and on whom you would have most often clicked, present only such data that the program presupposes by its programmed logic, you would definitely be most interested in.

Pariser found that on Facebook, his strongly progressive and liberal intellectual leanings, gradually eliminated his more conservative contacts from being presented.  Similarly search engines like Google and Yahoo probably would not care to present a carefully considered ‘conservative viewpoint’ if you have built up a liberal on-line personality, even if in actuality and in real life you would probably have liked to consider that viewpoint.

Pariser rightly says that around the year 1915 newspapermen, because of the sheer volume of material seeking to be published, became active gatekeepers for the twentieth century to ensure that only worthy ideas fit to be publicized were chosen to be published. Almost a hundred years later and presently, for the twenty-first century, search engines and other internet programs are becoming digital and algorithmic gatekeepers and are threatening to polarize the world by unwittingly filtering out data from a user’s consideration on the basis of ‘efficiency of search’.

It may not be too evident and we may not even acknowledge it, but every human functions as a gatekeeper and selectively rejects and throws out ideas that may not suit his current personality. Even I have been guilty of such a thing.  Till about seven to eight years ago I prided myself to have rationalistic leanings and would have scrupulously avoided picking up a book like ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’ by Paramahamsa Yogananda or ‘Living with the Himalayan Masters’ by Swami Rama. Back then, if I happened to read an article on Sai Baba like ‘God on a phone line’ by Sheela Reddy or ‘Holy Smoke and Mirrors’ by Rahul Singh or ‘That Irrational High’ by Ajith Pillai, (all articles in OUTLOOK magazine dated May 9th 2011) I would feel a sort of contempt arising in me for those poor credulous blighters who were so gullible as to be fooled by the wily godmen. Then the inevitable thing happened. Even I happened to experience one of ‘those ones’ and I was converted. Now when I read these articles I am confused why the Universe is designed in a way as to confuse people! I feel like asserting that there are some genuine people among these miracle-workers. While it may be true that a substance looking like vibhuthi may be able to be produced by a frame of aluminium and mercuric chloride in the presence of moisture, I feel like questioning what if the miracle-worker is not using this means? What if there is a genuine alternative method that does not use these chemicals. To put it in rational terms - while it is possible to produce vibhuthi type of material out of aluminium and mercuric chloride and water vapour, it does not logically eliminate other ways of producing it - perhaps even using an apparently miraculous process. To take the investigation a step further, it may be useful to analyse the vibhuthis produced by the two processes and compositions compared for Al, Hg, (OH) and so on.

It was only then that I started to even consider reading those books that I had scrupulously avoided buying. On reading some of these books, the latest one being ‘Apprenticed to a Himalayan Master’ by Sri M, I feel that it is a great tragedy that genuine experiences of many people who have related their true tales in all earnestness and sincerity are at worst not being read at all by large sections of the human society, or in the outside chance that they are read, these writers of genuine human experience are totally brushed aside by people who are so impressed by the obviously stupendous success and impact or rationalism and science. Often genuine human experience is brushed away as hallucinations. But then two persons cannot be privy to the same hallucination. And I have been witness to two such events that were a common experience shared by others.

It is time we stop acting like ideological gatekeepers and start examining what the other section of the society has to say. If only one has the openness to read the books written by the other section, they would learn of the amazing things that exist in this Universe.

Given below is a link to the interesting TED Talk on Filter Bubbles: