PHILOSOPHY,SCIENCE & GENDER ISSUES
From [email protected] Tue 10 Nov 1998 17:11:53
Subject: Re: [ALOCHONA] The Ideas of a Black Hole
On Mon, 9 Nov 1998 13:07:51 - Faria Chowdhury wrote:
>In regards to these astronomy topics, I see a few ideas/suggestions that
>do not agree with what I have learned in my courses. So I shall attempt to
>relate to you my "academia knowledge":
First of all, this forum may not (and IS not) the right place to get
authentic low down on cosmological issues. Your article does correctly
reflect the current picture of Astrophysics/physicists. What you have
read is the real McCoy stuff as they are written by professionals in
these fields. Any other articles/opinions by pseudophysicists or
non-physicists are bound to be just armchair ramblings with no true
understanding of this highly esoteric field. Even the watered down
versions of books written on such topics for laymen by professionls are
meant to just provide some goosebumps and create a spark of interest for
possible later pursuit in depth and in no way can impart an indepth
understanding of theses intrinsically complex topics. The simple
conclusions of Cosmology as expressed in few lines are really reflecting
pages and pages of mathematical formulation of an incredible complexity
and there cannot be a short cut to a true understanding. Just go through
the pages of Stephen Hawking's "Large Scale Structure of Space Time" or
"The Mathematical Theory of Black Holes" by Chandrasekhar and you will
know what I am talking about. Anyway I would recommend to all those
interested in these topics to consult the following books and URLs
for better source rather than this forum specially since now other
topics are being slated for higher priority.
Books:
1. Universe - By Walter J. Kauffmann (Outstanding book at the undergraduate level
discusses all the fascinating topics in a lucid manner)
2. Explorations: An Introduction to Astronomy- By Thomas Arny.
(Explains the Early universe in a very readable way)
3. Intro to General Relativity - Foster & Nightingale
(A nice introduction to tensors and goes on to apply to Black Holes etc)
4. Introduction to Cosmology - Narlikar (Graduate Level text. by a distinguished author)
5. Introduction to Mathematical Cosmology - Jamal Nazrul Islam (Cambridge Univ press)
(Written by a renowned Bangladeshi Astrophysicist. Graduate level)
Popular Level:
God and the New Phyisics - Paul Davies (interesting excursions into metaphysics besides
big bang and time warp etc)
URL: http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/html/web_site.htm
( This is the official NASA site for Cosmology topics)
Hope this is helpful.
cosmic thinker
From me Wed 3 Feb 1999 15:42:27
Subject: [Notun-ALOCHONA] Re: Logic and Reason
[Quite the reverse, its sophistry and emotional bias that are often used to
establish/counter certain views. It is the lack of logic and inability (Intentional
or otherwise) to understand it when used correctly, which results in volumes and
volumes of exchnges with no conclusive end.]
>This story illustrates some of the subtleties and nuances of human
[The above story illustrates if any. that logical inconsistencies can easily
deceive human mind and result in seeming paradox. There are many examples of
inconsistent statements resulting in paradoxical results, deadlock and ambiguity.
An example of such statments is the self-referencing statement like "This
statement is false".
I would disagree with the assertion that survival of human is ensured by fuzzy thought
process. It is the human race which has aquired the skill of logical reasoning beyond
the basic instinct required by survival like that in lower level animals. Thats why
human as a species have higher survival chance. I would like to see references if the
above assertion is from published works/research by scholars.]
>millions of years. Our views on Religion, Philosophy, Marriage, and
>Politics, quite rightfully, will always be based not only on reason and
>logic - they will depend heavily on our upbringing, emotions, and
>feelings.
If the "will depend" is read in the declarative sense i.e implying "Thats the way it
IS" then no problem there, I agree. But if is read in the imperative sense i.e
"should depend.." then strongly disagree. Blind belief without logic is not
necessarily positive. It can lead to hazardous side effect. We all know very well
about such side effects. It is the very lack of logic factor in religion, politics
etc that makes them the source of all the problems (hatred, torture etc) in the
world.
Not everything can be explained by logic or can be solved by logic. When all logical
means is exhausted then an intelligent guess based on best evidence and intuiton is
the natural recourse to an explanation/solution. Scientists do that routinely.
Logic is feared/hated by many as it has the potential to force one to face the
unpleasant truth and disillusionment and shatter wishful desires and hopes. In plain
terms, logic is cold, heartless. Another reason for hating is that by agreeing to
the ground rules of logic one takes the risk of admitting being wrong if logic
points so (Something many would rather not want to).
cosmic thinker (speaking from the left hemisphere)
From me Fri Feb 5 16:53:09 1999
Subject: [Notun-ALOCHONA] Re: Logic and Reason
On Fri, 05 Feb 1999 08:47:46 "shahriar khan" wrote:
>
>1. Neural Networks (Human mind) Vs. Logical/Digital Networks (computers)
>
>The human mind, as with the rest of the animal kingdom, is
>composed of neural networks. As taught in elementary engineering
>courses, neural networks are completely different from the digital
>black/white networks characteristic of computers. It is also widely
>accepted that computers have very low inherent intelligence. One reason
There is a debate among Scientists (Computer Scientists/Physicists/ Neurologists) as
to how intelligent a machine can be. Roger Penrose has contended (Using Godel's
Incompleteness Theorem) that a computer can never simulate a human mind (cf. "The
Shadow of the Mind"). Others, including Frank Tipler believes in the Strong A.I
(Artificial Intelligence), where he contends that a Universal Turing machine with
enough capability if and when built can simulate a human mind. In fact he even
proves using the laws of Global General relativity and Quantum Theory and
Computer Science that in theory a more intelligent machine is not only possible
but will exist (Omega Point) in distant future which will resurrect all mortals (cf "The
Physics of Immortality"- Frank Tipler. For a review see :
http://www.doesgodexist.org/JanFeb96/PhysicsOfImmorality.html). After all, human
brain has finite (albeit large) number of neurons, so it is necessarily a finite
state machine. And with improved memory and speed in future machines with larger
processing power than human brain can be built by pooling the accrued knowledge.
The incredible progress in Nanobiology and Nanotechnology is making the boundary
bewteen artificial and real mind "fuzzy".
>
>2. Human Thought, Communication and Fuzzy Logic
>
>The case of the judge and convict illustrates the shortcomings in
>trying to interpret speech using logic. Attempting to make complete
>logical sense in the speech involved is mostly futile. ...
Again, one has to distinguish a Boolean Logic of the computer with the solid rules
of logic that apply in human communication. I don't see how A computer's inability
to prcisely parse a human speech can justify not following logic in human to human
communication if thats what you are advocating. After all, computer is not
incidental to this thread of discussion. Human speech can contain fallacies,
contradictions, inconsistencies which are not inevitable, but are results of
individual incompetence and fallibility/imperfection and can be certainly improved
or corrected (Again refer to http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/logic.html for a
list of such fallacies). We are familiar with people rephrasing their statements to
make it more precise and consistent. Some admit having drawn a wrong conclusions
etc. There are accepted ground rules of logic that are taught in academia. Some of
those are self evident like axioms, others are derived. Sticking to these rules help
to alleviate miscommunication between people and resolve a debate conclusively. A
debate between scientists is more likely to be resolved in the sense that the
disagreement if any at the end may be due to the difference in the basic assumptions
made and not a miscommunication due to misinterpretation/ misapplication of logical
rules in the inference process which is usually the case in a debate between
lay/biased people engaging in a debate.
Human languages with discrete vocabulary may be incapable to express every
nuance of the continuum of emotions but is quite adequate to settle human disputes
with judicious applications of the rules of logic.
...
Yes, but Russell always underscored the importance of logical reasoning and because
he didn't find any logic and didn't consider the lack of logic in religion desirable
(As you seem to advocate) he decided not to be a Christian. (cf. "Why I am not a
Christian" - Russell). So Russel's allusion here is either irrelevant or contra-
indicatory, because your main thrust seems to have been emphasizing the potential
benefit of not using logic in religion, politics etc.
>
>Regarding topics of marriage, religion, politics, and philosophy,
>I do assert again the very great and necessary role of intuition,
>instinct, and gut feeling. These decision making processes are the
>products of millions of years of evolutionary programming of the human
>mind. Trying to supersede and over-ride them with pure logic may
>actually interfere with our own happiness and well-being.
In many societies, specially the West, logic indeed has superseded many worn out
outdated and useless religious and social dictums and taboos and have resulted in
progress. Logic itself may be a natural selection applied to human species to make
room for advancement. Before religion declared that earth was the center of the
solar system. When logic and evidence demanded that Sun was the center,first there
was a phase of denial and condemnation of this idea by religious bodies. The rest is
history. I agree with you on the effect of millions of years of evolutionary
programming on decision making processes. True, intuition, instinct, and gut feeling
is important, as I mentioned in last post, it is applied routinely in scientific
research as well, but I don't see any good result of applying them in religion
(religion is blind faith anyway). The same is true for politics, where it is used as
vehicle for corrupt people to further their own selfish interests. I don't see how
all your points so far justify attributing any negative effect of using logic
anyway. I contended that logic cannot explain or solve ALL the problems of the
world. In thoss cases instinct/intuition/guess work does help. A parable called
"Buridan's Ass(Donkey)" will illustrate the point: A donkey stood between two
identical piles of hay. The donkey was a stickler for logic and failed to decide
using any logic whether to start eating the hay from his left or the right. The poor
donkey eventually died of hunger as he insisted on logic to decide for every action!
A random guess is better than no guess when one has exhausted all logical recourse.
This is the key to survival.
From me Mon Feb 8 16:55:01 1999
Subject: Re: [ALOCHONA] Re: Logic and Reason
Logic is unnecessary to justify a "feeling". It is only necessary to justify an
"action" if. Nobody said that one's love for an object (Human being or a flower etc)
has to be "explained". Logic is a means to guide one to speak and act precisely
without contradictions and inconsistencies according to established rules with the end
purpose being to settle debates/disputes.
I think you are using the word "logic" when you really intended to use the word
"cause" for such things as 'love" etc. The cause of "love" etc may not be clearly
identified but that does not mean that a cause cannot exist. Many
anthroplogical/Biological theories for such do exist.
...
Its not survival of our own genes code (which will die once we die necessarily) but a
copy of it (passed on to our offsprings through genetic code) that our instincts
dictate us to preserve. So sacriifice follows "logically" by the need to keep the
offsprings alive at the costs of our own lives,if the choice comes to that (so as to
keep this passing on of the genetic code going).
>
>Case 2.
>
>Many of us Bangladeshis may have indirectly made the decision that
>Judaism is not the true religion. Have we taken into consideration all
>the available information on Judaism? Most of us have not read texts on
>Judaism (The New Testament), and yet we have made a very real decision
>not to follow it as our primary religion.
>
>Yet our decision is perfectly justified even in view of our incomplete
>information.
"justified" is a very personal conclusion above. It is not a "logically" justified
decision but since this decision is harmless to others (Your decision not to follow
Judaism doesn't harm anyone whether or not this decision is based on logic) this
logical mistake is of trivial nature and is a non-issue. If people made only harmless
logical fallacies and mistakes then logic would not be of vital importance. But it is
because in many cases the illogical decisions/conclusions one makes lead to harmful
effects on others thats when the importance of logic becomes vital. Suppose that
instead of the decision that "Judaism is not the true religion" as you stated above
they made the decision "Judaism is bad for the world." (Just for the sake of
argument.) Now in this case can you confidently say the decision is "justified" as
before? In this case a logical reason for this decision is definitely called for and
should be "logically justified" (If it is) through reading about it and all gathering
all the info on Judaism because this decision can potentially lead to harmful
consequences to innocent Jews.
[One has to distinguish logic with sophistry. It is sophistry (which can fool an
unsuspective layperson into believing it is "logic") which can serve anyone their
intended purpose. A logic that is free from
fallacies/inconsistencies/contradictions/invalid premises/invalid inferences will
necessarily lead to a valid conclusion. Any flaw in any one of the logical elements
(premise,inference) can lead to a false conclusion and serve the interest of the
sophist.]
>party. A good lawyer can win the case even though the "truth" is against
>his client.
This is not because of logic, but because of insufficient evidence to establish the
"truth" objectively. Whenever the evidence is weak making it harder to judge the truth
the outcome of a trial is uncertain and subject to manipulations of the conclusions to
suit one's interest. For example If "A" rapes "B" and nobody witnessed it then a
accusation of rape by "B" against "A" may result in no conviction of "A" as there can
be no 100% sure evidence. (It is an unfortunate reality we have to live with). Any
doubt in the underlying premise (or lack thereof) can render the inference step of the
logic invalid and thus can lead to false conclusions.
All my rigmarole is to emphasize that good logic IS good and any fault you are finding
with logic should belong to sophistry (i.e flawed logic)
cosmic thinker
From me Wed Feb 17 18:47:20 1999
Subject: Re: [ALOCHONA] Logic and Reason (their limitations)
On Wed, 17 Feb 1999 12:14:14 "shahriar khan" wrote:
>
>Logic and Reason (their limitations)
>
>This is worth continuing in the spirit of good discussion (!). This
>discussion is about the limitations of logic and reason, rather than
Everyone agrees on the limitations. Why harp on a truism?
>So what exactly is the "bad" Sophistry / Paralogic and how is it
>distinguished from "good" logic? Trying to distinguish good logic from
>bad logic is not very easy. Logic specialists will find it hard to come
You are right about the "is not very easy" part. I too emphasized that in
another context. Not everyone can do it. That does not mean the distinctiuon
does not exist. It requires an ability and an intention of logical thinking
to distinguish.
>to agreements about what is bad logic, since it is very much a
>subjective choice, varying from scientist to scientist.
Any logic which has internal inconsistencies and contradictions is bad
logic. I have been repeating my appeal to check out
http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/logic.html for countless examples
of bad logic etc. It might be a little eye opener for you and redeem
yourself from this state of denial. If two people disagree on something,
that does not make the rules of logic invalid. Its the fact that at least
one of them are breaking the rules of logic. If (The big IF) both are
open minded and follow the rules of logic, one of them will soon realize
the flaw in his/her logic (Unless they differ on a premise itself. Then
would differ consistent with logic). Contrary to what you said scientists
don't disagree on the RULES of logic but on some of the UNDERLYING
PREMISES leading to differing conclusions.
[....]
>Pure logic and reason have the greatest difficulty when dealing with
>human interactions. This simply means that logic and reason should be
>used in combination with emotion and intuition. An example of emotion is
>the love one has for one's friends. An example of intuition is the
>distrust of another person without any apparent justification for it.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
You just helped me to prove my point again. "Justification" is your
(in a general sense) conclusion. How did you arrive at this conclusion?.
You must have analysed all the variables and the situation and drew the
conclusion that it was not "justified". You didn't just say it out of
you blind guess or intuition, did you? Of course if you used bad logic
then your conclusion can be wrong too. I tried to lay this debate to
rest but it gets resurrected again and again. (Logic lives! :)
cosmic thinker
From me Thu Apr 1 1999 17:29:43
Subject: [ALOCHONA] Re: Logic and Reason
1. I think the whole intent of Dr. Shahriar was to point out the difference of Neural
Network and digital network. While that is a vaild scientific fact the problem was
when he tried to use that fact in a sweeping manner to draw a subjective conclusion
about the inefficacy of logic in human communication and thought processes and even
went as far to suggest that illogicality (through the progression neural network-
>fuzzy logic->illogicity) is in the root human survival. Moreover I think the
logic of computer (Boolean, Nand Gate, AND gate, 0 & 1 etc) was confused with the
rules of logic for human reasoning and analytic thinking (i.e premise,
proposition,inference, deduction etc). The purpose of the rules of logic is to
guard against drawing invalid conclusions from facts using fallacious reasoning
(i.e sophistry/paralogic). Sophistry and paralogic can be intentional when a vested
interest is there to arrive at a predetermined conclusion or can be unintentional
when one's thoughts are guided by emotions and is unable to comprehend or use the
rules of logic. Lets face it, not everyone is equal in mental capacity. Its a fact,
not a fault.
2. The fact that logic cannot solve all human problems was also mistakenly
characterized as the inefficacy of logic itself. As I maintained it is not the
purpose of human logic to solve all problems. The rules of logic are a guard
against any pitfalls due to our subjective wishes and and notions in this world
full of illusions and paradoxes to lead one to the objective truth (Pleasant or
unpleasant). The value of logic is more in its preventive nature than in
therapeutic although a therapeutic value may emerge as a side effect of some
preventive act.
3. Someone commented that logic is like a prostitute, can serve anyone's
purpose. Let me rectify this highly preposterous dictum with my own
1. "Logic" is like a beaconing light in the mist of ignorance/illusion/mendacity
which guides one to veracity.
2. "Sophisry/Paralogic" (i.e "bad logic") is like a prostitute (To borrow someone
elses analogy, not mine). It can serve to arrive at any conclusion one chooses
to and fool an unsuspecting naive mind to believe the conclusion was validly
arrived. In a symbolic sense its like saying
4+4=8, So by subtracting "1" from each "4" and "8" we get 3+3=7
It is sophistry/paralogic that can come handy in a litigation where clear
evidence is missing and its one person's word against other. In this case one
can arrive at a false conclusion and then the losing party can justifiably
complain that "logic is like a prostitiute.." Sometimes by judicious use of
logic it is still possible to arrive at the truth indirectly. Of course then the
losing party will understandably but unjustifiably say the same thing. So in
either case the cynical statement will be made. But notice that this statement
resulted not due to the inapplicability of correct rules of logic but due to the
final CONCLUSION.
3. "No logic" is like a murderer. Its like saying:
3+3=7 because I say so. Once logic is banished totally any
conclusion is valid, not even false inference is required!
Someone said:
>>. . . . No computer can deal
>> with the huge number of situations which a very simple animal can
>> deal with. All a computer can do is deal in black and white with a
>> very specific situation, eg. playing chess, flying a plane, transfer
>> information, etc.
This statement needs qualification. Computer can do a lot more than ONE individual in
huge number of situations also. Also this is a statement tied to a point in time. May
not be true in future. A computer can and will be more and more powerful with time.
Remember one computer actually reflects the combined brain power of and accumulated
knowledge of millions of human over an ever increasing time span. We are so
anthropcentric that we feel sqeamish to think of a machine excelling one human
individual in its capacity. Machines/computers do not have conscioussness (Defined as
the awareness of KNOWING that one KNOWS). But thats about all you can say in
regard to human over machine. Again refer to "The Physics of Immortality" by Tipler
for some surprising facts of mind and computers.
>Choosing a "Jibon Shongi" definitely can not be taken purely on
>logic and reason. Intuition will play a major part in this
Well if pure logic =(NAND gates/NOT gates/De Morgans' theorem etc) then thats a
trivially true statemnt. But logic is to be understood as arriving at a consistent,
most optimal decision/conclusion under a given set of circumstances then definitely
logic is applicable here. As Dr. Mizan has pointed out that even intuition is still
based on some level of subconscious logical thinking process, otherwise it will be
reduced to pure gambling. That will be the case when you are say, hypothetically
asked to marry one woman out of 5 where you don't know (or allowed to know) anything
at all about the 5 woman but only that they are labelled as number 1-5 (numbers are
random, not signifying any ranking) and you have to pick only a number 1-5 (You HAVE
TO marry, by a mandatory ruling, lets say!). There is no intuition or logic that can
help to choose any number over other. A blind guess is the only choice.
In conclusion, as I said logic is feared by those who realize that use of correct logic
may prove their cherished views/thoughts or acts wrong, either because they know that
the views/thoughts/acts are wrong or because they believe their views/thoughts/act are
right but they know that they cannot prove them right through correct rules of logic.
This fear may turn into hatred if those illogical views/thoughts/act if proven wrong can
be of disastrous consequences for them as they have staked very highly (Their emotions,
social institutions etc) in those beliefs or they may lose vested interests,
control/superiority over others as a result.
cosmic thinker
From me Tue Jul 18 12:07:01 2000
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Postmodernity and the Crisis of ? ?�Truth? ?�
--- In [email protected], "Muqtedar Khan" wrote:
> The culture of Postmodernism is presenting a stiff challenge to all
> communities that believe in order, truth and justice. By negating the very
> possibility of ? ?�Truth? ?� postmodern ethos are threatening the moral existence
> of humanity. ...
> Postmodernity and the Crisis of ? ?�Truth? ?�
>
> http://www.themestream.com/gspd_browse/browse/view_article.gsp?c_id=106935
>
Beneath the verbal tapestry of the article lies the simple theme of the concern
about the postmodernists lack of an absolute moral belief and scientific reasoning
Let me summarize the three world views as alluded to in the article and go on to
add my own thoughts into it.
1. Premodernism -> a)Spiritualism/faith in a transcendent reality
b)Religious Dogma/Doctrine through blind belief in revelations
and uncritical thinking
c)absence of rational and scientific thinking
d)Morals based on a supposed divine decree
2. Modernism -> a)Scientific approach, emphasizing reason ,critical thinking.
b)discarding the dogmatic aspect of religion
c)Leaving metaphyisics/spiritualism to individual taste
and beliefs and considering it outside of scientific
rationality although leaves open a speculative metaphysics
based on scientific reasoning (e.g, big bangs, manyworlds,
quantum consciousness, origin of life etc)
d) Morals based on pragmatism and utilitarianism emphasizing human welfare
3. Postmodernism-> Discarding both Premodernism and Modernism. Anything goes. Not
only does it, like the modernists, discard the dogmatic aspect of religion (right
thing for the wrong reason), it also (most ridiculously) discounts scientific principles
as constructs of culture and thus relative.
In the article the author mainly seem to be worried at the clash between the
religious dogma of the premodernist era (continuing thru modernist era among the
believers) and the postmodernists' doscounting of any values or principles at all.
Also the implication is that the postmodernists are rejecting truth by rejecting
religious dogma (In this postmodernists share the role with the modernists). But
the underlying assumption of the author is that religious dogma = truth, which is
erroneous. A religious dogma is a belief/faith, which is not amenable to rational
analyis and verification/falsification (The hallmarks of truth). So it cannot be "THE"
truth like the laws of Phyisics. These beliefs can at best be granted the status of
personal truths that each believer perceive as truth in their mind. To each their own.
To me the worrisome aspect rather is the postomdernists' rejection of scientifc
reasoning and principles and characterizing them as pure constructs and narratives.
Interestingly these postmodernists use the same scientific results to propagate
their outrageous propositions while declaring science as relative and not objective!
The truth that has lareasdy been revealed about these postmodernists is that they
are suiffering from science jealousy and since scientific knowledge undoubtably
commands glory and respect they cleverly try to wrest more respect by pretending
they know more than scientidts by provong that science is wrong. After all if
science requires high intellect then surely discounting science must require even
higher intellect, so why not pretend to "debunk" science if you cannot understand
it? Thats the ploy of these postmodernists. But fortunately some responsible and
conscientious scientists have come forward done the damage control before it went
out of hand, like physicist Alan Sokal who debunked these postmodernists in his
famous Sokal's hoax. Since then there has been a science war waging between the
postmodernist vandals and the conscientious scientific community (and their
sensible suppoerters from the humanities). The following three books does an
excellent job of exposing the postmodernists
1. Fashionable Nonsense - Alan D. Sokal, Jean Bricmont
2. A House Built on Sand: Exposing Postmodernist Myths About Science - Noretta Koertge
3. Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels With Science - Paul R. Gross,
Norman Levitt
I see some effort in the article to eulogize Islam in the article although the title
implies a general theme of clash between postmodernism and modernism/premodernism
thus undermining the objectivity of the article. Glorifying a certain religion has its place,
but not in a supposedly objective discussion of postmodernism vs. modernism.
cosmic thinker
From me Sat Jul 22 17:22:40 2000
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Postmodernity and the Crisis of Truth
Hello Mr. Raheem,
Thanks for your response. I have not seen the movie Matrix so I cannot
comment on the movie although I will comment on your specific remarks
based on your watching the movie. But I must sound the caveat that a movie
is after all a fiction, not real life or an objective reality. A movie
is mostly entertainment, very little education. Whatever education is
there is magnified by the artistic embellishments that is added to it.
Most educcational values that are gleaned out after stripping off the
embellishments reduce to a trivial truth well known to the sciences,
philosophies already. A movie, poetry, story book can never be a
substitute to the scholarly books dealing in depth with deeper issues
of life. For example the issue of truth, reality etc have been discussed
by philosophers and scientists and the results of such discussions
are stored in the thousands of pages in the dictionary of epistemology.
Popper, Kuhn, Wittgenstein, Russell and other philosophers and
philosophers of science have dwelt on these issues in great detail.
The theme that you have refered to in the movie (virtual reality) has
already been the subject of discussions among scientists. But there
is no unresolved issue of any practical importance here about reality,
objectivity, truth etc. Philosophers can argue about the ultimate
nature of reality, but that is a non-issue since scientifc principles
have provided a satisfactory basis of an objective reality that is
the best approximation to it whic all agree to irrespective of race,
religion or belief.
Re your comment:
> Anyways.. although the movie matrix has high entertainment value it
> also represents the modern crisis of truth. In the movie 'Matrix,' the
The "crisis" of truth you are refering to is a crisis that resides in
the mind of the postmodernists. It is not a real crisis. No mainstream
scientist, philosopher refer to any crisis that have emerged.
Postmodernists have not contributed anything significant to knowledge
other than an artmchair criticism of science withoiut even understanding
what science is all about.
Re your comment:
> After all dont most of us believe that everything is a creation of God!
>
> If it is His creation, then all the realities of this world r also a
> construct of that creation. Maybe these realities and truths do not
> apply outside of the creation! That is why while scientific rules and
> axioms may work just fine in this world (the world that we know), there
> is a possibility that they do not apply anywhere else! Hence the
> possibility of relative truth rather than absolute truth!
It is not a synthtic statement to say that realities of this world and
truths do not apply outside of the creation! or that the scientific
theories and axioms don't apply to outside our universe. Its more like
a tautological statement. We don't know if and what is outside our known
universe. Because universe is by definition everything that exists.
So anything outside our universe is by definition non-existent!
And science has been verifed to apply everywhere in the universe.
So obviously we cannot even meaningfuly make a statement refering to a
undefined entity like "outside the creation/universe". We simply don't
have any thing to say (either by science or by religion or by any means)
anything other than our known universe (including the parallel universes
if they exist as postulated by some interpretations of Quantum Phyiscs).
So by all practical criterion, scientifc truths are absolute, not relative.
Of course scientific truths can be approximate that can continually be
improved/revised/corrected, but certainly their truth is not relative
to a certain culture, certain geography, certain era in history, or
certain galaxy etc.
Going back to virtual relaity, yes it is possible to imagine that we are
already living in a simulated world of virutal reality. There may be one
layer of reality above ours. But that is irrelevant. Besides if we ever
did find out the layer of reality above us then the question will arise
if the layer above ours is itself also a simulation of yet another layer
of reality above that. This will lead to an infinite regress. This is
similar to the old question of If God created us then who created God etc.
So its a blind alley to go that route. Its better to accept the reality
we live in and take that as a starting point and deal with what we can
know using the laws of physics that we know applies so well in this reality.
Re your comment:
> questioning the truth! If the world that we touch and feel is not real,
> then what is? Descartes tried to asnwer that question by claiming 'I
> think therefore I am..' These r the few truths that we can be certain
> of.
Again, these are not new questions of metaphyiscs. What is real,and what
is not is an old problem of ontology and epistemology. Logical positivism,
realism, noumenalism, platonism etc are well discussed philosophical ideas
that address this question. Kant, Hume, Dewey, Mills, Kuhn, Popper etc
have beaten thse ideas to death and as I noted earlier there exists several
volumes of encyclopedia of philosophy spread over thousands of pages
solely dedicated to these questions. Much of all these have been rendered
obsolete in light of the remarakble scientific progress of the twentieth
century specially Quantum Physics. By todays' standard, Descartes,
Aristotle, etc are all child! But time is the redeeming factor for them.
they were thinkers of the prescientific era. While logical positivism
is mostly right, some element of uncertainty in the observation of the
truth is introduced by Quantum physics, although not undermining the
objectivity of Quantum principles itself. Without the external truth of
science all debates and arguments of classical philosophers on reality,
truth etc reduce to an exercize of words, trapped in the closure of the
language. No new insigt can arise by permutations and combinations of
words in a language! AT the bottom there has to be an external objective
criterion to be the final arbiter.
Re your comment:
> modernists. I am just saying that the journey for the truth is not
> over! I think that the post-modernists r saying the same thing - that
> the absolute truth is still out there!
Nobody is saying that the journey for truth is over. Certainly not the
the Modernists(scientists) who view the pursuit of truth as an
ongoing journey that may never end. Scientists are still trying hard
to find the holy grail called the Theory of Everything (TOE). They
believe in an objective reality that we can incrementally get closer
(through iterative improvement) to through scientifc approach.
Postmodernists don't believe in any objective reality or scientifc
appraoch. They are the intellectual anarchists. They believe
any truth is a just projectin of a certain cultural space. They view
everything as equal. To them astronomy = astrology. All new age
beliefs and practices to them are as logical as physics, chemistry,
biology etc. I would again urge those interested to read the three
books I listed earlier to see the postmodernists' view of truth in
more clearly. And to unserstand the nature of uncertainty in the
truth that we know I would recommend the the excellent book
"Doubt and certainty" by the two brilliant physicists Tony Rothman
and George Sudarshan. (See an online review at:
http://wwwrel.ph.utexas.edu/~tonyr/dc_contents.html)
Thanks again and best wishes,
cosmic thinker
Date: Thu Jan 18, 2001 3:28pm
Subject: Re: Mr. Munshi's challenge and some related issues
Mr. Munshi's response to Avijit and his challenge raises some interesting points worth
discussing/debating. First, some dissenting points. regarding the assertion that Western
"societies" needed religion to legitimate their authority. It is not the "society" that needed
the legitimacy, but the CLERGY or CHURCH that held the entire SOCIETY hostage for
centuries plunging Europe into the age of Darkness by controlling every aspects of life
with rigid religious doctrines and persecuting for holding free ideas and preventing growth
of knowledge and science. And regarding the assertion that morality is rooted in religion, that
has been refuted time and again. I have to repeat what I have said elsewhere as it is very
relevant. This is one of the greatest fallacies of religionists. By the way let me remind you
that over Billion people live in Buddhist scoieties and Buddhists don't believe in God,
prophets or revelations and life and these societies are no less (if not more) moral than many
societies rooted in religion like Bangladesh. A lot can be argued in favour of human roots of
morality refuting the claim that morality is rooted in religion. It will take too much space here,
I would refer the readers to a relevant article in NFB of November 14 (Does religion define
Morality?) at: http://www.bangladesh-web.com/news/nov/14/gv4n396.htm#A4
Second, regarding the comment :
"As human beings we have a propensity to be so arrogant and without humility that we
'faithfully' believe that all humanly conceived knowledge must be right and without
question",
my contention is, is there an "Unhumanly" conceived knowledge? Isn't ALL knowledge
humanly conceived (i.e conceived by humans)? Isn't the so-called "divine knowledge"
(Which is an ill-defined concept to begin with) also a knowldge BY HUMANS ? So what
makes one kind of human knowledge (science) subject to question and error and the other
human knowlegde (so called divine knowledge) immune to errors and beyond question? Are
"we" using two different standards here? Besides, divine "knowledge" cannot really be called
knowledge in the real sense of the term, because it is nothing but faith. One part of that faith
is believing in the existence of something(God, Life after Death) which is a universal instinct
not rooted in hearsay. The remaining aspects of divine "knowledge" (Like revelations, day of
judgement, heaven/hell, contents of the holy book etc) is solely based on faith in a "chain of
hearsay". This chain can be symbolized in the form below:
1. I believe in A.
2. A believes in B who says that he believes in C who says that he believes in D who says
that........Y who said that he believed in Z who said that God said that..)
(For this instance imagine there are billions of people between A and Z and 1400/2000)
years have passed between Z and A. ).
The entire edifice of revealed religion and divinity is based on these two steps. Of course a
"historical" knowledge of what ALL between "A and Z" said or did or what happened in
between A and Z that significantly affected later people in that chain can be called a divine
knowledge, but that is more appropriately called a historical knowledge. And one need not
be a believer of such a faith to possess that historical knowledge.Believing in something
cannot constitute a knowledge, unless the object of the belief is defined unambiguously and
then verified objectively resulting in a consensus that crosses all religious/cultural/ethnic
boundaries. Unlike religion, science is not based on faith. Science is a genuine knowledge
aquired through scientific method. I have described scientific method in my followup on
"Life, Death, immortality etc" in reply to Mr. Shahidul Alam in this forum.
Secondly the fact that scientific knowledge is iterative and self-correcticve is a tribute to its
humility in approach. It is not a dogma that clings to its veracity doggedly. Referring to the
updating and revisions of scientific ideas does not prove science's inferiority to faith/religion.
It was remarked that science can only provide materialistic comfort not spiritual. This is the
greatest fallacy about science that non-scientists/non-scientific-minded-people spread about
science. It is not SCIENCE that provides material comfort, but "TECHNOLOGY". Science
never did and never does mandate/require the emergence of technology. Technology was
not developed by scientists but ENGINEERS who were clever enough to figure out ways to
APPLY scientific principles to IMPROVE and make life more efficient. The most profound
and and spiritual of the scientific laws have not been applied for material gain, which is the
General Theory of Relativity. This law when combined with Quatum theory can explain the
birth and the end of the universe. How much more spirituality does one need? What about
the Supertsring Theory?, the complex and esoteric 26 dimensional geometry of space time
that would have struck Einstein in awe and wonder had he lived until today to witness its
evolution, being vigorously pursued by top Physicists around the world like Iranian born
Kamran Vafa of Harvard, Ashoke Sen from India, Juan Maldacena from Argentina , Edward
Witten of Princeton etc, that has the potential to explain EVERYTHING in the universe in
some unified set of principles ? Still not enough spirituality in science?
Science is the pursuit of the TRUTH about nature (Life+Universe). Late Physicist Heinz
Pagels called the laws of nature the "Cosmic code". Stephen Hawking calls cracking these
Cosmic Codes as "Reading the Mind of God". Science is the grandest avenue of channeling
human quest for spirituality. When Einstein gained the realization that space-time is curved
he found a great spiritual pleasure in it as it is nothing but decoding a secret of nature that is
so true, so profound that it shook the world. Whoever understands it (And many do, born in
ALL religious faiths) feel the same spiritual experience. The same can be said about
Quantum non-locality or the Anthropic Principle of Quantum Physics. Those who have read
it and understood it gets the highest form of spiritual upliftment. And it does not require faith
to gain these spiritual upliftment. All it requires is an objective approach using logic,
mathematics AND a spiritual desire to UNDERSTAND the secrets of nature. The last part is a
necessary prerequiste. Without that one can be a good mathematician/logician/scientist but
will lack in the SPIRITUAL JOY of discovering the truth of nature. Also equally important is
the fact that without the objective thinking in terms of logic and mathematics, spiritual desire
to understand nature and life will reach a stagnation and will result in vague metaphysics
(Quacks).
Of course pure "faith" can provide joy and a sense of fulfilment to an individual. But that is
totally private. That feeling can never be communicated to others, so that cannot be judged
one way or the other. Lets say someone claims he gets the greatest fulfilment by believing
that he has a godfather watching over him from planet-X of Star-Y and he communicates
with that Godfather regularly. And he does not need any proof for such belief. All it matters
to him is that he is convinced of that and it gives him great comfort. Now will I be considered
to have made a very profound statement if I say that science cannot prove his faith wrong?
Of course not. Will I be making a valid statement if I said that since science cannot prove his
faith wrong and science cannot provide him the same spiritual joy and comfort so his faith is
SUPERIOR to science? Of course not.
Now let me get to the challenge part. Sometimes if a question is asked in the wrong way a
meaningful answer cannot be given. Sometimes if a propositional statement is made which
does not have clear truth or false values it may not be possible to prove or disprove it either.
This interesting challenge also has some built in inconsistent assumptions and criteria that
are logically hard to reconcile with. This challenge will not fly in scientifc circles or any
academic circles. Let me summarize the end conclusion that is implicit here:
1. Science cannot "prove" that thought exists. (A controversial statement that can be
challenged by scientists, see the links mentioned later).
2. Thought does exist.
3. Science cannot prove that God exists.
4. Because thought can exist without its scientific proof (From 1 & 2 above), THEREFORE
God can also exist without scientifc proof. Q.E.D.
I will analyze the fallacies that exist above.
First of all the challenge to prove scientifically that thought exists with the criterion that has
been conveniently set already eliminates a scientific proof. The statement : "If you can prove
to me using scientific standards that humans have thoughts then I will concede what I have
said. You must show me what a thought looks, smells and tastes like. " Already shows that
inconsistency. Scientific standard doesn't require "looks, smells, tastes" etc for the existence
of something. The laws of Physics don't have looks, smells and tastes. But we know its
exists as it explains rainbow,nuclear bombs are made using these laws etc. A computer virus
doesn't have look, smell or taste. A poetry doesn't. One can go on and on.
The entire wording of the challenge has been designed in such a way that no proof will ever
satisfy. The challenge never states what "objective" conditions have to be satisfied to
constitute a proof. It lays every possible conditions as criteria for disproof. So any proof, if
ever proposed, can be conveniently dismissed under the blanket conditions of disproof.
The important fallacy in the challenge lies in EQUATING the issue of the existence of
thought with God. Unlike God, the existence of thought is not debated among humans. The
effect or characteristics of thought is also not debated by humans. Just like a "point" in
Geometry which cannot be defined but whose existence is agreed on by ALL as an axiom.
Also the concept of thought is not due to a result of FAITH but due its objective
characteristics. Now contrast it with God, the existence of which is debated by many. There
is no accepted concept or definition of God to begin with, let alone its existence. There are
many religions because of this difference.Many don't believe in God (Over a billion
Buddhists, and many atheists in ALL religions) etc. Many have an abstract concept of God
different from ALL religions, for example to Einstein Laws of Physics = God and many
scientists. So the step 4 in the above conclusion is a fallacy since thought and God are very
different entities. If we take Einstein's conceot of God(Which is well-defined), then not only
science cannot disprove God, science IS God and God IS Science. Also the way God is
defined in revealed religions, it is logically possible to prove such God cannot exist because
the attributes of God described in those religions are mutually inconsistent. There is another
article in NFB (http://www.bangladesh-web.com/news) of October 26, 2000 (Titled, "A
Critique of the Free Will Defense of Theism") that has the detailed analysis of such
inconsistencies of the attributes of God. But then to a believer such disproof does not matter
anyway. Such is the power of a belief that it can disable the capacity to recognize a logical
fallacy. And nothing wrong with that. A human can have good heart with or without an
inconsistent belief . It is only when an inconsistent belief is taken out of one's internal space
and encroaches on other's life then issue can be made justifiably. Or if a believer takes the
first step to claim his/her belief as RIGHT with arguments to those who don't belief then it is
justifiable and fair game for the non-believer to put forward counter arguments challenging
such claims. Historicaly thats what happened. It was a believer first who gratuitously started
to push his faith on others. Today we are seeing the middle of the cause->effect chain that
was initiated long ago by imposing believers, and so one can mistakenly pick a non-believer
today and portray him/her as targetting a believer and needlessly questioning their belief.
But it is nothing but a continuing legacy of the past that was started by a believer which
forced a non-believer to challenge back in response to unsolicited preaching (sometimes
coercively).
By the way, as a side remark let me state that scientists do have a better (though not
complete) understanding and explanation of consciousness (thought is the same as
consciousness, or a result of it) than laymen/non-scientists think. And consciousness is the
hottest area of scientific research today involving topnotch Physicists/Neurologists/Artificial
Intelligence Experts(Computer Science)/Philosophers etc and there are many institutes and
workshops dedicated to the study of consciousness research. To get an appreciation of this
search I suggest the following sites:
1. http://www.qedcorp.com/pcr/pcr/stapp1.html
2. http://www.culture.com.au/brain_proj/quantum.htm
3. http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/psyche-index-v2.html
4. http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu/problem.html
(Consciousness Study in at University of Arizona)
5. http://ling.ucsc.edu/~chalmers/mind.html
6. http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/9/3/498
Nobel Laureate Francis Crick (co-discoverer of the DNA), who commands more authority on
mind/brain/consciousness than anyone else, has said in his book: "The Astonishing
Hypothesis: The Scientific Search of the Soul" ,that it is in the complexity of the interactions
of billions of neurons, that we need to look for the mystery of consciousness. Consciousness
is a scientific phenomenon. The conventional approach of philosophers/mystics to "explain"
using just everyday words can hardly make any real progress in this quest for understanding.
Same can be said about love and any emotion. It does not make scientific sense to talk about
"explaining" an emotion. So it is a fallacy to discredit science for not being able to explain
love when the concept of an explanation is not even logically applicable there. The word
"explain" is misapplied in this context. Its just like discrediting math/mathematicians for not
being able to make 2+2 = 5 or like saying science cannot explain why my name is John Doe
etc. However it DOES make sense to talk about explaining the CAUSE of an emotion.
Science cannot explain the colour blue(It is not even a semantically correct statement), but it
can certainly explain WHY something appears blue, something red etc. The causes of love,
hatred, sexual urge and almost all human feelings, urges and impulses have been
meticulously studied through scientific method and the findings are all recorded in excellent
books, papers, monographs etc. Non-scientists/laymen hardly know about these because
they are enjoying the fruits of science (Through clever Engineers) without having to know or
understand science and of course due to a bias against science.
No Offense intended, just an attempt to clarify ideas.
Best regards,
Aparthib
link 2687 has been deleted
To: [email protected]
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 11:51:14 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: What is life?
--- In [email protected], "Khairul Anam" wrote:
>
>
> What is life?
>
> Can it be explained as mobility of power within the structure of human body
> ? Why not, the moment movement of a heart stops , one is considered dead,
[..]
Dear Khairul Anam,
[...] same as eshom
From me Wed Aug 2 17:14:19 2000
To: [email protected]
Subject: Logic,Science, Emotions,Values etc
Greetings To all Shetubondhon Readers,
I would like to think out loudabout some things that I always
have thought within myself. I am not good at poetic and metaphoric
style of writings. Sometimes by embellishing a piece of writing with
poetic styles armed with metaphors and literary skill an idea can
be successfully made to sound profound and convincing while the
counterview may sound boring, trivial and unconvincing if stated
in a prosaic, plain and simple but direct way. Never underestimate
the power of "HOW" vs. "WHAT". By ingenious approach to "HOW" a
trivial "WHAT" may become the most sublime and evoke nodding amens
from the audience like in a litany. I am in the danger of my views
(The "WHAT" part) being ignored or discounted for that very
reason of being unable to embellish it with poetic metaphors with
literary skill (The "HOW" part). My advance apology to the readers
for not being able to provide them with any literary humour
on the side, which they can supplement through the poetic writings
of others.
Am I rambling? I hope I am not as that is not my intent. So let me
get to my point.
I always wondered why is it that a mistaken idea persists in people
that those who insist on thinking logical/rational/scientific
(abbreviated LRS, in alphabetical order, not in order of importance)
cannot be passionate/appreciative of beauty/humour and display human
emotions like love, passion, fantasy, fear, frustrations and illogical
beliefs etc. This is a myth. A BIG myth. Does one exception break a
rule? What about more than one exceptions? Not only can they show all
these human emotional traits but even have a belief in something not
provable by science (Probably never occurred to you. An eye opener?
Wait for some examples later)
First let me tackle the issue of LRS vs. beauty/passion/mystery etc
By passing comments like "LRSs kill the beauty by trying to explain or
undertsand beauty" non logical/rational/scientific minds (abbreviated NLRS)
are making a subjective judgement. Kills the beauty? What does it mean?
Does it mean it kills the capacity of the LRSs to appreciate art/beauty?
Who judges that? The NLRSs? How can a NLRS judge the pure subjective
qualia of artistsic sense in the minds of an LRS? Do the NLRS also think
that LRSs feel less of the qualia of love and other human emotions? Isn't
that a condescending and patronizing attitude of the NLRSs toward the LRS?,
a variation of the "holier than thou" attitude? For all we know many
scientists have a sharper sense of beauty, and they feel that their
appreciation of beauty is enhanced by knowing the object/phenomenon of
beauty at a deeper level. Just as trying to understand the working of
the brain does not rob the neurologists of their own brain or stops it
from functioning, the act of trying to understand the deeper meaning of
love and beauty does not rob the LRS of their inherent sense of beauty
and ability to appreciate it. Theses are genetically programmed in humans
in various degrees and are not affected by any other propensities to
understand, explain things at a deeper level. In other words if sense of
beauty/compassion/love etc are determined by one genetic factor (say gene-1)
and the propensity to understand and search for deeper answer through LRS
way is determined by a second genetic factor (say gene-2) then gene-1
and gene-2 are mutually independent, not affecting each other.
NLRS often pass comments like "Love, kindness, human emotions" are not
rationalizable. Its beyond LRS. What are they really trying to say?
Do the NLRSs truly comprehend what are the LRSs really trying anyway.
Scientists do try to find a layer of reality below each human phenomenon
including that of love (for beauty, for people etc) which are supervenient
on those lower phenomenon and appear as a epiphenomenon. But does that
really imply rationlizing the subjective feeling (qualia) of love itself
that we all human (including LRS) feel? Does it even make any sense to say
that? Then why make such comments? I will get to it later. Now what possibly
can make it impossible for an LRS not to be moved by the beauty of a flower,
a woman (for a male LRS) or a man (for a female LRS)? I tend to believe
that I am an LRS. But why is it that I am attracted to surrealistic art,
why am I touched by hauntingly beautiful music, poetry etc? These are not
explainable/demanded by LRS. Then of course it is subjective which music/poetry
appears to reflect beauty to whom. But who is to judge which one has and
which one doesn't. But they all appeal to our inner senses the same way as
any other. An LRS is not an alien and has the same genetic structure and
capability to appreciate and enjoy beauty as a non LRS human, or more. LRS's
also are parents, husbands, wives, don't they? How can they be bereft of
love/passion if they can have children? It requires passion to be a father
or mother assuming a loving relationship. And loving relationship is ceratinly
common among LRS's as much as non-LRS's. And make no mistake, an LRS can be
female as well !
Einstein saw beauty in the laws of nature. Beauty is symmetry. And it is by
believing in the beauty of nature that Eisnstein, Dirac and numerous
other physicists came to the most insightful realizations of the secrets
of nature. Behind their profound discoveries lie the motivation from a
sheer metaphysical sense of beauty and mystery of the universe. he was
also moved by music. he used to play violin. Nobel laureate Feynamn was
an accomplished Bongo player. One can go on and on.
The Nobel laureate Physicist Chandrasekhar who wrote a 650 page mathematical
tome "The Mathematical Theory of Black Holes" also wrote a book called
"Truth and Beauty" in which he emphasized the role of sense of beauty behind
the motivation of scientific thinking. To him, art, seen from this scientist's
point of view, seems to be all the richer for it, contrary to popular belief
that rationality strips Art of its elemental passion. He drew the parallel
between the works of Shakespeare, Beethoven, Shelley etc with the beauty
inspired approach of scientists for the search of the truth.
A very fascinating marriage of beauty and mathematics can be seen in the works
of mathematician/artist Escher (www.geocities.com/SoHo/Museum/3828/air.html)
The renowned British astronomer and prolific author John Barrow also has shown
how beauty and truths of natural laws are closely related (not antagonistic)
in Part 6 Titled "Aesthetics" in chapters 23 & 24 of his fascinating book:
"Between Inner Space and Outer Space" (www.oup-usa.org/docs/0198502540.html)
Does LRS ruin the sense of mystery by trying to understand/explain the mystery?
Again like beauty its subjective. LRSs feel that the myustery even deepens and
becomes more interesting as they understand more. Also LSRs admit that there
exists an ultimate mystery that is unexplainable. For example one can start
asking why to each phenomenon (As Nobel laureate Weinberg does in his famous
"Dreams of a Final Theory"), say start with phenoenon "D".
LRS:
D. Why D? because C. Why C? Because B. Why B? becasue A. Why A? "I don't know"!
I wish I knew. My aim is to search for the answer.
NLRS:
Why D? Because its the work of "GOD"
Why C? Because its the work of "GOD"
Why B? Because its the work of "GOD"
Why A? Because its the work of "GOD" Now stop asking for obvious answer!
Now stare at the two. Who was showing more humility? One who proclaims
ignorance at some deeper level or one who claims to KNOW that some divine being
does everything because "he" choses it to be so, whether it is A,B, C, D.
Also ask who is ruining the mystery and who is keeping it alive?
For example for LRSs "A" now = the Standard model of particle Phyiscs, or
potentially in future, the M-Theory version of Superstrings. In other words:
Standard Model->All of Physics->All of Chemistry->All of Biology->Life->Economics..
Of course the details in some arrows are lost in the laws of emergent phenomenon
like complexity, chaos that are almost impossible to know but are in principle
traceable to the Standard model or can be added as a supplementary rules along
with it.
Believe it or not, being LRS is ultimately of a pragmatic value, intellectual
aside, and has nothing to do with purely "natural" human emotions like love,
passion, aesthetics, imaginations, daydreaming, fear etc. If a logical person
'A' points out the logical inconsistency between statement 1 and statement 2
of 'B' what is their to prevent A from appreciating a piece of artwork, or to
hug someone or hold someone's hand and look into their eyes? My favourite
pastime is daydreaming. Is that a taboo for an LRS? Sorry I can't help it!
next take the case of love/(com)passion. Just because one is an LRS
does that immdeiately dehumanizes him/her and strips them of the lofty
qualities of parental love, spousal love, passion in love, and compassion
and it becomes the sole monopoly of the NLRS? I am sure there are some
reader who like me believe in thinking LRS. Do you think you are less
humane than your NLRS counterparts?. You can't weep when your mother dies?,
you can't love your daughter and set aside your priorities for a day to
give some precious time to her? Does your heart feel with joy when you see
a baby smile at you? No, you can't because you have been brainwashed by
the LRS way of thinking to forgo all your finer humane instincts. Sure
because now that you follow the valid argument forms of Modus Ponens,
Modus Tollens, Hypothetical Syllogism or Disjunctive Syllogism you are
barred from feeling the pangs of bereavement of your departed mother, or
never to wish to get married and be a father or a mother, or to make any
exceptions to any rule out of any compassion for someone. Now that you
believe in the indisputable evidence of the theory of evolution, you can't
be a loving father. If you are not egotistic enough to believe that humans
are so special that they were created in a special way in one swoop, and
not you cannot qualify as a human. You can be humble and look at humans
as just another animal evolved out from the a common ancestors, along with
all other animals on earth through the long and slow process of evolution
from lower life forms to complex ones then you lose the right to claim
possession of the loftier human qualities like love, compassion, family
values which will be reserved solely for the NLRS becasue they were
egoistic enough to believe in the creationist myth that humans were
created specially in a preferential divine way by a divine being in
its own image at a special moment of time.
Can an LRS who doesn't believe in life after death (not all LRS have have
to disbelieve in Life after death as I pointed out above) not have any
feeling for their parents/children? After all they will all be gone all
sooner or later and become inert matter? NLRSs want all to believe that they
cannot or don't. The most loving father, spouse are some of the avowed
reductionist scientists not believing in resurrection, God etc. Again like
gene-1, gene-2, love for a child, parent is a human genetic instinct
(say gene-3) which cannot be wiped out by gene-2.
Does knowledge of human genes and completion of human genome project
rob the LRSs of human values? One should have listened to the speech
of Dr. Venter, the CEO of the Lab that completeed the project. He made
the touching remarks that the lesson of human genome project is that all
humans are alike. It is hard to tell which genome belongs to which race
just looking at the DNA sequence. It creates a sense of universal
brotherhood. Now is that sense less humane than the clannish love for
members of one own's religious/racial affiliations?Now who will decide
clone his/her body for a duplicate? LSR? No logic there. It might as
well be an NLRS (not all NLRS are dogmatic believers of religion). The
desire to duplicate oneself through DNA cloing is not decided by
Logic/Science. Personal desire and whims like these are not governed
by logic as much as whether one falls in love with A or B is not
OK one down (beauty/passion etc that is :). Next let me tackle the case of
beliefs:
It is also a mistaken conclusion that a scientific/skeptical mind cannot have
any belief. Even a belief in a GOD (not a personal God of revealed religion,
but as an abstract concept or belief in immortality through an unexplainable
power) is not inconsistent with a skeptical and rational thinking, because
the latter is supposed to be a guide in an objective evaluation of subjective
"claims" and for seeking the truth by consensus. But a personal belief in
something plausible which does not CONTRADICT/VIOLATE NATURAL LAWS (This is
the all important qualifier which the non-LRS forget when they criticize LRS)
is NOT inconsistent with LRS thinking as above. A fine example of a skeptic/
rational philosopher who believes in such a GOD and immortality but otherwise
doesn't believe in any exisitng religion/faith is the emminent Philsopher of
this century Martin Gardner. (See his book "The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener).
Martin Gardner is a rigid skeptic and logician/mathematician who has been a
regular critic of pseudoscience and new age mystics debunking myths through
the columns of The Skeptical Inquirer magazine of the "Committee for the
Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal" (CSICOP)
(http://www.csicop.org) but also believes in Immortality and his own concept
of GOD. Why? He plainly admits that because he wants to believe in immortality
(and hence GOD, as the former necessiates the latter) and since logic/science
is not violated by this belief he can happily believe in it! Another Physicist
Frank Tipler not only believes in GOD which he calls Omega Point, but also goes
a step further to prove that such a GOD is an end result of the evolution of
life and universe and will become an omniscient/omnipotent entity that purely
arises out of a consequence of the natural laws (both already discovered ones
and potentially unknown ones working in the background. Even the known part are
sufficient to make Omega Point plausible.). Although some premises have to be
true (which are not known at this time if they are) for Omega Point to become
a reality Tipler chooses to "believe" that the premises are true because it
doesn't violate any known scientific laws to believe in those premises. This
is a clear example of believing in God, resurrection, immortality etc while
still adhereing to the strict principles of Physics/LRS. Intrigued by Tipler's
ideas? See more at http://niazi.com/resurrec.htm or
http://www.doesgodexist.org/JanFeb96/PhysicsOfImmorality.html
Tipler is a Global general relativist, a formidably mathematical field and his
work comparable to that of Hawking. He can be taken as a prototype of an LRS.
In fact while it is true that most scientists don't subscribe to the traditional
beliefs in personal GOD and the revelations of a book as the word of the GOD,
they are in fact deists. Eisnstein believed in a Cosmic Consciousness which
he identified as his God (Called Spinozza's God). I already mentioned Omega Point.
Its just that they don't believe in the usual personal concept of God as a father
figure somewhere up in the heavens monitoring the day to day activities of each
mortal, talks to them through the revelations of a book written in a certain
language, who demands daily worship by the mortals and gets angry if they don't,
and prepare a ledger for final rewards and punishment for not following the
revelations. The term atheist is misapplied to scientistss. Since scientists admit
that the very source or origin of natural principles are not explainable by the
natural laws themselves there will remain an unltimate mystery of the unknown.
Scientists don't label that unknown with any term (although some do use the word
GOD metaphorically like Hawking, Einstein etc), our ancestors came up with the
easily graspable concepts of religion to give that unknown a closure although
to those ancestors even some of the natural consequences of the known natural
laws today were unknown and were explained by God, the "one word explains all"
concept.
It is also an unfair criticism to say that an LRS shows disrespect (like loudly
laughing) for acts of non-LRSs. They don't. No scientist/rationalist ever laughs
at the acts or prevent/denies to help in carrying out of any acts of non-LRS like
ritual praying etc. Although in their mind they can consider those acts irrational
by the criterion of LOGIC/RATIONALITY. But even ritual praying is speculated by
LRS as having a placebo effect and thus beneficial. So LRS sometimes are envious
of non-LRS as the latter do benefit from the blind belief in ritual praying which
the LRSs are deprived of by their skeptical and logical thinking. Here is a case
where belief in falsehood may be more benficial to health than a belief in the
truth! Oh, if only beliefs could be switched on and off like a button!
Did my my affirmations of LRSs possessing human emotions like love, passion,
belief etc draw a loud laugh from the LRS? Would that be fair since an LRS
does not and should not "laugh" at a NLRS for their illogical acts. But then
LRS are not bound by logic (After all fairness is mandated by logic, optionally
by emotion)
Finally some speculations. If I at all succeeded in exploding the myths about
an LRS not possessing human emotions or traits then the question arises why
insist on this myth. Why is it brought up again and again by NLRSs in
discussions and writings? Is it that there is an instinctive fear of logic,
rationality, science due to their potentials in leading us to unpleasant
truths that one wishes not to face or admit? A truth which may shatter the
desires that we all cherish deep inside? If so then how to counter this
dreaded consequeces of LRS way of thinking? One way would be to dehumanize the
LRS and rob them of these lofty human qualities by portraying them as cold
hearted, devoid of all softer qualities of love, compassion, filial piety etc,
after all these are valued by ALL of humanity, so by cleverly manipulating the
common sentiments againsts LRSs by stripping them of these lofty traits
and claiming sole monopoly on them the NLRSs can successfully marginalize
the LRSs. And this marginalization will also help to obfuscate the unpleasant
consequences that the LRS ideas and methods can potentially lead to, at least
thats the hope of the NLRS. Just a speculation. (Yes NRS allows that!)
I hope all of it made sense. If it didn't, then I have failed. I could be clever
and instead say that I hope none of it made sense, if it did then I have failed.
In that way I would have had it bothways. But I will be more direct and leave it
as it is, besides I might be accused of plagiarism! And I would also not be so
egotistic to have my last word and preclude others from responding to my posts by
declaring beforehand that I intend to make no sense (while I actually do in my
mind :). So I will declare that I did intend to make sense so all are welcome
to point out any lack of it.
If I did ramble which I didn't intend to, then again I am asking for apology from
the forgiving Shetubondhon readers.
Regards,
cosmic thinker
From me Tue Aug 8 15:42:50 2000
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Destination: Sense, nonsense logic and beauty
This is in reference to Hazra Awal's article on this thread
She wrote:
>
>Recently someone pointed out to me that nobody has
>ever seen 'God' or 'Bhagoban' yet most of us believe
>in it. Trust therefore is 'Bhagoban'. That 'trust'
>against all SLR is difficult to explain yet is very
>'real' to many.
1. A believer may challenge your assertion that they have
never seen God, specially those who have had near death
experiences (NDE). They may as well (as many I know) say
they have seen it (through signs). To them seeing = believing.
2. The assertion "Trust is not explainable by SLR (science/Logic/Reason)"
is debatable too. The subjective perception of how it feels like to
believe or trust (ie. the qualia) is of course the sole possession of
the believer and no that cannot be perceived or explained by SLR, true.
But then thats because the word "explain" doesn't not apply to
subjective feelings, but to ACTS (like believing etc). So it is not
so profound or even meanigful to say that LSR cannot explain the
feeling of belief. But the ACT of trust is certainly explainable.
How is the act of trusting/believing in God explainable? May sound
intriguing to many who are not used to skeptical way of thinking.
Recently a philosopher of scientist Mathew Alper has written a book
based on his research and come up with a very convincing explanation
as to the roots of religious belief. The book is titled:
"The God Part of the Brain"
This explanation of religious faith is not new. The new thing
is that Alper has made the most convincing and irrefutable case
so far of this view which is based on the results of the latest
research on neurology and sociobilogy coupled with darwininan
metaphysics. It has got rave reviews from sociobilogista and
philosophers. Readers are finding it hard to refute it. One
reader got too carried away in his review (under Barnes and
Nobles website) and wrote (quote):
"The Birth of a New Science: Neuroreligion All 6 billion plus
inhabitants of Earth should be in possession of this book.
Matthew Alper's tome should be placed next to the sacred writings
section in the libraries, bookstores and dwellings throughout
the world. Matthew Alper is the new Galileo. (Watch your back
Matthew!).."
Matthew Alper proposes that beliefs in God, the afterlife,
mind-over-matter and superstitions have a physiological origin
and may be encoded into human DNA, evolved as a defense mechanism
to help people cope with the anxiety that comes from being aware
of our own mortality. For an online glimpse of the premise of
his work see http://www.godpart.com/premise.html
There are other similar books and artcles on this as well.
Even as early as 1899 an American philosopher John Fiske
suggested a Darwinian root of religious beliefs in his book
"Through nature to GOD". Anthropolgist Lionel Tiger says
"Religion probably has a genetic basis. To guard against the
paralysis of deep depression. When facing the inevitabilty of
death, natural selection responded to this problem by wiring
into our brain a moderate propensity to embrace sunny scenarios
even when they are not supported by the facts". Another
anthropologis Pascal Boyer makes a similar point in his book:
"The Naturalnes of Religious Ideas. For an excellent on line
artcle on the Biological roots of religious belief check the
site http://www.SecularHumanism.org/library/fi/hunt_19_3.html
>However I would like to end this by quoting the
>original writer Dr. Farooq i.e "Have you ever seen
>someone breaking into laughter while reading an
>advanced mathematics or science books?"- I have not.
1. Have you ever seen any one breaking into laughter reciting the
Koramn Bible, Gita..?
2. Have you ever seen any one breaking into laughter listening to
Tagore Songs, or Bhatiali songs, or Ghazal or..?
3. Have you ever seen any one breaking into laughter reading
advanced Economics Book? Advanced literary criticism of Tagore,
Keats, Shelley..?
4. Have you... naa I will stop. Readers can fill it in :)
Regards,
cosmic thinker
From me Fri Aug 18 16:47:40 2000
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Destination: Sense or Non-sense
Greetings to All,
Dr. Farooq seemed to have put words in the mouth of the scientists
when he said that scientists' answer to "Why A?" is "There is no God"
This doesn't even make a syntactic sense to be an answer to a question.
No scientist ever claimed to have arrived "ther is no God" rationally.
One has to appreciate that atheism is not an "ism" or a belief. Atheism
is simply A-theism. A- is negating the "ism" in "theism". Theism came
first. Not atheism. One does not have to be a scientist to be
atheist. Most Artists and painters are atheists. A historian,
economist, sciologists, journalists can be atheist too. So what was
the point about linking only science with atheism or what was being
achieved by making such points I have no idea. Salam's name was
mentioned. Here's a case when a true scientist is not an atheist.
But he was not a dogmatist either. One should read the article "Salam,
Science and Secularism" by Pervez Hoodbhoy:
(http://www.chowk.com/bin/showa.cgi?hoodbhoy_jan0598)
Here's a quote from there:
"Two years later Salam wrote the introduction to my book "Islam and
Science - Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality". In
his essay he makes perfectly explicit that the validity of a
scientific truth can be adjudicated only according to criteria
internal to science and not by appeal to religious, metaphysical,
or aesthetic considerations."
By the way, as a side I recommend reading also:
(http://www.chowk.com/bin/showa.cgi?hoodbhoy_dec2397)
I used "blind faith" as a descriptive (no normative value was attached)
term. It may sound pejorative. May be I should use absolute faith.
It means a faith that is not arrived at by a rationalization based
on the established rules of logic (well tested premise, valid
rules of inference etc). A faith could be true or wrong. The truth
or falsity of an absolute faith is however not always meaningful
because even the object/premise of a faith can baffle a precise
formulation making it impossible to judge its logical validity. It
is a personal truth, so to speak, completely private, beyond any
rational discourse. No one articulates this contrast between faith
and reason better than Philosopher Richard Taylor in the anthology
"Exploring Philosophy". One is highly recommended to read it.
It was never implied implicitly or explicitly that people who
have faith do not possess the capability of being logical and
rational. I have said it before that even the strict logician
philosopher Martin Gardner believes in a deity and life
after death. It is only that believing literally in the
details of any specific religious doctrine is inconsistent
with logic/rationality. Even then it never was implied that
such literal believers are incapable of logical or rational
thinking. Its just that they chose not to when it comes to
such literal belief. Or even when they do use logic it is
used in violation of the established rules of logic. This
is not new. This debate has gone on for centuries and the
absolutists had to finally resort to the logical fallacies
(http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/) of either (1)
Appeal to Belief or (2) Appeal to Authority for a saving grace.
So it will never be resolved. But there is no compulsion or
a need to agree. So we have to live with that difference and
move on with life. I don't see why one should take it so
personally. There's nothing wrong in having differences or
voicing differences and engaging in a debate. As long as one
does not force one's belief and practices on others it should
be a non-issue.
Ghandhi also made praising comments on some of the sayings of
prophet Muhammed in the Suhrawardi'e book on the sayings of
Muhammed. Does it make a Ghandhi an absolute follower of Islam
and all its revelations? Great scholars and leaders do time to
time quote from scriptures from their own religion or others on
things that are universal and inspiring and dear to them. That
alone is not a criterion to judge their belief in all the
doctrines/dogma of their religion. We cannot and should not
pretend to go into the mind of Prof. Salam to pass a judgement
on what his level on religious belief WAS. We can certainly affirm
what it WAS NOT. And he was a not dogmatist emphasizing absolute
belief in ALL the revelations themselves. He never did. There are
inspiring verses and sayings in the scriptures of all religions
providing convenient metaphors to reinforce certain views.
Once again. Rationality/Logic does not REQUIRE "not believing" or
"having a faith". By framing the question cleverly one can succeed
in putting people in two camps, theist and atheist. Thats what
happens in all surveys on the beliefs of scientists. They are
asked if they believe in their religions or in the traditional
concept of GOD. Of course most of them do answer "no". But if
they were asked if they have any instinctive spiritual feeling
of any sort the answer could have been different. Many scientists
(Fred Hoyle and Chandra Vikramsinge being their protagonists)
believe in the so called Anthropic Principle
(http://www.winternet.com/~gmcdavid/html_dir/anthropic.html) which
is as close a scientist can get to GOD as possible staying
within the discourse of scientific rationality. Notice that no
explicit mention of God is there in its discussion. God has to be
read in it by pure metaphysical extrapolation which is certainlly
valid to anyone rational. Indeed the Anthropic Principle which is
stated as a one liner in popular books like Hawking's Brief History
of Time) is really very complex and detailed. A 700 page book called
"The Anthropic Cosmological Principle"
(http://matu1.math.auckland.ac.nz/~king/Preprints/book/quantcos/anth/anth.htm)
has been devoted to it by Tipler and Barrow whose names have been
mentioned in my earlier posts. If the summary review in the preceding
link looks abstruse then one should wonder how much insight the 726
page original book may provide. Its my personal biased view that by
understanding this 726 page book one can get the most spiritual
feeling. But in no way this instinctive feeling of God from anthropic
principle need to be passionately preached as an absolute. The facts
of Anthropic princple are objective (expressed in Physics language).
The conclusion derived thereof is just a subjective/instinctual one.
One should be aware that instinctive feelings need not be correct or
even precisely defined.
One has to distinguish beliefs rooted in instincts and beliefs
generated by absolute(previously labelled blind) faith (ultimately
in humans). First of all this instinct of God and immortality is universal.
It exists throughout humanity in general. So believing in an instinct
although not dictated by logic is also not contrary to logic either,
because instincts are not bound by logical rules. Believeing in the
revelations of religious scriptures are not, on the other hand
purely instinctive. These are narratives that one inherits from
the socio-religious roots/surroundings that they are brought up in.
They never believe in it from first hand expereinces nor by the first
hand associations with the prophets. It makes MORE sense (Not necessarily
total sense) to believe in a universal instinct that believing in
the narratives of revelations of that religion as read in a book
and heard from the mouth of contemporary fellow humans. Most of
the religious scientists including Einstein and Salam fall into
this category who have this instinctive belief in God. As I said
there's nothing in Salam's writing or speeches that ever indicate
any absolute belief in all the details of scriptures and revelations.
He never prefaced every sentence he uttered with quotes from scriptures
He was a spiritual man with the passion for the hard science based on
the rigorous rules of natural science. He never believed that
religion can explain science or that science has to be rooted in
relgion as so many orthodox apologists constantly emphasize. Salam
should be an inspiration for all the Muslim nations. But he was not.
He has been neglected in his own country. None of the Muslim country
ever gave the due recognition where the Westren nation bestowed him
the much deserved Nobel Prize. That speaks a lot about the price one
has to pay for not being a dogmatic religionist. He championed secular
ideas and beliefs instead of religious dogma. A person is often
judged by what and how he speaks. One just need to read the entire
artcle by Salam (http://www.chowk.com/bin/showa.cgi?salam_jan0598)
and contrast it with the religious apologetics and see the difference
between them. He is very sparing in his quotes from the holy book and
only does so to add a metapphoric inspiration to his ultimate passion
for the pursuit of scientifc knowledge, not to preach us to follow
and believe in the revelations themselves or to try to relate the
verses with the scientific truths themselves. In fact he was even
opposed to it. For example when apologetics tried to explain Big Bang
with Koran, he said "Big Bang" is the best known scientific explanation
for the creation of then universe today. What if a better scintific
explanation than Big bang is found tomorrow? Should the verses be
changed too to accomodate the new scientific view?
All the religious books, Koran, Gita, Bible allows enough
latitude to anyone to pick and choose verses to provide
reinforcements and inspirations for a pursuit that one feels
passionately for. Salam did that by emphasizing the quotes of
the "unseen" "unknowable" part to emphasize the mystery of the
universe that one can unravel and get closer and closer to
the ultimate mystery by the pursuit of scientific knowledge.
(http://www.chowk.com/bin/showa.cgi?salam_jan0598).
All scientists at the bottom of their heart appreciate more so
deeply about the unknown than anyone else. After all, one can
only appreciate the unknown best by knowing all that can be known
first. The mystery of the universe is best appreciated in the
secret code of nature that has been cracked by science so far and
is constantly being cracked as an ongoing process.
I conclude with the wish that Bangladesh may give birth to
scientists like Salam.
Thank You,
cosmic thinker
Date: Sat, 26 May 2001 09:55:46 +0600
Subject: [Shetubondhon] To Judge or no to
Well, we do judge. To judge is human, as is to err. Without
judgment life will come to a halt. We judge when we nominate the
best artist, best poet, best singer, best actress etc. We judge
whenwe choose our spouse. We judge when we say movie "A" was great
whereas movie "B" was awful. If we do judge in practice, then it
is pure puritanism to criticize a judgment made verbally as in the
post being referred to in the bottom.
Judgement is all pervasive. Even the true yet trite statement like
"What you in your dreams regard as stupid: might just seem very
intelligent to others" cannot stop anyone from judging, not even
one who makes the trite statement. To stop to be judgmental means
to stop all contests and competitions of subjective talents like
poetry writing/reciting, singing, acting, Quirat etc etc. Life
will be boring for orthodox and liberated alike. If one is as
good as another then whats the point of contests? So its clear that
judgment is inevitable and most often harmless, and instead is an
essential factor in keeping life interesting. So when is it that
judgment is ill advised? It is when the act of judgement deprives
one of a basic human right (NOT priviledge). It is important to
distinguish right and priviledge again. Being nominated for the best
poet/actor/singer is a priviledge, not a basic human right. To
select a spouse from a set of suitors is the priviledge for the
selectee, not a right etc. so when an artist is not allowed to
perform on TV because its work is judged to be inferior it is also
a judgment denying a priviledge, as that artist is free to perform
in public. If he is prevented from public performance in public then
it is a breach of fundamental rights. To summarize, judgments will be
there, human society is essentially a consumer supplier system.
Consumers will judge what is best for them and has the right to
buy/reject the wares of the vendor. A TV station is a consumer
and may choose not to air products of a certain vendor, being
familiar with the product from its public exposure. Times may
change and sway the consumer in favour of the vendor(artist)
later, by a judgement shift (spontaneous, not forced)
In the final analysis, judgment is like all evolutionary traits.
It is a trial and error evolution of a private human instinct,
collectively which shows up as the taste of the society as a whole
which is stable, but changeable, reflectiong the time and space
it represtents (Zeit Geist). It is as much ridiculous to force
staticity as some artistic puritans insist as to force dynamism
as some radical artists insist. It is as much (un)/acceptable for
Tagor fans to decry band rock music as it is for a rock band
artist to decry Tagore songs. Both are free to perform and show
there wares to the public in general. As to who gets a spot in
certain priviledegd media should is upto the media. Media as a
consumer has its right to buy or not to.
Regards to All,
Date: Sat Jul 21, 2001 12:06 am
Subject: Re: [Shetubondhon] History and alternatives
At 7/19/01 10:27 PM Piash Karim wrote:
"[...]"
Here I wish to add some clarifications and some corrections.
Re: "Look, there is no OBJECTIVE understanding of reality"
This can be questioned and debated. If there wasn't there would be no
term called "OBJECTIVE" in the dictionary.
1. If by "OBJECTIVE" one means "ABSOLUTELY TRUE" with no exception/
revision then agreed it doesn't exist, but that is not what is meant as objective.
2. If by "OBJECTIVE" one means an approach that is not based on one's religious/
ethnic/cultural/personal affiliations but based on criterion that is universal and is
testable (verifiable/falsifiable) and amenable to revision then it certainly exists.
And it is called the scientific method. This method has led to truth that has been
tested and is verified. It has also led to falsification of many claims of truth. The
set of falsified claims of truth is not within the accepted paradigms of science. So
quoting instances of false (or revised scientific principles) cannot be justified to
dismiss "scientific method" itself, as "scientific method" is self- correcting. If
followed faithfully anyone will be forced to accept the bitter pill of truth. Einstein
had to bite the dust (willingly,since he adhered to the "scientific method") when
his postulate of a steady universe theory was falsified by the scientific method
itself through Hubble's observation of the expansion of the universe. Then he
revised his equations (not because of bias, but due to being forced by "objective"
observations).
3. The existence and generation of Nuclear Explosion is an excellent example of
science's objectivity. We cannot say the existence of Nuclear detonation is
not due to an objective understanding of reality. You cannot make it disappear
by any counter claims of truth or any subjectivity argument. like "There is no
OBJECTIVE understanding of reality". Nuclear detonation was/is not produced
by trial and error or by accident. It is due to a methodical understanding of
REALITY (Laws of Physics) through extremely complex scientific and
mathematical reasoning, a fundamental one of them is Einstein's theory of
relativity. (It requires highly trained scientists to develop it independently
and thats why few countries have that technology). This example is for layment
as they can relate to it, but for scientists they see vindication of the objectivity
(Of Einstein's relativity for example) in a routine manner in the lab.
4. The proof of the puddin' is in the eatin'. It is the predictive power of scientific
principles (Read understanding of reality) that legimizes a claim of objectivity
All the predictions of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity were vindicated.
5. Even if one insists that All approaches to truth are inherently biased (Which is
stretching it too far), not all approaches are "EQUALLY" biased or unreliable.
W don't see any department of "astrology" in ANY university worth its name.
But we do see department of "astronomy". Nobody I hope needs any clue to
figure out the obvious reason for that.
6. Re: "reality or a reliable account of it depend on a complex set of discursive
assumptions that we operate on"
does "complex set of discursive assumption" make it any less reliable . So it
is not a meaningful statement . Again the the point is if the assumptions itself are
"universal", and leads to verified claims of truth, then it is objective by that very
fact. Dianetics, astrology, etc do not have such :complex set of discursive
assumptions" that are universal and led to any verifiable claims of truth. Only
scientific method is.
7. Re: "Any truth statement is falsifiable from the perspective of another truth statement."
Not true unless one resorts to sophistry. Here we have to refer to not any personal
logic, but the logic that has emerged over the years and is taught universllay in all
universities and part of the arts & science curriculum (In philosophy, mathematics
and computer science classes)
It is also not true in science. A scientifically VERIFIED truth statement is
not falsifiable by any OTHER scientifically verified statement of truth.
8. Re: "Unfortunately this is something that orthodox Marxists, religionists, or crude
realists don't recognize."
Marxists and religionists are real entities. They are believers of Marxism and
Religion (Both are real ). What is a "crude realist"? I don't know of any dogma
called "crude realism". Any real example?(Today?). Let us not quote discredited
schools of thought from past. Lets stick to the current paradigms. There is only
science, Religion, Marxism (Lets ignore hundreds of smaller cults, beliefs etc).
Are you by any chance insiniuating that "scientists" are crude realists? If, so it
is grossly misstated (that they don't "recognize"), as I have illustrated above in a
quite obvious way. Its rather the postmodernists who don't recognize the fact
about the flaw in assigning equal subjectivity to all approach in a blanket way.
So to rephrase : 1. It is not that "The myth of objective knowledge needs to be
debunked."
but that "The myth that all knowledge is(equally) subjective which needs
to be debunked" 2. It is not that "Any knowledge is ultimately biased and
fragmented" but that "any knowledge not based on scientific method" is
ultimately biased. Unless you agree that your calling something a "bias"
itself is biased. After all , "biased" as a concept also requires the existence
of "unbiased", just as the notion of subjective also requires the existence
of "objective" or vice versa. Now who is "unbiased" ? (the best candidate,
I mean. One has to have the magnanimity to face the "truth").
Conclusion: Inherent bias/subjectivity may apply to all pursuits of knowledge
except scientific method, where the subjectivity has a very trivial connotation and
does not share any of the attributes of subjectivity that the non-scientific pursuits
necessarily have.
Despite my lengthy post making a case for scientific objectivity I do agree with lot
of other points made by Mr. Karim . Thanks to all.
From aparthib Sat Sep 20 14:51:00 2000
Subject: [bdesh] Life, Death, Immortality etc
Mahbubul Karim's philosophical musings on life (article 547: Thoughts on
religion and related subjects) prompted me to engage in my own musings,
although from a different angle.
[..] same as eshomabesh article 2651. See that article.
Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2001 170245 +0600
Subject: re[mukto-mona] Did man actually landed on the moon or just Hoax?
This incidence once again shows the pathetic state of scientific illiteracy
and the appetiite for conspiracy theory among the gullible mass.� It is
ironic that in medieval Europe some valiant souls like Galileo, Kepler
etc were persecuted by the inqquisition for seeking the truth and
speaking it. Now in this age of anything goes and postmodernism one can
speak a blatant lie with impunity. There is no scientific inquisition.� It
is outrageous that so many scientifically illiterate laypersons voraciously
gorges all the scientific goodies brought to them through the toils and
sweats of brillinant scientists and then ,�burping�after the feast, turns
back on the scientists and telling them their�hard work was all hoax.
All the hard toils of the hundreds of Nasa Scientists and engineers� and
all the reputable professors of Physics in Academia� who joined� in the
team work is nothing but hoax ? Anyway fortunately many debunkers are
also hard at work and some excellent sites are available� debunking such
claim of hoaxes.� I will mention some simple no-brainer.� If you are laser
physicist/engineer you can shoot a laser on the moon and get a reflected
laser beam? Where did the laser reflector�on the moon come from?
The Fox show that aired that show on hoax� issued� a disclaimer. It covered
its arse in advance knowing it (the show) is� a� hoa x itself, not moon
landing.
US landing on moon is the greatest humiliation of its arch enemy then, Soviet
Union. They swallowed their pride and congratulated US. The had already
landed� their unmanned probe on the moon and were technically capable
enough to debunk US had they even supspected� the remotest chance of
a hoax. Then not to mention the series after series of probes and missions that
led upto this grand finale like Ranger & Surveryor & Orbiter.��USA is free
country. If it was haox, it would not have stayed a secret for this long and.
Scientists are no fools. They would be the first to detect the hoax and blown
the whistle.� Scientists cannot be foooled� with� earth rocks and pass it off
as Moon rocks!� One can go on and on. here are some good sites
that addressses this hoax nicely
http//www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html
http//pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~jscotti/NOT_faked/
http//pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~jscotti/NOT_faked/FOX.html
http//www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/apollohoax.html
http//users.erols.com/igoddard/moon01.htm
http//www.apollo-hoax.co.uk/
http//www.the-indigestible.com/specials/moon.htm
http//www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mmoonhoax.html
http//www.redzero.demon.co.uk/moonhoax/
http//www.crank.net/apollo.html
Aparthib
Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 215716 +0600
Subject: Re [mukto-mona] ONE QUESTION TO ALL SEARCHING FOR AN ANSWER!
The answer to the first question (difference b/w Einstein, you, me etc) is VERY
simple and 100% accurate, so it may not impress you. The diff. is simply in our
(1) genome sequence and (2) neuronal wiring of the brain ( 2 is determined
by the combined effect of 1 and environment. Environment includes mother's
womb to death. ) Why is the genome sequence diff between each of us? Because
of evolution. Why evolution? Because of the Laws of Physics . Why laws of
Physics? We don't know. Knowledge has its limit at any point in time. This is
our limit at this time. We don't know of any reality above the fundamental laws
of nature. Not that there cannot be. Even if there is we don't have any means
to gain any knowledge about it. Verbose claims by individuals and mystical
schools of being priviy to this knowledge is simply beating about the bush.,
playing with words, which led Wittgenstein to the famous quote "Whereof
one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent"
Biologist Richard Dawkins hits the nail right on when he says:
"They think science is too arrogant and that there are certain questions that
science has no business to ask, that traditionally have been of interest to
religious people. As though *they* had any answers. It's one thing to say it's
very difficult to know how the universe began, what initiated the big bang, what
consciousness is. But if science has difficulty explaining something, there sure
as hell is no one else who is going to explain it".
(End Of Science - John Horgan p-119).
Second question. Is their a soul? Is there a precise definition of Soul? Without
a precise defintion asking a question with a Yes/No value is meaningless. It is a
question that only reflects a desire for immortality (who doesn't have that?),
nothing else. As simple as that. It is possible that all reports of hauntings,
apparitions etc, (which reinforces the idea of soul to many) may be due to pure
physical (natural) cause & effects, within the purview of Physics. (though not
documented or explainable yet).
Re third question, what is the meaning of life? Very simple answer as well.
There is none if you can't find one! If you know what it is then thats what it
is. In one sentence, it is what you make it to be. "meaning of life" and "free will"
are both rooted in perception. Even if we are programmed to act in predictable
way (By laws of physics), as long as we are not the programmer, we have
free will, same for meaning of life. If you PERCEIVE there is one for you, then
it is there, if not, its not there. And its not important what that perception of meaning
of life should be. It is a variable, like fingerprints. To each his/her own. No one
can suggest one that fits for all . If you ask me, I can emphatically state what it is.
But I am sure it is not for many others. For me the meaning of life is to try to
understand the mystery of life and universe. (Through studying/thinking, not
through active research, as I missed the boat on that(sigh) ). I will let philosopher
extraordinaire Richard Taylor explain in a poignant way the meaning of life.
Please read it at http//www.geocities.com/aparthib/taylor.txt
Aparthib
At 6/28/01 0226 AM, you wrote
Dear all,
I had the oppurtunity to meet very intelligent people here which I have no
doubt about. Guess everyone knows by now that I happen to be a believer. Can
anyone tell me one thing. What is the meaning of LIFE? What is the difference
of the life that Einstien had, Newton had, Jesus (PBUH) had, Muhammad (PBUH)
had, Darwin had, Tagore had and I have and You have or a murderer have or
whoever. What is the difference? Pure and simple, one question, what is the
difference? ...
Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2001 153659 +0600
Subject: Re [mukto-mona] to Ali Sina and all
Its not mind "over" matter , its mind due to matter. Mind is a supervenient
manifestation of brain. Without brain, no mind exists (except as a faith, or
as a potentia latent in the genome sequence along with the neuronal wiring
of the trillions of brain cells, that can be theorectically reconstructed if such
technology is ever attained). Yes, brain has tremendous latent power of
healing, and it is being studied by doctors/scientists. But it has to be understood
in that light. One need not jump ten quantum steps and start postulating some
"divine/mystical" force or power behind it that only New Age Mystics or
healers are privy to. Hypnosis is also occasionally utilized in medicine.
Nothing mystical about it as was thought before. So even is ESP is
substantiated by science someday, it will be still science, not a validation of
mysticism. We will only find some new aspect of brain not known today.
Tibettan monks are known to perform remarkable feats (like making wet
clothes boil in a cold winter night simply by meditation) in their familiar cave,
but have failed to do the same in a controlled environment in Harvard Lab
for Mind Research.
A very nice illustration of a purely scientific (i.e natural) way of giving
plausibility arguments to explain the alleged psychic phenomenon of mind
influencing matter (A random number generator in this case) is to be found
at http//link.aps.org/abstract/PRA/v50/p18. Warning this is a highly
technical paper. The psychic phenomenon is disguised in the technical jargon
"Causal Anomaly". The author (Stapp) is a theoretical physicist at Berkeley
and the paper was published in the Physical Review, a highly prestigious
journal and as a testimony to the genuine scientific nature of this work By
Stapp. One just needs to take note of the fact that the work was supported by
U.S. Department of Energy !
Regarding prayer, sure it is known to have healing effect. Again it is the brain
through meditation (Not the words of the prayer or its language/religion etc).
Meditation is a way of focussing brain acitivty ( Or making it coherent in quantum
jargon). Quantum coherence can have unusual effects. Oxford mathematician/
physicist Roger Penrose has speculated on the coherence effect in microtubules
in the brain and its link to consciousness (See
http//psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/psyche-index-v2.html) So no need to link prayer's
healing effect to a divine mystical force.
Even the effect of talking to plants has been studied by scientists and has been
dsocovered as a purely natural cause-effect. When powerful mowers ruthlessly
roar along the meadows, weeds have been documented as growing fraction of
a millimeter in length (Discovery channel), an effect of genetic impulse of survival.
Again, prayer or talking is not being undestood by the trees, but its the innate
cause effect relationship involving brains/emotions and environment. Even
sharks have knwn to respond to human caresses and foget theor attck temporarily.
So has alligators. Its all rooted in biology.
Even poltergeist activities have been simultaed through "scientific" means,
(called "Hutchison Effect") although non-repeatably. See the link
www.peg.apc.org/~nexus/Polter.html for a discussion of such effects.
Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 15:35:22 +0600
Subject: Re: [Voop] My Article on Nostradamus
Very well said Ali Sina. Skepticism is about not accepting a claim or a
belief without evidence and logic. Skepticism is not about declaring
something impossible or unscientific when it doesn't violate any known
laws of science. Premonition, clairvoyance, even if proven to� exist
conclusively will not violate any known laws of Physics. One has to
distinguish between�"paranormal" and "supernatural". The former is
"inexplainable" by scientific laws but do not violate scientific laws. the
latter� is not only inexplainable by but also�VIOLATES physical laws.
It is the latter that skepticism should be more focussed on in debunking.
Paranormal claims (always�made by non-scientific folks) should be
taken with a grain of salt and should not be accepted until it meets
all the scientific criteria. Some Paranormal phenomena have the
POTENTIAL of�being verified and explainable within natural laws in
future (Will become natural then) . But that theoretical possibility does
not legimtimize the claims of paranormal by a�non-scientific quack, and
specially any divine connections that tbe claimant or its defendors try
to� tout. Neither does a putative psychic ability of one person (natural
laws do not preclude such individual freaks of nature) mean that others
who join a cult or school of mysticism formed surrounding that person
will aquire such ability. Skeptics should not accept the faithbased claims
of� scientificness of�paranormal events by quacks. If paranormal
phenomena are ever�verified and explained by natural laws it will be
science/scientists who will do that, not the quacks. But until then it
should not be declared as either unscientific or scientific , unlike the
"supernatural" ones which� patently violate physical laws (like levitation)
and hence are legitimately called unsciemtific.
� We layfolks take the concept of time too naively and take it for granted.
Time is one of the most mysterious and complex Physics concept defying
a full resolution. Any modern�graduate textbook on Global General Relativity
devotes several chapters on past, present and future using the most advanced
mathematical techniques of topology and calculus of manifold.� The work
of Thorne, Hawking, Tipler and Deutsch has in principle established that
time travel is theoretically possible (i.e the existence of� closed timelike
loop,
in mathematical jargon) within the framework of parallel universe
concept of Quantum Mechanics. We cannot also discount the brain/Quantum
connection either as Roger
Penrose's work has shown. Then there is the
latest work on the Physics of
Consciousness that�are being done by
leading physicists in Berkeley, Univ of Arizona. etc
�So it is premature to rule out/rule in any possibility of� premonition or
past regression. While Nostradamus and many other s have been debunked
(Nostradamus at least did not claim to be a messenger of God or preached
any religion) that does not mean one has to make a generalized absolute
statement. But also one need to look at all this within the framework
of modern physics, not in the vague language of the mystics/quacks. Please
read my own thoughts on the issue of science, paranormal and miracles in
the following two articles:
1.
<http://www.geociti
es.com/aparthib/scimeta.html#ARTICLE3>
�� (ON BELIEF IN SUPERNATURAL/OCCULT/PARANORMAL PHENOMENA
����� VS. NON-BELIEF IN RELIGION &� RATIONAL/SCIENTIFIC THINKING)
2.
<http://www.geociti
es.com/aparthib/scimeta.html#ARTICLE5>
���� (MIRACLES AND SCIENCE)
Also for an interesting discussion of� atheisn vs. paranormal check out:
<http://www.positiveatheis
m.org/mail/eml8958.htm>
(Paranormal, Supernatural,Ghosts, Science, And Atheism)
<http://www.positiveatheis
m.org/mail/eml9404.htm>
(Atheists,The Paranormal,And The Supernatural)
Aparthib
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 17:28:07 +0600
Subject: Re: [Voop] My Article on Nostradamus
This discussion is something I have always been fascinated with. I
understand many are preoccupied with more pressing issues. But
I couldn't resist picking up on this thread now as the train of
thoughts may get lost and the thread may die. If anyone is pressed
for time I would request him/her to save it and read it later.
There is a thin line of difference b/w Avijit and Ali Sina. And I am
splitting that thin line even further and taking a view in between. There
is so much to agree with both Ali & Avijit. In my last post I expressed my
views agreeing with Ali. However I view the whole issue of science's
role in paranormal differently from Ali. From here on I will refer to Physics
sometimes instead of� Science since all other branches of science are
nothiung but a higher level manifestations of the more basic laws of Physics.
As a stickler for logical thinking, the only question/issue that seems logically
beyond science is the ORIGIN of� scientific laws� itself, ( i.e the question as
to why does a set of� scientific laws exist at all which explains this universe
and life so beautifully?). This is because an effect cannot be used explain
the cause of the effect.� It is an inevitable oneway arrow. No way to
circumvent it. It is similar to the well known problem of question of� the
creator of a creator and the infinite regression that it leads to. If the origin
of the laws of Physics (Lets call it superphysics) were explainable by Physics
then that Superphysics would be simply subsumed within physics, physics
will only expand its domain. The origin of Physics will remain an unknown
and logically impossible to explain.� The principles of science cannot
be used to explain origin of its own existence. As I mentioned earlier in
another article that it is the most fundamental fact and mystery that the
origin of the laws of Physics is not explainable by ANYONE. Philosophers,
scientists all acknowledge this fact. We humans ourselves are created by
the laws of physics (via the mechanism of evolution). So we are the effects
of the cause as well. However the beauty of science is that it is never static,
but ever exapnding.� So while admitting to the logical impossibility of ever
finding the origin of the laws of physics (That is a "logical" humility, if there
is such a thing :), saying that paranormal events will never be within science
is another absolute static view not consistent with humility. Anything other
than the origin of Physics is a fair candidate for� a POTENTIAL explanation
by Physics (if not now, mybe later when physics expands its domain further),
including all the things that Ali mentioned as beyond science, like love,
passion, altruism etc.. Many of these have already been explained by science
(I will come to that later again). Rather humility is reflected more
appropriately expressed in stating the obvious truth: "There MAY exist
certain phenomena/events, which are not explainable within the current
purview of� Physical laws". If the MAY becomes DOES (As verified by the
criteria of science) then we all can call those phenomena/events as
paranormal without dispute. But until the verification is done, science
can only agree to "MAY", while only layfolks/pseudoscientists can claim
"DOES". Thats not a problem. Individually one can� believe in "DOES",
it is a completely private issue. But so many of these layfolks have crossed
the domain of private belief and tried to hard sell their beliefs as
the TRUTH and tried to discount mainstream science and mislead the
general public with pseudoscientific jargon, or mystical vagueness, that
it becomes imperative to debunk such claims of TRUTHS by these hard
sellers of paranormal. Thats what I understand is Avijit's main concern.
I am sure Ali realizes this too. So Avijit and Ali are focussed on two
different aspects of this issue of paranormal.� Once this is understood,
the thin line of diffrence� b/w Avijit and Ali will become� even thinner,
I believe.
Whether certain paranormal events as claimed (hauntings, apparitions,
clairvoyance, etc)� do exist or not is conclusively settled one way or the
other. Science cannot rule it out. But one must remeber the golden
principle that has always worked in history. OCCAM's RAZOR. If there is
indeed a simple plausible explanation, there is no need to invoke a
more esoteric one, if one insists on explaining at all. Out of Body
expereince is one such claim, which is much better explained by
neurophysiological actions in the brain. We all know� that by
stimulating certain parts of the brain, one can be made to feel that
some one is touching him, or he can feel someone's presence etc.
Brain is an amazing organ capable of incredible feats, as millions
of years of cumulative evolutionary design is imprinted in it.
Now coming back to the issue of� what is beyond science. Come to
think of, Is there any really any? What� shoud be or should be not
within "science" only science can decide. By the way, science is not
a static collection of objects or inventions. Science is the term
symbolizing the ongoing collective effort of humanity to unravel
reality in a way that has stood the test of time, because science
has the humility to correct itself and it is based on consensus among
humans based on rationality, not affiliations. Not too long ago the
creation of the universe and life was thought to be beyond science.
Not so anymore. Modern Cosmology and Evolutionary Biology
has explained quite plausibly the creation of both. Anything humanly
observed and experienced is within the purview of science. Becasue
the laws of science is itself� the origin of this universe and life
(including humans). What is logically beyond science is beyond
reality accessible to humanity (through indirect observations,
if not direct). So that cannot be within the purview of� ANY human
construct (religion, mysticism etc). So saying something is beyond
science because it is beyond reality is really a tautological statement
since science is about reality. (Again reminder, reality includes the
invisible 11 dimensional space of superstrings).
So morality, ethics, emotions are all within the purview of science. I
will refer to some books if anyone interested wishes to dig in further.
The reason that '"morality, ethics" etc are not included in the agenda
of scientific research is because it may not be worthwhile to spend
time on something that humanity will not agree on (A majority of
humanity are not scientists or appreciate the scientific method). The
other fruits of science human easily recognize as beneficial to all.
Morality and ethics is too subjectuve and not all will be willing to
any verdict of science if� it appears to conflict with their ingrained
biases. Human emotions are certainly "explainable" (not controllable)
in evolutionary biological terms. It is very much within science
(biology). Reading Dawkins's books should convince any perceptive
reader.
References:
1. The Selfish Gene - Dawkins (A classic, explains altruism beautifully)
2. Sociobiology - Wilson
3. Biology and the Foundation of Ethics - Jane Maienschein, Michael Ruse
4. Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior - Sober & Wilson
5. Why We Feel: The Science of Human Emotion - Victor S. Johnston
6. The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of
��� Consciousness - Antonio R. Damasio
7. Anatomy of Love: A Natural History of Mating, Marriage, and Why We Stray
���� - Helen Fisher (1995) 25.
8.� The Alchemy of Love and Lust : How Our Sex Hormones Influence Our
���� Relationships - Theresa L. Crenshaw
From [email protected] Wed 22 Jul 1998 10:19:23 -0700
Subject: Re: [ALOCHONA] Forced Marriages
On Tue, 21 Jul 1998 15:56:53 Abhijit Mitra wrote:
>Got this news from UK News at
>http://www.independent.co.uk/stories/A210784.html
>
>[...]
>
>Anyways, the question I'd like to ask all of you is this - do you believe
>the govt should enact laws that interfere with a minority groups
>'culture' (if you can really call it that)? Does the govt have an
>obligation to protect a citizens rights even when assuming that role means
>trampling upon what many immigrants consider their cultural rights?
>...
YES, it is a MORAL imperative for the government to enact laws to
deter such barbaric act even though some may consider it a part
of their "culture". Like in old times when "ShatiDaha or Shahamaran"
was considerd a good culture by some orthodox Hindus reformists like
Rammohan and Ishwar Chandra persuaded the the British Gov to enact
laws to deter such cruel practices. And nobody today regrets
enactment of that law, although puritans during that time were
outraged at gov interference in their time honoured traditions.
Genital mutilation is also considerd part of culture by some African
culture. So is camel jockeying of children for fun in some Arab culture
or female infanticide in rural China. If goverenment doesn't step in to
prevent all these then its purpose to exist ceases in a civilized
society. A Gov should have social/economic/defence roles to play in a
nation. Anything done by FORCE (specially an important thing in life
like marriage) should be against the law. If rape (i.e forcible sexual
intercourse) is against the law why not forced marriage. What is the
real difference ? Its just trying to hogwash one's eyes. Forced
marriage is not sanctioned in Islam either. The fact is any group
of people if organized enough can create a "black" culture and if
persistent enough can pass it off as such if unchecked. Thats how
all these heinous practices managed to become a "culture" over time.
It should be deterred with firmness.
From [email protected] Sat 2 Jan 1999 13:07:37
Subject: Re: [ALOCHONA] Arranging other's lives?
On Thu, 31 Dec 1998 "Farzana Bashar Munmun" wrote:
>
>When I hear from guys that they want to have arranged marriage, do you
>know what is the first word that comes in my mind? THat word is
>"Hypocrats"! Yes, Guys are such big time Hypocrats!! And the reason why
Just to set the record straight. I know guys (including myself) who are
strongly in favour of marriage through relationship and I also personally
know girls who are strongly in favour of arranged marriage. I also know
many guys who do exactly what has been alleged in this post. I also know
some women who have married for reasons other than love. I also know of
one case where a women did exactly what guys have been alleged to do in this
post i.e she dumped her husband back home and got married here to someone
else. May be thats an exception. But an exception breaks a rule. Now about
hypocrats. There can exist hypocrats in either gender. If hypothetically we
took head counts of all the hypocrats it may turn out that there are "m" male
hypocrats and "f" female hypocrats where m>f. I am willing to live with this
statistics (also believe its true) but I must warn against class characterization.
Emotion leads to exaggeration/cynicism which in turn hides objectivity from
view and prevents one from seeing even the exceptions to a perceived rule
(If there truly exists one) or more appropriately an "empirical fact".
cosmic thinker
From [email protected] Wed 13 Jan 1999 14:52:57
Subject: Re: [ALOCHONA] Arranging other's lives?
>-----------------------------MAIL-1-----------------------------------
..
>Adnan, see what I mean? you are blaming the parents, yet defending the
>guy on those situations..No matter how bad the guy is, they have some
>excuse of getting away from it...& your comment above just illustrated
>how guys like that kind gets away from this type of situations..Isn't it
>unfair/bias? I think so..! -- Munmun
>
It is mistake to blame only one side in this case. BOTH the parents
(as accomplice) and the guy (as perpetrator) are to be blamed (Not equally,
perpetrators must score higher on the blame scale than accomplice)
Unfortunately Adnan blamed ONLY the parents making him suspect that as
a guy he is just condoning/defending another guy's misdeeds.
>
>-----------------------------MAIL-2-----------------------------------
...
>Wait a minute Mr. Rashid! Look, I think you are talking this whole
>discussion a bit too seriously! I didn't call you hypocrat nor any other
>guy from Alochona! HEck, I don't even know you! When I used that term, I
>simply generalized it based from my observation of some guys that i knew
>and heard of from friends..Besides, its just a discussion, nothing
>personal. So, if i offended anyone, please accept my apology. -- Munmun
>
...
Wait a minute Ms. Munmun! Your use of "generalized" and "some guys" above
contradicts your assertion "I didn't call you hypocrat nor any other guy
from Alochona!" What does generalize mean? Taking specific incidents of
samples from a larger group and drawing conclusions about ALL members of
that group. Like saying that since some blacks are like this, all blacks must
be like this, or since some Muslims are like this, ALL Muslims must be like that,
or since SOME women are like this, so ALL women must be like this etc etc. Where
does this end? If you GENERALIZE (You said it) then by its very implication
you are speaking about EACH member, not just Adnan or Alochona members. Whole is
the sum of parts. If you attach an attribute to the whole you are in effect
attching that attribute to each part of that whole. If you believe that ALL guys
are hypocrats then you don't need to apologize (To Adnan or ANY guy) because you
are calling a spade a spade and they deserve to be called so because they ARE, so
why apologize? On the other hand if you didn't mean to imply that ALL males are
hypocrats then its not just Adnan, you need to apologize to all the guys :)
(except for the hypocrats), and you may have to explain/withdraw the use of
"generalized". Its amazing that this debate is still alive, something that
requires some obvious common sense to end.
cosmic thinker
From me Thu Apr 1 1999 17:29:43
Subject: Re: [ALOCHONA] Rape in Bangladesh
On Thu, 1 Apr 1999 "Mohammed Ahsan" wrote:
>
>1. Appropriate education at the secondary level as part of the normal
>curriculum
Doesn't really hit at the root cause, i.e seems like the lack of an "appropriate
education" is being viewd as a CAUSE. This education as flawed it is never was
the cause of a rape. The same education system nurtured great people of Both
Bengals for many years.
>2. Reform in our curriculum that would take away segments that sexually
>arouses our children
Which segment arouses one sexually? Am I missing a radical revision of our
education system recently? :)
>3. Massive media campaign on the issue of religion and morality
Religion is as strong as ever. That hardly solved the problem. In fact as many
have pointed out, the root seems to lie in religion (Or abuse thereof). Morality?
Were the rapists not told that rape is immoral? Or would they have stopped if
they were told so.
>4. Formal education on dress codes and body languages for women
Classic shifting of the the balme on the girls wearing the dress and not on
the libidionous and violent males lacking self control and the social laxity
in punishing them swiftly and severely.
>5. Special education for women on self defense
That is a good point. But it is of limited use considering the reality
of the power and vengeance of the rapists and lack of male support in
stopping them.
>6. Exemplary punishments for rapists
Very good point
>7. Religious campaigns in our society
Again. see 3. No religuious bigot has took to the street demanding the head of
a rapist (With Cash reward on their head) like they do for taslima etc. Religious
preaching has hardly helped to correct the aggressive male chauvinistic psyche
which is at the root of rape. It has only focussed obsessively on punishing the
woman for dressing in a certain way.
>8. Institution of community activities as a means to lure in the vagabonds
>into meaningful lives
Vagabonds? You mean unemployed? Most rapists are well or mediocrely placed.
There is no correlationof their act with their financial staus. Its in their
psyche. I don't think the rapists are unemployed youths releasing their
frustrations of unemployment through this heinous acts. They deserve to be
eliminated from society rather than rehabilitation.
>
>Social psychopaths are there and will always be there. In order to elude
>the psychopaths, I believe the ladies need to be careful as to how do they
>dress themselves in public and what kind of looks do they portray when they
This is pathetic. It is the rapists (The perpetrators) who need to change or
be punished, not the victims. Shifting the blame on the women and their dress
code is a clever way of exonerating the males committing rape. In many Far
Eastern countries women dress much more lightly but there is hardly any rape
and men don't stare at them lusciously as they do in Bangladesh. The problem
has to be dealt with at the root. This has to be done in a very sweeping way
through social engineering by promoting free mixing between sexes and forcing
men to accept women working side by side in equal positions in large numbers,
so that the idea becomes entrenched with time and it will become natural and
nothing unusual. This social attitude of PREFERABLY keeping women indoors
(and forcing them to dress in a certain way) is only perpetuating this morbid
view towards women.
cosmic thinker
From me Mon Apr 5 1999 19:04:57
Subject: Re: [ALOCHONA] BBC stereotypical photos of Sharon Jalil case
Re: [ALOCHONA] BBC stereotypical photos of Sharon Jalil case
On Mon, 5 Apr 1999 19:03:56 - wrote:
>Please consider writing to the BBC to draw attention to their stereotypical
>coverage of the Sharon Jalil case.
[..]
>Instead of highlighting the progressive victory of this case, the BBC website
>uses photos that further push
>stereotypes of Islam as being equivalent to burkhas, etc.
>
There is a saying "Dharmer Daak Apni Baje". Why one has to always
complain/protest etc to save the image of religion? "Complain/Protest"
does not eliminate a stereotype but polarizes the two sides into adversarial
positions even further.
A better recourse is to provide the other party facts and logic that
debunks the stereotype in an effective way, if at all one feels so
insecure that the religion is in danger through being stereotyped. People
are no fools. In this information age one can learn about any religion very
easily through reading a plethora of books, internet, seminars etc, so one
cannot mislead someone by just some photographs (Assuming it is indeed
misrepresenting religion). The truth will shine out eventually.
One does not need to defend religion for every possible paltry reason if
they felt secure and confident about it.
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 17:51:21 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [ALOCHONA] Re: How I would have felt if it was my wife?
Tehsin Ali wrote:
>
>I do not know about the authorities but I do know that, these people who are
>committing this hienous (sp) crime are someone's brother, someone's son,
>someone's best friend. Why not we try to get to know our close friends better
The best friends of these heinous criminals are not much better than
themselves. I would never take them as my best friends, would you? Surely
they are somebody's son. But in most cases the parents of these criminals
are themselves intimidated by them and are held hostage by their sons and
helpless to do anything.
[...]
>many friends sticking by their buddies cause they were buddies while the buddy
>kept abusing their spouses and so forth. By sticking to him, you are telling him
>- Hey, whatever you are doing, I'm all for it - you are giving a POS support
>that he does not deserve. Next time your friend does something, stand up and let
>him know he is wrong, you might even be able to fix him. If you don't stand up,
>you are a spineless man who really doesn't need to carry on his earthly burden
>anymore, you are no better then that pig. Unfortunately, most of us fall into
>that category. :)
Sounds very idealistic. But you may run into the risk of being rebuked and
most likely attacked for interfering in his private life. LAW is and should be
the recourse. There are laws in all civilzed societies to prevent spousal abuse.
Enacting laws prohibiting and punishing such abuse and MOST IMPORTANTLY
implementing those punitive measures swiftly and efficiently is the way to go.
The head of the country (I am not mentioning any specific name. This problem
persists even though the head of the country has changed many times) can do a
lot by mentioning these problems in meetings, over radio and TV and create an
awareness and sense of urgency. But it all hinges on a sincere wish to change
and the boldness to carry on the wish. Otherwise it will all be mere
rigmaroles.
Adnan Mamoon wrote:
>or anywhere else for that matter, get solved in such manner? Also, why all
>of a sudden we have such commotion regarding rape issue? The recent mails
>in Alochona seems to make it appear as if we have never heard of such
[..]
>Then the question certainly arises, "what could we have done"? Well, for
>starters, mandatory sex education in public schools is a beginning. This
I agree with Adnan that this news should not have come as a surprise now as
it has been happenning always. In fact I am surprised at the surprise felt
by some at this news of woman being raped which is a daily occurrence. The
Maybe it is this ignorance and in many cases denial of the existence of our
social evil that is part of the contribuiting factor to the perpetual
existence of this evil. Awareness is an important prerequsite of an eventual
solution of any social evil. In fact there are lot more disturbing news that
I have come across before. My heart was bleeding when I read them in the
Dhaka newspapers when I visited home. It is not with relish that I am listing
some below, but with the hope that this will create some awareness and shock
in the minds of many who are otherwise feel complacent about the existence
of social evils. Like any disease recognizing the existence is a frist step
in the healing.
1. On May 1998, Hazrat Ali(42), of Manikganj raped his own daughter China
Akhter(13) at dagger's point.
2. On May 31, 1997, A beast by the name of Bahram (22) raped and strangulated
to death a 7 year old girl called dukhini in Amarpur village under Savar Thana.
3. One Israfil(24) of Rupganj Thana, village Jangir, raped a 3-1/2 yaer old
girl Reshama Akhter. (Exact Date not sure, from Ittefaq)
These were just a few randomly selected newsclips. I shudder to think how
many more news items may have appeared in the short columns on the inside
pages of the dailies since or before then.
I don't agree with Adnan's view that the solution lies in sex education. We
only need to look at many of the eastern societies around Bangkladesh like
Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, China etc and see that its not because of
sex eduation that thay are relatively free of this social evil. A more
effective solution lies in the free mixing of genders and integration of
women in all walks of life. This is quite visible in those countries. It is
also erroneous to bring in US or the west in this discussion of the problem
of rape in Bangladesh as if the world is only Bangladesh or US. One need not
look at US society for solution or for consolation that it happens there
also (although the laws and the nature of this crime is very different
from that of Bangladesh). We can look at many of the far eastern societies
for a possible clue.
Rahman, Emanur (London) wrote:
>As with so many Bangladeshi issues this one too comes full circle and knocks
>on the door of corruption. It is therefore a foregone conclusion that until
I cannot agree with the premise that corruption is at the root of rape.
Corruption and rape are both the manifestation of the same underlying root
disease of our social psyche. There are many corrupt societies in Asia,
malaysia, thailand, and China is also notorious for its corruption, but in
none of these countries rape has been any serious problem and in fact is
quite unusual occurrence. Maybe we should try to look at this societies and
try to find some lessons we can learn. Even our neighbour India this is less
of a problem than here. In India in most states, for example, if a rape is
committed, the whole village identifies the rapist and his family and ostracizes
them or hands him over to police. In Bangladesh the rapists are backed up by
powerful weapons and muscle and face no real resistance from the scared
majority. The majority has to be more vocal and united and form committees
like vigilance committee, neighborhood watch. Guardian's angels etc. People
have to organize at the grass roots level to fight these criminals. The
problem in bangladesh is that ordinary people feel less motivated to
organize and gang up for a positive cause. And ganging up on a rapist is not
a priority in the minds of ordinary people. They would rather gang up to
lynch (Gono Pituni) small fries like pick pockets and vendors of fake
merchandise etc or to unite on a destructive cause like destroying bridges,
railtracks, burning vehicles etc in the name of Hartal, or in the name of
expressing their outrage at someone's "objectionable writing". And the
fact that public anger is not so much directed towards crimes against
women than is toward other crimes is rooted in religio-social culture of
our society. Any solution has to address that and this would require a bold
reform movement. Who will do that? and How? These are the hard questions.
Sincerely,
cosmic thinker
From [email protected] Tue Jul 20 1999 13:57:46
Subject: [ALOCHONA] Re: Prostitution: Sin or Survival?
On Tue, 20 Jul 1999 06:54:59 [email protected] wrote:
First, I have to admit Abhijit has made a very consistent and rational
analysis of the coercion vs. free will issue. But I would like to clarify
further in order to dispel the doubt that may have arisen due to his
emphasizing the free will aspect and not emphasizing the accountabilty
issue and the root cause of the choice of "free will" that may have resulted
in this specious disgreement between them.
>Mr. Chisti:
>
>"an illiterate woman has been severely beaten by her husband, thrown
>out of her house, and threatened with her life if she ever seeks work
>in her village or come near her children. Furthermore, the husband is
>a powerful man in the village and nobody dares to raise a voice
>against him. This woman then goes to the big city and finds it very
>hard to find work except maybe to break bricks which will allow her to
>live "under the bridge" as Mr. Mitra describes. She then discovers
>that she can make a relatively decent living by selling her body to
>the rickshawallas who left their wives behind in the villages. Is
>this coercion or free will?"
This is BOTH. But coercion was not to force her "TO DO" something
(prostitution) but rather "TO BE" subjected to physical torture,
abuse etc by a brutal husband, as a result of which she was forced into fleeing
to the city to eke out a living. Now comes the free will vs. forced decision
part. In the strictest sense of the term she will be considered to have been
forced into prostitution if some brute male physically forces her into engaging
into it (Which is not uncommon either, also happens in Thailand). The other
scenario, where she had to "chose" (without actual physical force) the
option of prostitution out of a necessity to survive is a case of "free will"
in the strictest term, since she had the choice to go into begging, living a
wrtetched life scavenging for food in dustbins, hotels etc. with uncertain meals
each day etc. (Many do survive this way). So it is is a choice, albeit a choice
between two almost comparable miseries. Now comes the moral part. One can say
that "I would better die than compromise my values/dignity etc". Indeed it is
believed and practiced by many. Many women risk their lives to resist being
raped. So the situation is similar here. In absence of any actual physical
coercion to engage in prostitution a women can be in considered to have made
the choice to prefer one misery (prostitution) over another (Begging,
scavenging food from trash bins, hotels etc).
Now the most important point which Abhijit did not emphasize and for which
there seems to have been this pedagogical difference with Mr. Chishti is that
just because she exercized the free will does not disqualify her from
seeking justice for the original coercion inflicted on her which resulted
in her making this choice or justify the acts of coercion by her abusive
husband. So yes, she did make a choice out a free will, her free will allowed
her to make a choice only from among the very bad ones viz. prostitution,
begging, scavenging etc BECAUSE of the very act of coercion of her abusive
husband and unconscionable villagers. So the real issue for women getting
into prostitution in these scenario is not an issue of free will vs. coercion
but reddressing her misery and/or punishing the perpetrators who drove her
into this choosing between these lowly options.
Having clarified the accountabilty and causative aspect of the issue I express
my agreement with the rest of Abhijit's points.
cosmic thinker
From me Thu Aug 10 13:48:01 2000
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: August Topic - Men, Women and the State of Feminism
My compliments to both Lisa Sayera Farooque and Tamanna Huq for their
nice and thoughtful views on feminism. First of all let me emphasize
that the starting point is and should be human rights (Of course animal
rights too, in the sense of oppoing cruely against animals). Now
depending on whose rights are violated the human rights can assume a
movement to defend against racial discrimination (can use the label
anti-racism), or against religious discrimination (anti-bigotism),
or as in this context against (female)gender discrimination (feminism).
So to me feminsim is a contextual term due to females being subjected to
unfair treatment and unequal rights in past and to less extent at
present. If someday (hypotheticallY) the situation reverses male-ism may
be the order of the day. For example if Sultana's dream ever came true
then at some later point in time the question of men's rights issue
will become pertinent. Ideally when balance is achieved between the
adversarial groups there should be struggle to defend against any
injustice without any label, because injustices are committed against
all, within same affiliations regardless of colour, gender, ethnic
roots etc. Its in the human nature to perpetrate evils on others,
rooted in their evolutionary biological imperatives.
It may sound like a cliche but it can never be overmentioned that men and
women are EQUAL. That is they are equal in their capabilties and rights.
There isn't anything left for women to demonstrate that cannot do. The
toughest job for any human in terms of skill and knowledge is known to be
acommanding a space shuttle. Commander Eileen Collins has demonstrated that
she can do that. The intellectually toughest field to excell is superstring
theorist. Even noble Laureate physicist Weinberg is intimidated by its
formidable mathemmatical complexity. And here we have young Eva Silverstein,
an authority on Superstring theory. Before Superstring thoeory particle
Physics was suposed to be the intellectually most challenging field. And
here we have Chinese female Nobel laureate Wu. The the toughest physically
challenging job is that of an astronaut. Besides so many Americal women
astronauts, here we have Indian Kalpana Chawla, who is not only a Nasa
astronaut, but a PhD as well who has scored 252 orbits around the earth.
Anyone still like to raise any doubt about women's inherent ability?
That is not to say that men and women are not DIFFERENT. Differences
of various sort exist within the same gender but that doesn't imply
unequal capabilty or legitimize unequal rights. One need not make
a radical conclusion that equality should require that men women
dress the same. that would be ridiculous to REQUIRE it. Just like
different cultures have different dresses. Gender is also similar
to culture and dresses can be different for that reason.
Women and men are biologically different. But even that difference is
quite minute in terms of the finer genetic analysis. The gender
characteristrics in a human embryo only starts to develop after six
weeks of conception. But thats digressing from the topic. The main
point here is that equal rights bewteen gender is a fundamental
imperative of human rights. Now in regard to Bangladesh we are way
behind other western and many Asian countries. Having two women prime
ministers have no meaning at all. Like Tamanna Huq said its only due
to accidental fact that Both Zia and Mujib didn't leave an adult son
after their death. The voting for Khaleda or Hasina is really a vote
for Zia or Mujib. Even during their regime, acid throwing has gone on
unabated, fatwas are being issued against women and so on. Its also
true that they are not fully empowered either, as they are still
assisted and run by orthodox male apparatchiks. After all they were
elected not because they were competent women but because they were
the daughters and wives. So electing them to power is only a symbolic
expression of approval of the deceased leaders. Their role is just
to maintain that symbolic meaning. Any attempt to reddress the gender
problem by them is not automatically approved by the fact that they
are elected as prime ministers. Thats where the orthodox electorate
and apparatchiks will draw the line. So they have to tread a thin line
here. They are not sovereign leaders as women on issues like these.
The sad thing is that it is very common to hear many men (and surprisingly
some women too) ridicule these two women and attribute the present
(and past) mess of Bangladesh to the genders of these two prime ministers,
as if the woers of bangladesh has to do with their gender soley. Aren't
their enough men corrupt and inept political leaders. Didn't we have a
taste of some of their leadership? I believe there are good and bad
leadership quality among both men and women. Unless a radical soicial
rethinking on gender equality is initiated by state leadership and
reinforced through school and family education there is no possibility
of any real change.
Regards,
cosmic thinker
From me Tue Aug 15 15:30:13 2000
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: August Topic & WHOM ARE WE FOOLING?
A good number of follow up articles under the August thread on feminism
and its related offshoot "whom are we fooling?" have appeared. Many
of those articles contain some controversial, misleading and ethically
incorrect remarks. I intend to attempt to respond to those remarks using
logic and fairness as the sole criterion. Although ideally it would be
desirable to focus on the main issue of femisnism, but those artciles have
strayed quite substantially creating new subissues that now call for
appropriate response. I will address the issues raised by various posters
under the two sister threads all in this posting to avoid the overhead of
multiple posting.
1. One reader wrote on 8/13/00 :
>I am not so militant anymore, but when I see men picketing in the middle of
>the day with signs saying "Don't Jail Dads" and "Child Support is Gender
>Extortion" I still make a stand and confront them. But nowadays, I am
>willing to fawn over a great pair of Manolo Blahnik's as well.
This is indeed thought provoking. Seems like the rampant acid throwing on
women, wife battering, honor killing, fatwa baji, raping of women that
are going on didn't provide enough reason to be militant, but an instance
of picketing by men did?? Are picketers always wrong? Aren't their cases
of unfair treatment to men as well? There are individual situations
in each marital problems that demand specific redress. There may be cases
where wife denies the husband any visitation or custody right to the
husband (even when the husaband was a loving father to the child). What
moral ground should she have to demand child support in such a case.
This is just to argue that cases like these cannot fall under a balnket
rule as that will penalize all men irrespective of the merit of each
situation. Gender equality does not and should not require blanket
penalization of ALL men for the acts of SOME/MOST men. (logic/fairness)
The fact that one is resorting to picketing is an indication that at
least one injustice has been committed to one man. One pickets for a
defense, not for an offense.
2. Another reader wrote on 8/14/00 (Let me add the prelude that I agree
with the rest of the article very much as much as with the original
posting that was being following up.) :
> Her anti-Islamic position verges on fanaticism which inadvertently ends up
> lending support to the following premises:
>
> 1) Muslim women's demand for civil rights is anti-Islamic
> 2) All religions, as interpreted by the patriarchy, is eternal and immutable.
> Corollary: Women cannot interpret religion
> 3) A good feminist must necessarily be an atheist. Corollary: All men and
> women who are normally religious are anti-women's rights.
First the use of fanaticism on a reactive movement is not justified. The word
fanaticism is only well applied to a movement FOR imposing something, not to
a movement AGAINST such imposition. This is an instance of category mistake.
Secondly I can't see a logical way of inferring (1) from her position. I don't
know if she said it herself. (1) is of course affirmed by the religious bigots.
The corollary in (2) deos not logically follow from the statement (2) itself.
(corollary should not result from a subjective judgement). All (2) is
saying that the male patriarchy declare religion to be immutable and eternal
(a true statement). The "as interpreted by the patriarchy" clause makes it a
statement by an observer, not of the male patriarchy itself. The corollary part
however is again like (1), asseeted by the religious bigotted male patriarchy,
not a logical result of (2) itself.
I don't see how (3) can logically follow either. One can only say that a feminist
cannot be a traditional follower of religion of REVELATIONS. One can be a feminist
and adherent of a non-revelational religion like Buddhism, Hinduism, Bahaism, and
countless other deistic religions that do not preach rigid rules on gender roles.
A feminist can also believe in the revealed religion loosely in the sense of
believing only in the God (as an abstract power without gender) and in praying
as a spiritual way of connecting to God and by pass all the rigid rules of
revelations, or alternately, decide to entitle themselves the right to (re)interpret
the revelations themselves in a way that makes the revelations gender neutral.
That is certainly acceptable in principle to a fair person(men/women), but not to
the orthodox keepers of religion. Unless these neo-interpreters gather enough
support from men and fellow women to marginalize the orthodox keepers that would
not become a mainstream movement. Anyway the point is that the corollary in (3)
does not follow logically from statement(3) which itself is flawed as I mentioned
above. The problem is "normally religious" part which is ambiguous. If "normal"
is "strict/orthodox" then it is a correct corollary. But not corerct if we use it
in the loose/alternate sense as I described above.
3. Another reader wrote (8/14/00):
>Taslima-type culture is largely responsibility for
>today's situation. Comparing the crimes in Bangladesh
Taslima-type "culture"? (whatever that means) responsible
for today's situation in Bangladesh? What situation?
The acid throwing on women, raping of young boys and
girls, mutilation, extortion and killing of innocent men
and women? All due to Taslima "culture"? Would like some serious
clarification here. I have seen pathetic defense of crimes
in Bangladesh by blaming it on sattellite T.V., the West etc.
This is another case of a pathetic defense of crimes in bangladesh
by blaming it on one woman. When are we going to put the blame
where it belongs? Or try to objectively find where it bekongs
and try to reddress it?
>Comparing the crimes in Bangladesh with US we will see it is much
>lower considering the population and economical stability. According
>to the social circumstances the crime rate should be more
>than half that of the US but in reality the rate is much lower and the
>crimes are also less vicious than in the US. Now, should we be happy
>for that, I don't think so!
This playing of the comparison game does not help at all in
reddressing our problem. First of all this comparison is very
subjective and smacks of a "holier than thou" attitude. Every
society has their virtues and evils. I would question the
assertion that crimes in Bangladesh is less vicious. I will
provide a link containing newpaper clips that will show
how vicious the crimes that are committed in Bangladesh. It is
depressing and shocking and will hurt our sensitivity to read
that. But I believe regardless of how disturbing these clips
are they need to be faced and should make all do some soul
searching and ask why do these happen. How can it, if ever be
prevented? Ignoring them or playing the comparison game on feel
good basis will not make them go away.
The Link: http://www.geocities.com/aparthib/bdnews.html
Blaming all the evils and crimes in Bangladesh as to western
culture is a convenient cop out, an easy way to relieve oneself
of the responsibility for their acts. Western culture has been
integrated much much more in other Asian countries than in
Bangladesh. Why don't such vicious crimes happen so widely in
those countries? Its about time we took some responsibilities
on ourselves.
4. Another reader wrote : (http://www.egroups.com/message/alochona/3246)
>The other stand, common among the "progressives intellectuals"
>is quite opposite. They establish their honor and value by
>dissociating themselves from Bangladesh as far as possible and
>emphasizing on their closeness to the western countries and culture.
>So they depict Bangladesh as one of the worst on the earth; take
>every pain to exaggerate its backwardness compared to western
>worlds; take every opportunity to be ashamed of the existence of such
>a country and society, and thereby establishing their identity as a
>"progressive" and "enlightened" modern human being. These
>"intellectuals" are often much appreciated by western media of course
>(A typical example would be Taslima Nasrin).
First of all, I fail to see the logic here. How can one "establish"
oneself as "progressive" and "enlightened" modern human being by
exaggerating the backwardness of one's OWN country? By a better
logic one would be more inclined to exaggerate the backwardness
of ANOTHER country to do that. And what does "establishing"
mean here? Establish BY/TO WHOM? I can neverimagine a Westren
country (or its people) saying(implictitly) to such an intellectual
"I henceforth establish you as a progressive and enlightened
modern human now that you have exaggerated the backwardness of
your country". For all I can tell with my observation and others
that it works the other way. So I am forced to conclude that
this characterization of "enligtenment through exaggeration of one's
backwardness" applies to an imaginary group of intellectuals, or
at best it is a result of mischaracterization of the snobbery of some
intellectuals. Snobbery is a human trait that exists like all other
traits like kindness, compassion, cruelty, meanness. I don't see
how such indvidual negative traits can be elevated to a topic of
grave concern as it sounded. Some do out of frustration talk about
the horrible things that happen in Bangladesh. It is more as a lament
rather than out of gloat or relish. We sometimes lament that things
are so bad while in our mind we wished things were not so. Its a way
of venting a justified frustration. Sometimes talking about the
negatives help to create awareness and can act as rude awakening that
things are not that rosy and prompt one to shake of any self
complacency. Self complacency and an illusion of one's infallibility
is a dangerous road block to the reddress of social problems. But to
make a blanket characterization of all such release of frustrations
as an attempt make oneself look "progressive" and "enlightened" is
a misplaced passion. Now, I don't think Taslima has become so
promminent in the West just for her exaggerating the situation
in Bangldesh (she might have. Exaggeration is another common
humnan trait. Media/individuals do that). If that was the case there
would be cottage industry in Bangladesh (or anywhere) to become
promminent in the West. Just exaggerate the situation, and presto you
are promminent in the West. It doesn't work that way obviously.
It is the act of banning her book, issuing death threat and Governement's
failure or reluctance to provide the legal and physical protection that
a citizen is entitled to, that tossed her into Western limelight. This
was another case of a category mistake to say that she was put into limelight
by her exaggerated portrayal of the plight of Bangladesh. Western media
could care less if anyone exaggerates the situations in his/her society.
By the way, I don;t see any reason for this obsessive use of the term
West. She is equally, if not more conspicuous in India. Is India a
Western country? Any country which cherishes free speech and human
rights will notice acts of breach of such anywhere. It doesn't have
to be East/West/North/South. I would like to see that someday Bangladesh
welcomed a dissenting writer from another closed society and gave him/her
refuge. Sure one would not condemn Bangladesh for giving him/her the
shelter because he/she exaggerated the situation back home, but would
welcome/praise the Government for its humanitarian gesture. Turning
the issue of the plights of women in Bangladesh into an East/West issue
only serves to obfuscate the main issue.
Another a comparison game was played here. Fatwa baji was compared
against the incidences of bombing of abortion clinic. This is a
assymmetric comparison. In the clinic bombing it was a breach of law,
and the bomber was taken to task by law and no public demonstration
in favour of the bomber was launced. In case of fatwa baji, it is
condoned by the government, the fatwabaj's are not punished by Government
or the people, making it appear that it is an acceptable social practice.
Therin lie the big difference. So it was not a comparison game worth
playing. Besides performing abortion is an act that is as not as
defensible as the individual rights of the targeted women of the fatwas.
So there is another asymmetry as well.
I see a recurring theme of always characterizing anything West as bad,
or attaching a movement (eg feminsim) with West and then condemning it
as western. Anything western has to be bad by definition. Its time we
sieved an issue on its merit, not on its label (Even the labelling is
is questionable). Lets look at Feminism as defined by West is: (This is
quoted from the introductory post by alochona management)
Some Western definitions of feminism are:
(1) "Feminism [is] a) the principle that woman should have political,
economic, and social rights equal to those of men [.] [and] b) the
movement to win such rights for women."
(2) Camille Paglia, a noted Western feminist also defines feminism as
"[f]or me the great mission of feminism is to seek the full political
an legal equality of women with men," in the Yale Journal of Ethics.
Now stare at the two definitiuons above. Do you see any "west"
in these definitions? Why this Western paranoia? As in all movements
there are some fringe elements that take refuge under the umbrella of
a well intentioned movement to further their own extreme agenda. All
movements have such instances. Are all Eastern movements free from
extremeists? Certainly not. The radical feminsists in the West have
their western critics as well. Christina Hoff Sommers and Daphne Patai
have written extrensively against the radicalization of feminism by
extremeists. So blanket criticizing of "western" femisnism or
even characterizing it as western is flawed. A critcism of radical
feminism (which does not adhere to the defintion above) is certainly
justified and is done so in the West as well. So in the end there
should not be a East/West dichotomy. There are universal imperatives
that apply to all of humanity. It is unfortunate that instead of
palcing prime concern on issues like gender crimes, inequalities etc
the prime concern seem to be the "westernness" of feminism, or the
snobbery among some intellectuals.
>almost all male government and power-structure. Could any one please
>cite equivalent streets in the USA, UK, and other western countries ?
Does that really offer such consolation?. How about the reverse question?
Can one cite any equivalent cases of acid throwing, fatwa baji, rampant
rape of minor girls with impunity etc in other countries? Its a no-win
situation to just compare and clamour we are better than them. It does
not reddress the problem. The reddress lies in acknowledguing whatever
problem there is and suggesting a solution. Tokenism like naming a street
is good if the tokenism creates an inspiration for the society to ACT in
the spirit of the tokenism. If not then it becomes a hollow isolated act.
What has the act of naming the streets done in reddressing the gender
crimes or the attitude toward women in day to day life?
In the end I must say that blaming the West, or the small minority of
snobbish intellectuals for the deep rooted and endemic problem of gender
crimes and other social evils is not only misdirected but also an act of
refusing to take one's own responsibility. And the responsibilit/blame is
not just the intellectuals. Don't the NON-INTELLECTUAL politicians,
leaders, businessmen etc have any responsibility?? Is the gender crimes
committed in rural (Thats where it happens more) Bangladesh a result of
the snobbery of some snobbish intellectuals residing in USA? There has
to be a much more substantive approach to this social issue than this
obsession with labels
Thank You.
cosmic thinker
From me Mon Aug 21 15:13:19 2000
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: August Topic - Men, Women and the State of Feminism
Greetings to All,
The following is my response to message 3271,
(http://www.egroups.com/messages/alochona/3271) which was referring to my
message posted earlier.
I do agree with the author on the inapprriateness of the term "feminism"
as it should be reaslly equal rights issue. I pointed that out in one of
my earlier post also. Two wrongs don't make a right. But I didn't
take the label too seriously because other than a handful of radicals,
no feminist would insist on demonizing men. These radical feminists are
to feminism what many radical black panther members were to black civil
rights movement. Both try to counter one wrong by another.
Unfortunately much of the rest of the message was about making inferences
about my thoughts rather than limiting it to the points of disagreement.
I am forced to point out the invalidity of the inferences and make some
general points as well pertinent to the thread of this topic.
The author said:
>So, it seems that the writer does not have comparable positive
>examples for the western countries. Failing to cite such examples
>the writer goes on to reduce the significance of the positive example
>from Bangladesh as "tokenism" (17 Aug, 2000):
Failing to cite examples does not mean they don't exist. I don't
know each and every name of every road/building of every city of
every country. That was not the point. My point was to question the
appropriateness of any chauvinistic attempt to downgrade others as
being worse than us (thats how the original comparison was done, to
prove that no western country has done what Bangladesh has done etc).
This is not desiarable or needed in any meanigful discussion of
reddressing any social problem. Need to view things in the proper
context.
The author also said:
>So, that is mere tokenism and hollow isolated act ? No
>appreciation for Bangladesh ! It seems, for Bangladesh, only the
>negative things are truth, and they nullify whatever positive the
>unfortunate Bangladeshis have achieved.
My statement was like: IF {..}, THEN, tokenism is hollow. Does that
statement contradict the fact that "tokenism" is better than doing
nothing? It certainly is better and I believe so. I don't have to say
it to prove that I believe so. I can't possibly state every conceivable
thing I believe in to disprove that I don't believe in them!. I never
implied that tokenism is not better than doing nothing. A good
example of tokenism is when a Chinese friend of mine visited Bangladesh
with me and stayed in our house. Being observant as he is he noticed that
my nieces (high school girls) had to be careful how they dress (no jeans
advised) and always be careful when they went out. We had of course
a woman head of state then. He commented, "I would rather have a male
prime minister and not have to my nieces/sisters constantly worry
about being teased for wearing this dresses, going certain places,
certain times.. than to have a woman head of state and still having
them constantly suffer from this anxiety.". Anyway My statement could
not by any logic be interpreted as a lack of appreciaition. Besides
appreciation has its place. We are not here in this thread for
appreciation. It is to address and critically discuss the issue of
gender crimes and feminism. In due context appreciation will follow
naturally. For example if a reader of any other country pointed
finger at Bangladesh and bragged that they have done such and such
and what has Bangladesh done? I would be the first one to cite these
token acts (I have done that many times) in defense. So it was all
context dependednt. Before making judgement about me I would hope
that all contexts (if and when they develop) are taken into account.
The author also said:
>But so far as TOTAL violent crimes on women are accounted, I can bet
>the Western developed countries like the USA would lose. Still, I do
>not want to make Bangladesh win on this issue.
Again the attempt to prove others worse. How can a TOTAL be conceivably
estimated and claimed to be in one's disposal by a person and pass such
a sweeping verdict?. Does total make even any sense in an evolving thing
like crime.? It seems like no substantive discussion on issues can be
made without degrading others. Why this recurring comparison game?
The author further said:
>because many "progressive intellectuals" mentions crimes like "fatwa bajis"
>in Bangladesh with an implication that nothing comparable exists anywhere
>in the so called "developed western world" and so Bangladesh must be a land
>of the savages.
The particular "implication" above is a personal construction. It is
not implied. The statement (as a lament) that fatwabaji exists in
Bangladesh is just a true propositional statement. It has no implication
(certainly not the one picked by the reader) embedded in it. If a
mention made about social crimes is always linked with an implication
then, no such mention can ever be made. One just has to stop making any
explicit mention of any social problems fpr fear of such implications.
This is really unfortunate. Also it is intriguing why a progressive
intellectual is being singled out for mentioning the crimes in bangladesh?
Doesn't any non-intellectual mention of crimes in Bangladesh? When I visit
Bangladesh, everyone, starting from a barbar, office clerk, day labourer
every one laments and criticizes and mentions all the problems. Many are
leaving the country to work abroad under the worst possible conditions
through manpower export agencies. Yes, yes, they have no choice, you may
say. But does it make any difference in principle when it comes to the the
"vice" of "mentioning" things that are wrong about Bangladesh? Yes, they
have less responsibility for correcting the wrong than an intellectual, one
might say. Thus is the root of the problem. ALways picking on some particular
group (In this case a small group). A social evil of this scale and magnitide
requires a mass partcipation. And no, it is not just the duty of the small
intellectuals to lead it. If they do, fine. But if it has to wait for
their initiative, then there is problem at the root. In India, problems
in society are tackled at the grass root level (like, rapes, extortion
etc). No one is waiting for an intellectual from USA to come and launch
the movement, neither are they singled out as a scape goat for any social
crimes. This is one example where we can certainly gain by looking at
others (not even West, as in this case). Why this misplaced paranoia
and morbid bitterness against "progressive" intellectuals?
The author further said:
>The author observes that clinic bombing is a breach of law in the USA
>but stoning the "adulterous women" by "fatwa bajis" is not a breach of
>law in Bangladesh. Friends, I am really at a loss. Does Bangladesh
>law allows to take the law up on one's own hands or made stoning of
>women lawful ? May be I need to revisit Bangladesh.
>It is also said, "In case of fatwa baji, it is condoned by the
>government". What could be farthest from truth ? Being of
>Bangladeshi origin how can one say that ?
>
First it was a blatant case of misquoting. I never maentioned that
"stoning the "adulterous women" by "fatwa bajis" is not a breach of law"
Again an illogical inference. "acceptable social prwctice" was
interpreted as "not against the law". It is certainly against the
law. I mentioned that no action is taken against them (despite
it being against the law, implicitly). Doesn't that constitute
condoning by the government/people and thus "appearing" as if it
is "acceptable/tolerabel" "social" practice?. What was the
contradiction here? Laws in Bangldesh were written in British time
and not all laws are enforced. Does making the factual statement
(as a lament) that a breach of a law is not punished imply that the
breach is not against the law?. My point was that such breaches are
condoned because of the social attitude towards those breaches. How
can I be interpreted to have said that there is no such law against
these acts.? And regarding condoning it, how many fatwa baj has been
given exemplary punishment? If they were, it would not be such a
rampant social evil, it would be a dying one. Instead it is alive
and well. Isn't that condoning? AS I said if there was a will it
could have been stemmed early on before it became such a festering
social malaise.
I have to cry out for some logic which so painfully missing in all
these inferences on my mind. :)
The author further said:
>So ? The murders of doctors and nurses by the American religious
>fanatics are not as objectionable ? or What ? What a defense for
>the West and derogation of Bangladesh ! I think,
Again twisting the logic around. I said the act of
"performing abortion" is not as defensible as protecting
the targets of fatwabaj from the fatwabaj. You failed to
see the "as" part. It does not imply bombing an abortion
clinic is right. But that issuing a fatwa on an innocent
women and killing her is more reprehensible than bombing
a clinic. THEY ARE BOTH WRONG. A bombing a clinic was
however a reaction to an act of abortion (it is a crime of
passion of some sort. Abortion can justifiably create a
passion). But issuing a fatwa is not a crime of passion
against a woman. Its just a crime against gender. This
part was really nitpicking besides making a wrong inference
about my thoughts (i.e defending the West, that was pathetic).
Too much is being read into my mind :)
The author further said:
>Many of the crimes and "mastanis" even on the streets of Dhaka
>regularly go unpunished. Therefore, will the author would conclude
>those as "acceptable social practice" ? What a travesty of reasoning.
Lets see where the travest really lies. There is a difference.
Mastans are feared by people. Nobody belieevs Mastani is acceptable.
Fatwabaji is not the same. It is still believed by many ordinary
people that it is justified (because of religious brainwashing).
And it is certainly advoctaed by many men (Besides the fatwabajs).
Even if peple wants they cannot punish the mastans because they
are powerful, have arms, and are backed by politicians. Fatwa bajs
are not armed, are not backed by politicians. If there was a will,
they could have been easily countered. The lack of will here (due
to ingrained religious brainwashing) is what marks the big differnce
with the unabated continuation of Mastanis. One is accepted/tolerated
(in the heart, by many) but the other is suffered through out of
a sense of helplessness/powerlessness.
The author further said:
>this is a typical example of what I am lamenting about representation
>of Bangladesh by our "westernized progressive intellectuals".
This is irrelevant to the issue of social issues of gender crimes
etc. An intellectual (or whatever) should not represent Bangladesh
by their lamenting remarks, personal thoughts, prejudices, beliefs
etc. They should (if at all) represent Bangladesh with their
achievements/accomplishments (professional, academic etc).
I would like to see what the author means by a "westernized"
progressive intellectual, vs. just plain vanilla progressive
intellectual. A precise definition is preferred with examples. Will
believeing in socialist dogma exempt a Westernized categorization?
Many white American intellectuals believe in socialistic philosophies.
They are quite numerous and are established in society (authors, poets,
professors etc). Are they western(ized)? Or ANYONE who doesn't
believe in the ideas of Marxist or Leninist ideas is Western by
definition? Need some clarification here. Or would anyone who
believes in free market "Westernized?" Then an orthodox Muslim is
also Westernized. Or what is it? Please help. Where will this
paranoid "westernized" label take one?. Can't we categorize
things/ideas/problems/solutions as "good/right" and "bad/wrong"
instead of by blanket labels of race, color, geography and then
lump them as good/bad etc?
The author further said:
>If any body has any feeling for so many victims of your country,
>then I urge you to give solutions and act, and not to escape, or stay
>over and above the society.
Sounds like a noble advice. I agree. It sounds better than blaming
the "progressive intellectuals" for the plight of the victims of our
country. Lets hear one solution. I was hoping I would hear one in
article 3271. All I have heard so far is criticism of the
"progressive intellectuals".
By the way, I consider all the readers of Alochona as progressive
intellectuals. My concern is not to defend the alochona readers
as much but to question the validity and propriety of the ACT of
criticizing the progressive intellectuals when the issue is the
analysis and reddress of social problems like gender crimes and
the relevance of feminsim to this issue.
I will plead to look at the mesage using logic and ignore reading into
the minds of the messengers by making wrong inferences and refrain from
blaming the progressive intellectuals etc for the problems in Bangladesh,
or for the failure to solve them. Again, as I said before. let us first
identify the blame where it belongs, i.e the PERPETRATORS and those who
are protecting/abetting the perpetrators (People, laws, social practices
and ingrained traditions, public policies etc). Whatever outlooks the
handful of "progressive" intellectual are being accused of, certainly
did not cause/lead to these problems, but were a side effect of these
problems. Identifying the side effect as the cause itself is a fallacy.
I agree that constant mention of these problems in Bangladesh is
useless and non-substantive. By the same token, constant crticisms
of others for mentioning these problems are equally hollow, and blaming
the mentioners as the cause of problems of Bangladesh is completely
off the mark. It may provide a convemeint scapegoat but not the solution.
In conclusiosn, I have to cry out for some logic which so painfully
missing in all these inferences about my mind in article 3271. :)
Hoping to hear some suggested solutions to the porblems in Bangladesh.
Thank You,
cosmic thinker
From me Sun Aug 27 17:31:18 2000
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: Men, Women and the state of Feminism
Greetings to all Alochoks,
I intend to wrap my posting under this August topic by doing a critical
review of various views expressed as well as providing my own my final
thoughts regarding feminism and related issue.
There were some exchanges on the validity of the word "feminism" when the
movement is for restoration of equal rights and not for the dominance or
superiority of one over the other. Although I share this concern for the
choice of the word "feminism", I also viewed the usage as appropritae since
it was context dependent and in a (hypothtically) reverse situation
masculinism (movement to fight for equal rights for men) would become
appropriate to the context. So viewed as a contextual term it becomes
appropriate now as the gender inequality is tipped against the females.
This clarification was also made by some female alochoks. One male alochok
was very concerned about the "westernness" of the idea of feminism and
even viewd it as another addition to White racism", "Nationalism","Capitalism
etc all created by the West for self-interest! A female alochok was quick
to point out that there's nothing western about the idea of fighting for
the equal rights for women and that the idea of feminism was there in Buddhism
and jainism etc. This is a universal imperative that should not be confined
within one racial boundary. The western defintion of femsinism is also quite
universal. Then the same alochok pointed out that definitions don't matter,
even fascism and nazism sound palatable when the official definition is read.
Valid point. But so what. Just because fascism or nazism have innocuous
definition does not lead to an inference that feminism is wrong as a movement.
The alochok failed to justify his objection to feminism as a movement.
I pointed out that as any movement there would be some extremist adherents
who don't represent the mainstream, so that does not invalidate the movement
or its idea itself, which is based on justice and equality. In fact gender
equality is the law in US. Its a]gainst the law to discriminate on the basis
of gender, it is part of the civil rights law passed in 1964 in USA where sex
is also mentioned in addition to race and color. So why should feminism be
wrong as implied by the alochok I have no idea. If radical feminists are defined
as those who activley fight for this right as opposed to merely believing in it
passively (As pointed out by one alochok) then it is all the more right to be
a radical feminist. But I define a radical feminist as one who operates on
the premise that all men are evil. For example these women would not feel a
pang of conscience if it is found that some one was falsely implicated in a
rape case and stayed in jail for 10 years. By the way there has been 66
certain cases so far of false imprisonment of supected rapists who were
aquitted since 1986 when DNA testing became avaoilable. All these men were
the victims of mistaken identifcation by the rape victim. To these radicals
it doesn't matter if the true rapist is jailed or anyone else. Any man is as
good as anyone else to be punished for a rape comitted by anyone. Some
radical feminists are not merely content with equal rights but would even
insist on rights in matters related to child custody and divorce issues that
are clearly unfair and unjust to men, factoring out the genuine cases of
indemnifications by abusive husbands and father. Men are not at fault in 100%
cases. Radicals believe that men are wrong 100%. They would refuse to even
look at specific cases as they believe that male gender is evil, no buts and
ifs. It is this brand of radicalism that worries not only me but many
mainstream feminists as well. As I mentioned before many women authors and
lectures have written and talked about the dangers of this kind of radical
thinking and the potential alienation of men and its negative impact on
gender war. The most passionate of them is Christina Hoff Sommers. Her book
"The War Against Boys : How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men"
is a fervent call on radicals to stop this obsessive male class bashing attitude.
Another book by female author Daphne Patai "Heterophobia : Sexual Harassment
and the Future of Feminism", which is according to the edtorial board of the
publisher: "A devastating expose of the way academic feminists are driving
their wedge between men and women.". A myth that these radicals base their
premise on (besides that all men are evil) is that no woman can do wrong.
The truth is that just as not all men are evil, not all women are saint
either. (Let me make this timely reminder to myself and to others that
overall, WOMEN HAVE BEEN MORE WRONGED BY MEN). Its a myth that
women cannot do wrong. In her book "When She Was Bad : Violent Women &
the Myth of Innocence", Patricia Pearson, who is a female, explodes the myth
that women can never be violent.
Then there is this added myth that these radicals (and even other
women) believe in about men not having sensitivity, emotions, tenderness
etc (Of course this is true for a large number of them). This myth also
has been exploded by no other than a female with good credentials. (men's
defense will have been laughed away anyway). TV therpaist and counsellor
Daphne Rose Kingma has written a book "The Men We Never Knew". In that
book she explodes all these myths about men not being sensitive etc. This is a
landmark book that may be the best thing one could have done to bridge the
gap in the gender war. As Dr. John, Gray, the author of "Men are from Mars,
Women are Venus" who in in his foreword to this book says, "For too long,
authors have placed women in a powerless victim role in relationship to men.
Very skillfully, without invalidating the legitimate pain that women have
endured at the effect of men and without minimizng thei need to express that
pain, Daphne reveals how women also share in the responsibility for the
proverbial war between the sexes.."
Lastly there is this factor of Biology that cannot be ignored. There is a
strong evolutionary pressure that are at odds with the cultural imperatives
that new age has brought. Regardless of what men and women consciously
think there is some biological factors that lurk within us and exerts its own
pressure unconscious of all. Equal rights require equal responsibility and
accountability and elimination of any special priviledges. Not all women
are prepared for that. Of course they wouild like to pick and choose and get
the most they can have. But that is too good to be true. Equal rights
without equal responsibility and accountability or with special priviledges
for one gender is an oxymoron. Many (of course not all) women are for this
very reason are against equal rights. It is no surprize that Equal Rights
Amendment (ERA) was vehemnetly opposed by women also. Woman political
activist Phyllis Schlafly formed a foundation called stop the ERA ! In her
book, "The Power of Positive Woman" she argues that women are not prepared
to handle equal responsibility as men as they are not as strong as men and
they cannot afford to lose the protective labor laws favouring women that
would disappear if ERA was passed. Needless to say feminists were on the
other side. It is an irony that ERA has never been passed (due to lack of
non-ratification by majority US states) even though it was passed by a male
majority congress! Even women suffrage, which was passed in 1920 was
opposed by a woman, Phyllis Bissell, a social reformer and lecturer. So there
is this biological difference that many women are not willing to fight aginst
and would rather prefer the trade off with less than equal rights but
some protection. They are ready to marshall all their muscle yet to
fight with men on a level plane. But that does not mean they don't have the
capability to. They just don't want to. Again I am refering to a subset.
I gave ample examples of women who actually had the capability and actively
went on to develop it fully and became space shuttle commanders, nobel
laureates etc.
Then there are some women on the extreme end of the spectrum, who are inspired
by Biblical passages and sincerely believes that happiness in marriage can
only come through submission of wives to their husbands! Christina McClelland
wrote in the Moody magazine (Jul/August 1998 issue) title "The Ugly 'S' word"
quoing biblical passages and citing her own happy marriage that submitting to
the husband is the best guarnatee for peace in the house.
Although my example are from US, the idea may very well apply to Bangladesh
also. My point of all these refernces is to emphasize the point that the fight
for equal rights is not a gender war, of ALL women against ALL men, but a
war that should be cross gender. Not all men are evil or wrong, not all women
are right etc. The fight should be against inequality, not against men.
There are male alliances in this struggle as well as female adversaries.
Finally vis a vis Bangldesh, the point worth making is that there the
fight is not only against inequality, but also against gender crime. Its
a more serious issue there. So feminsim as a movement to not only secure
equal rights but also to protect woment against all sorts of gender crimes
is all the more significant. Whereas in the west the main preoccupation for
women is to get equal pay and equal access to all jobs and better deals
in divorce and marital settlements, in Bangladesh the issue is besides that
also one of fighting against fatwa, gang rape, acid throwing, teasing by
men on the streets etc. How to initiate and sustain such a struggle would
be a good discussion thread for future. First gender discrimination can be
made against the law in the constitution like here in US. If the the elected
representatives inspite of their political bickerings can agree on the
exemplary punishment of gender criminals then that would be a good start.
Certainly the women representatives (there are quite a few now) can be
influenced by Bangladeshi feminist groups in this effort. But it has to be
a movement involving both genders for meaningful progress.
Thank You,
cosmic thinker
From me Wed Sep 1 15:27:35 1999
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Women's right to Polyandry
I think this whole issue of women's right to polyandry is being discussed
while skirting around the main issue of fairness, equality and logic. Instead
of addresiing logically why women cannot have this right most are jumping to
a defensive stand as to why men have been allowed this right or that one has
to take into account the extenuating circumstances under which this right was
granted in the early days of Islamic era, or how this right is being misunderstood
(esp by western media,the proverbial bugbear), all of the above conveniently
skirtng a logical response to the question as to why this inequality between the
genders exist as originally posed. While this "issue" of women's right to polyandry
is an academic one just raised to initiate an intellectual discourse, not as a
serious social issue of the day which is begging an urgent solution, nevertheless
one might as well analyze it objectively and rationally to make the discourse
meaningful, fair and interesting.
The only one response that tried to explain this inequality of rights was by
stating the imfeasibilty of determining the genetic father of an offspring in
polyandrous marriage. This to me appears a very poor justification of denying
a fundamentally important thing as right to equality. Is it important to know
the true genetic father of a child, when the prime issue in any traditional
family is the cohesion of a family, proper rearing of the child etc. The desire
to know the true genetic father is a subjective desire, the fulfilment of which
should not be tied to granting/denying a fundamental right like gender equality.
It simply defies logic. This kind of situation ethics or relativistic concept
of equality is too contrived and if accepted then one should also start allowing
all kinds of conditional eqaulity among races, colors, denominatins. One can
then argue that a certain minority community cannot be given equal rights as
that might offend the majority and create social instability (a more powerful
"argument" against equality than the knowldge of true genetic father in a
polyandry). In other words this kind of conditional granting/denial of basic
rights can be abused ad infinitum to justify/perpetuate unfairness to the
advantage of one group to the disadvantage of the other.
lastly it is interesting to see the rights of women (to polyandry in this
context) is being declared/judged by men only. Any fundamental right has to
be decided by participation of the entire population including both genders
if at all the common sense "a priori" equal rights is not convincing enough.
If women and men both by free will vote against women's right to polynadry
and in favour of men's right to polygyny then the common sense apriori equal
rights can be at least democratically and fairly overruled. But otherwise it
seems like an unfair denial of equal rights. My approach has been totally
inspired by a logical view and a desire to understand from a faundamentally
sound logical reason for this unequal rights. Of course this unequal rights
cannot go against me personally, being a male :). I would like to see someone
come up with more convincing rationale for this inequality which will be
timeless (not because of certain conditions existing at the time of advent of
Islam), and which will provide a more pragmatic "reason" or merit (Other than
just the infeasibility of tracking one's true genetic father). It would also
be nice to see women providing their input to this issue. Of course the idea of
polygamy (Polyandry+Polygyny) can itself be criticised and questioned out of
a sense of propriety/taste or practicality. But that would be fair as it would
not single out just one of the two.
cosmic thinker
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1999 11:21:57 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [eSHOM] Re: Equal rights in marriage
Abhijit,
You are taking a strictly binary view of dividing people into "liberal" and
"fanatic". It doesn't work that way. Most people are moderate somewhere
between these two extremes. Its not just the "liberals" who believe in the
"Universal Charter of Human Rights". Republicans believe in it too. Most
countries in the world signed on to it (Most would not qualify as liberals).
Many moderately religious folks also belive in "Universal Charter of Human Rights".
I am sure most Indians would believe in it? Don't you? (India was a signatory
to this charter being a member of the General Assembly, so was Pakistan). Its
only the small minority of fanatics and radicals (from both left and right) who
may oppose such a broadly humanistic charter of human rights.
I don't see any instance of "liberals" ramming their agendas on the public
by brute force. Only a Military Junta (Right or Left), Marxist or Theocratic
state/society can "ram" their agenda down the public throat. I see a basic
unfairness in equating liberals with fanatics. Maybe you are redefining
"liberal" here.
cosmic thinker
[..]
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 17:16:44 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [eSHOM] Re: Religion and Equal Rights in Marriage
On Sun, 19 Sep 1999 20:23:47 [email protected] wrote:
[..]
>Here we are missing the key point. These are beliefs and belief does
>not essentially go with "WHY". It speaks of a lot of "WHAT" but not
>much "WHY". If it is to be bound by a "WHY", it becomes philosophy or
>science.
And missing the key point again. When a "WHAT" is stated in response
to a "WHY" then the discussion becomes tautological and a wasteful.
Dr. Mizan's very concern/lament was that a "WHY" question is always
responded with a "WHAT IS" (or THATS THE WAY IT IS) type statement.
A "WHAT" answer is only relevant to a question which is of "WHAT IS"
type also. Let me summarize it:
A asks B: "WHY it is the way it is"?
Invalid response:
B answers: 1. "Thats the way it is"
2. BECAUSE "Thats the way it is" or
3. BECAUSE "thats the way it should be"
4. BECAUSE "thats the way it has been ordained"
Valid Response:
B answers : 1. Thats the way it is BECAUSE..(some argument which does not
require a blind faith to be convinced of)
2. I don't know why It is the way it is, but I believe in it
blindly, I cannot give any reason. faith cannot be rationalized.
>does not sound very comprehensive either. First, Koranic command of
>equal treatment is valid. The above verse accepts human weakness but
>at the same time commands reconciliation for any difference done.
It smacks of having it both ways. If one believes in religious
absolutism then weakness cannot be accepted. After all religion
is claimed to have arrived to rectify human weaknesses. After
all weakness->wrong. So to elimintate wrong, weakness has to be
declared unacceptable first.
>
>Finally, Islamic polygamy is not a forced marriage but upto the
>willingness of the women. Then again, the first one in her marriage
>contract can make it a condition of her marriage that the husband
>cannot remarry so that the chance of polygamy is effectively closed.
Why not the chance of polyandry be effectively closed by the same
clever reasoning after allowing it? That would be true equality,
wouldn't it? About the assertion above: "its not a forced marriage,
it requires willingness", is there any track record in the last 1500
years that an attempted polygyny by a powerful man was thwarted
beacuse of the unwillingness of the woman and the man stayed
monogamous as a result? Do all polygynic marriages result from
very willing wives? Who can verify that?
>That is why Islamic understanding is that polygamy is a previlege and
>not a right for the husband.
That is a known and incontroversial fact. The issue was not whether
polygyny is optional or compulsory. Thats a diversion tactic.
The real issue is either "Why even grant this priviledge"?
or "Why grant it to men ONLY ?"
>
>If we deal with anything that has strong religious connections, you
>need to count it and theological matter obviously will come in. If we
>really dislike it that much, then we better should stop discussing such
>issues. If we tend to supress those opinions on ground of "REDUCTIO
>ARTIUM AD THEOLOGIAM", that will amount to supressing different opinion
>in an autocratic fashion. The rules of democracy applies for all.
I agree. However I couldn't conclude from any part of Dr. Mizan's posting
that he was advocating suppressing anyone's views. He was just critiquing
it. So whats the contradiction?
regards,
cosmic thinker
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1999 16:24:08 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [eSHOMABESH] Re: "Allah Amader Kandte Dao!"
That was a moving article of one Jahanara Begum's (real or fictitious is
irrelevant) supplication to God about the mistreatment of women in
Indian Muslim society. This is something we are well aware of and hear
about often, so our usual reaction is to sigh and quietly move on or
verbally express our sadness at the mistreatment. But unfortunately it
was more than the usual in this case. Sadly every time there is a
message about an serious social evil (And women's mistreatment is an
serious issue, as are racial discrimination, communal violence,
colonialism etc), the knee jerk reaction, besides the usual verbal
denunciation of the social evil, is to analyse/theorize/hypothesize
about the messenger's motive and thus the whole issue bifurcates into
two, one about the messenger's motive and psyche (taking away valuable
time from the main focus) and the other about the social evil itself.
It can never be overemphasized that if a message is valid and important,
then creating a side issue of the messenger's motive dilutes the
importance of the main issue and ultimately benefits the perpetrators
of the social evil. A separate topic of "messenger's motive" can be
initiated where all the authors/reporters of all valid social
issues/problems will be analyzed if anyone finds it worthwhile.
What is being said is of much more consequence than who is saying and
how it is being said. Being obsessed with the "HOW/WHO" part instead
of the "WHAT" always acts diversionary.
Now the question was rasied by some about the authenticity of the
writings and the reality of Jahanra Begum. The point here is with no
evidence or knowledge one way or the other we cannot tell. But the
message itself is not unbelievable and the depiction of mistreatment
of women is quite realistic and not a tall story. So it is more likely
that Jahanara is real rather than fictitios. And I will base my
discussion on the premise of reality of Jahanara. Even if she was a
fictitious one made up by someone, that does not invalidate the message
of the article. We do read many poignant poems and stories depicting the
plights of women, the oppressed of the society etc and we are still
moved by it. These writings act as constant reminder of the existence
of such social evil which are crying for a reddress.
I fail to see why Jahanara is being criticized for her lamenting that
Muslim women cannot freely marry Hindu men with the same ease as Muslim
men can marry Hindu women. It is strange to see her being accused of
eulogizing Hinduism. One shoukd not forget that she is writing out of
depair and frustratation about women's mistreatment. Also what if that
shows her preference for Hindu society? Is that wrong? Can she not have
the right to decide for herself what appears preferable to her? If her
Muslim society cannot protect her from the mistreatment from the orthodox
men then for self preservation she should have the right to pursue any
route that ends her misery. Didn't many of the low caste Hindus of Bengal
centuries ago convert to Islam to end their suffering under the caste
system ? A dying person goes to (And should have the right to) go to any
witch doctor/Peer/Homeopath or what have you if allopathy cannot cure
their suffering. Only wearer knows where the shoe pinches. Lack of
security can and should entitle anyone to pursue any means to gain
security as long as it is legal and violtates other right and properties.
Characterizing her writing as a "motivated" attack against Muslim
"religion" was a bit of as stretch and justifying the defensiveness of
Indian community "against" reformation betrays a sincerity of the reform
itself. If it si agreed that reform is needed then how can one justifying
abandoning this importnant reform just beacuse of some "motivated attack",
real or perceived. A reform of a social evil is itself an imperative,
in its own right, irresective of whatever motive whoever may have for
whatever reason.
This article reflects the despair and plight of the Muslim
women of India. It is of no help to tell them that they are promoting
a "bloated superiority of the Hindu community". We condone the terroist
acts against innocents when the terrorisms are committed in the desperate
struggle for a valid cause (for example, apartheid, Palestine liberation
etc). Then why criticize these women when they lament that they cannot
escape their mistreatment by marrying off a Hindu man? After all, the act
of lamenting is far less (if at all) destructive than terrorism. I don't
think these women were making a blanket condemnation of Islam as a religion,
but the acts (with impunity) of some orthodox Muslims towards them. Of course
it is wrong to paint any religion with a broad brush. But these women are
sufferers themselves. We cannot expect the most puritanic and politically
correct style in their desperate writings. This criticism is the wrong
approach in my opinion. The right approach is to come to the defense of
these women, address their issue, prevent those mistreatments, enact laws to
ban such acts of mistreatments and punish those who commit those evils. Only
then these women will happily stop thinking about marrying Hindu men for
security. Just making a flip comment that these acts are not done by
"true" Muslims cannot help them. If they cannot be defended and protected
against these mistreatments by the "true" ones against the "untrue" ones
then this academic comments are useless and will fail to provide any sense
of security to them. It is true that not EVERY women are subjected to
mistreatment or equally. Neither are every member of a race or religion
subjected to racial or religious discrimination. But a social evil need
not wait for every member to be a victim before it can become an issue of
importance. So I don't see why the report should be diluted as "exaggerated",
because the acts depicted in the writing do/did happen to more than one woman.
The most important point is that there is no legal and social proetction if
and when it happens to them. I hope other readers will take a more
dispassionate look at the issue.
Regards to all,
cosmic thinker
Re: TALKING POINT - BBC
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 07:32:18 +0600
No, neither women nor men "should" surrender. If they choose to surrender
then it is their individual choice. There is no basis for a "should" here.
Laura Doyle's Book is by no means a revelation or a new insight in the social
sciences or sociobiology. It is not new either. Individual opininions like
these have been touted before many a times. There are shades of views and
propensities witin each gender. Even gender itself is not binary, but a
continuum according to many socio-biologists (Principal among them is Biologist
Anne-Fausto Sterling). So it is not surprising that some individual women will
reflect views that are identical with that of a crass male-chauvinist while some
men will hold views reflcting that of the most radical feminists. Among all
these shades of human views between and within genders the one important
point should not be missed is that "One should be free to pursue happiness
in the way that suits him/her best". There are those who find peace and
happiness in being masochistic. Many reputable female psychologists have
indicated an inherent masochism in females. In fact the mother of Female
Human Psychology Helen Deutsch have discussed in details in her two volume
tome "The Psychology of Women" this complementary aspects of men and women.
She says: "Masochism, narcissism, and passivity are the three key characteristics
of the female personality." These characteristics have connotations of
submissivity. But that should not justify a blanket generalization and
characterize all women to be such . By the same token if any woman finds
surrendering to her husband to be an effective way to achieve marital
harmony she should not generalize that to apply to all women as well, or
by the same token if a man finds being a henpecked husband suits him well,
then all the power to him, but to start preaching henpeckedness as the road
to marital bliss will be disingenuous. Marianne Williamson says in her book
Women's Worth - p-63 "Most of us want a masculine man, but there's no way
to have one unless we become feminine woman" and on p-91: "In bed, we want
to surrender, we want to feel he's bigger, stronger, on top, in charge, and
that he could be tough if he had to be". Is she reflecting the views of ALL
women? Certainly not.
It may be surprising for many to know that it was a woman activist who fought
against the move to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. Woman political activist
Phyllis Schlafly formed a foundation called stop the ERA ! She was representing
a substantial segment of women who would rather choose unequal rights and all
the priviledges of a conventional wife rather than compete with men for the
same priviledges. In her book, "The Power of Positive Woman" she argues that
women are not prepared to handle equal responsibility as men as they are not
as strong as men and they cannot afford to lose the protective labor laws
favouring women that would disappear if ERA was passed. Lucianne Goldberg of
the Starr report fame (who instigated Linda Tripp to tape Monica Lewinsky)
founded the Pussy Cat League in the 60's. She was advocating women's worth be
measured by how much she can attract men and called for doing anything to
please the men. So its a matter of choice. Traditional social practices suit
many women well, like staying home and not working and they were afraid of
loosing that option if true equal rights were implemented. But they should not
fear, since there will always be males to gladly accomodate them and vice versa.
For each strategy that a male or a female adopts, there will always be a willing
customer to complement that. If adopting a certain lifestyle/outlook appeals
to someone and works for him/her, all the power to him/her. So if a woman using
her free will comes to a conclusion that being subservient to her husband brings
peace in the family and improves marital relationship, and so decides to be
such then who is to challenge her?
A casual glance at the customer reviews of Doyle's book reveals the predictable
shades of opinions of females on such controversial approach. One woman reader
who considered herself a rabid equality feminist was all ga ga about the book for
helping her in her own marital life. Then there was this women who lashed out at
Doyle for proposing to take women back centuries and undo what they have
achieved and another argued, why not "surrendered husband instead?" Good point. :)
Many "brain washed" christian women also strongly believe in the Biblical view of
submissive women as being key to marital peace and stability (As does some Muslim
women) . They cannot be deprogrammed to believe otherwise. But to go one step
more and preach it as a panacea or as the best way to achieve a harmonious
relationship between spouses is ridiculous and disingenuous.
At the root of all these female submissivity view prefered by males is the biology
factor. It is the vestigial effect of evolutionary biology that subconsciously
molds thinking of humans (men in this case). The biology factor being the fear in
men of rearing other's child. Granting equal freedom to women may pave the way
for a liberated women to look for better/alternate genes for her offspring (Not
consciously, I must emphasize, but driven by a deep rooted biological instinct),
or in plain language, to enage in infidelity and become pregnant with the sperm
of someone other than her mate. This is traumatic for her mate as it is a
nightmare to rear a child sired by another. Male lions are observed to kill their
cubs if suspected to be sired by another male. Hence biology has instilled in men
the jealousy instinct which in turn has given rise to the male-bised culture/
tradition of submissive/loyal wife staying at home. Although not as relevant in
todays world as much (As gender equality is gaining ground among males ), this
primal instinct still exterts its influence in a vestigial way and thus we see
this culture/tradition in many male-dominated societies. Women who do
subscribe to this view reflect the effect of social conditioning in the society/
religion they grow up (The meme effect). These biological factors are the
uninanimous findings of biologists/psychologists (Many are women) like
Helen Fisher, Meredith Small, David Buss, et alia. So in conclusion, this book
by Laura Doyle just adds one more view to the already existing pool of views by
some women who believe in the female submissivity approach to harmony reflecting
Judeo-christian influence. Nothing more to it. I personally find this approach
unnatural as it contradicts our modern humanistic thinking of equality among
all humans, irrespective of gender/race/religion etc. We have developed (through
evolution) a thing called "cerebral cortex" which enables us to "disobey" the
obsolete primitive instincts of our reptilian brain.
With my regards to all,
Aparthib
From aparthib Tue Sep 5 16:26:23 2000
Subject: [bdesh] Re: A Double Standard Society
Interesting observation. Actually explanation of all these observations
fits very nicely into the new insights of sociobiology. All the previous
just so narratives of Standard Social Science Model (SSSM) are being
replaced by the scientific findings of sociobiology applied to sex and
gender. At the heart of this all is the idea of selfish gene and the very
way the human sexuality has evolved over millions of years. I must issue
the clarification that an "IS" should not be construed as an "OUGHT", i.e
just because thats the way it is deosn not mean I (or sociobiologists whose
ideas I am reflecting) am advocating thats the way it should be. That
inference is a mistake and is labelled naturalistic fallacy (promoting an
"IS" to an "OUGHT"). Our consciousness in brain is a relatively new
phenomenona (in humans only). But our primal urge to preserve and propagate
our genes is much more ancient (traces back to primitive ancestors, the
unicellular organisms, billions of years ago). So the gene sets the our
baseline sexual traits that we as conscious human can try to overrule and
improve. Beneath the veneer of culture shaped by the frontal lobes of our
brain lies the more primitive imperatives of the reptilian part of our
brain dictating our best mating strategy. Sociobiology can explain this
baseline characteristsics of the mating game that can answer why is it that
this "double" standard exists in Men (And make no mistake, in women too, in
a different way). All these mating criterion among men and women have been
documented amply in TV series like John Stossell's two ABC news
documentary 1. "Boys and girls Are different, Men, women and Sex
difference" 2. "Love, Lust and Marriage" (in 3 parts) or TLC cable
channel's Three part excellent documentary by Evolutionary Psychologist
Desmond Morris "The Science of Sex" eloquently sheds ligt on the underlying
imperatives that drive men and women into their choice of mates. The
overriding consideration is maximizing the odds of gene propagation. Men
and women's genetic instincts (inherited from parents as "memes", i.e
culture virus) drive them to select mates that maximizes the odds of the
offspring to survive best in the existing socio-cultural niche so they
theselves can propagate their offsprings in turn and thus continue the
chain forever. After all not species could survive in the game of
evolution. Many species have become extinct for not being able to adopt the
best mating strategty (other than external factors like astroid impact or
an eruptions of a supervolcano). Even among human species not all men and
women in the past have left any descendents. Our forefathers were the
successful ones (Thats why exist today). A lot of men and women died
childless, because either they or their ancestors didn't adopt the right
mating strategy. They are the truly extinct humans. This primal mating
instinct in men and women are guded by the urge to not become extinct. By
the way success doesn't stretch to one generation only. A successful
strategy (that of course evolves with time) is the one that sustains this
continuity over successive generations. Specific socio-cuoturtal
environments will dictate certain mating strategy unique to thet
environment. These strategies are not due to conscious calculations made by
the men or women but come as an instinct unknown to them, who respond to
their genetic commands slavishly without knowing them. A second
clarification that I must issue is that all these observations/explanations
apply to an overall/average trend among men and women, and not to each and
every one. Not each man or woman follow it slavishly. There are exceptions
that bend the baseline characteristics (disobey their genetic comands, so
to speak). Although the ideas of sociobiology is universal and broad, it
can be applied to speciifics. Maybe in the traditional Bangladesh society
the second of the the double standard (Of prefering certain traits in a
prospectuve wife) is dictated by the higher odds of a long and sustained
line of descendent IN a traditional Bangladesh society. If someone isn't
hung up on staying within the traditional bangladesh Societal framework and
is strng enough to survive defying it they can ignore this mating strategy
and opt for another. If you read more about sociobiology may be you can
come with a better explanation of this double standard. As I emphasized
this double standard does not aplly to every man in Bangladesh. There are
quite a few that are not infected by this "meme" of double standard.
Let me recommend some excellent books that I have read and and which have
provided valuable insights. All these books were written by scientists
(coincidentally most of them are women)
1. Mystery Dance: On the Evolution of Human Sexuality - Margulis and Sagan
2. Anatomy of Love: A Natural History of Mating, Marriage, and Why We Stray
- Helen Fisher
3. What's Love Got to Do With It? : The Evolution of Human Mating
- Meredith Small
4. Sex on the Brain : The Biological Differences Between Men and Women
- Deborah Blum
5. Why Sex Matters : A Darwinian Look at Human Behavior
- Bobbi S. Low
6. The manipulated Man - Esther Vilar ("An eye-opening book written by a woman,
exposes the double standard of women")
7. The Meme Machine - Susan Blackmore
Thanks
cosmic thinker
Subject: Marriage, socially sanctioned sex etc
Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2000 11:49:29 -0700 (PDT)
To: [email protected]
A number of views have been expressed on the role of social and sexual
factors on the institution of marriage and mate selection. As interesting
read as they are but they all seem to have ignored one important aspect that
is vital to the understanding of this universal aspect of human as an
animal. And that is the biology factor. Like Clinton used to say during his
election campaign, "its the economy stupid", I feel tempted to say in a
Clintonesque fasion, "its the biology stupid". I hasten to add that like
clinton I am only using it as an impersonal metaphorical sense. More
precisely its the evolutionary psychology, which is derived from
evolutionary biology. Without the guidance of this new paradigm, all
attempts to address, understand and analyse the issue of marriages and other
gender related rites will be trapped in words, no real insight can be
achiebved, one will go in circles, mistaking causes with effects, or vice
versa, or mistaking two correlated effects as one being the cause and the
other the effect, missing the point that both may be effects of a more
fundamental cause. Most of us laymen feel tempted to understand without the
overhead of digging into the scientific layer to gain a substantive
understanding. Human psychology and social practices can never be understood
by simple manipulation of words and one's personal biases and views. These
words can be deconstructed into banalities if some external objective
insights of our human biological nature is not taken into account. An
understanding comes at a price. Ignoring science facts and insights to avoid
some extra work and byapss it to jump straight to a conclusion will most
ofetn land one into mistaken perception. First let me clarify the important
concept of baseline. Biology sets the baseline of all racial, gender and
personal traits. Like author Debra Blum says Human consciousness (through
culture) acts as a modulating factor to alter that baseline on an individual
basis. The baseline is like the length of a spring (like that of a ball
pen). If left alone each spring is of different length. But with the
application of force it can be stretched or compressed to a shorter or
longer spring. A naturally shorter spring can be made to be longer than a
naturally longer spring by stretching the former and compressing the latter.
Just like each spring is manufactured different length, similarly the
baseline traits of humans are determined by genetic programming. Human
consciousness can act as a strecher or compresser to alter the genetic
baseline of our primal inherited traits which other animals cannot do due to
there undeveloped cerebral cortex. It is our cerebral cortex that has
burdened us with conscience and (an illusion of) free will to challenge our
biological roots and alter the baseline. Another clarification I should
make before proceeding further is that making a statment of how things are
or work DOES NOT imply an approval or justification of the way things are or
work or an excuse to perpetuate it. Most of all the social instincts that we
posses are vestigial lefover of the days when such instincts were directly
correlated with the biological imperatives of survival and propagation, an
imperative that we no longer have thanks to the incredible advance in
civilization that ensures our survival of our species and we are no longer
at risk of extinction from normal natural dangers. Only a nucelar holocaust
or an asteroid can threaten our survival now. Now to gender difference.
Bilogy/gene does set the baseline traits for men and women. We know now the
intricate interplay of hormones that shape the baseline male traits and
women as well. The main player is testosterone in men and estrogen in women.
Like Debra Blum says in her book "Sex on the Brain, p-166: "Gene determines
the baseline testosterone in male and females.
Environment adds the fluctuation around the baseline". BUT the role of
each hormone in the other cannot be ignored either. Then there are a
host of other hormones too that also interact and modulate human behaviour.
Its all those hormones taken together that make up each man and woman to be
what they are with all the unique personalitiy further shaped by
environment(culture) reinforcements. Culture Some have remarked that
arranged marriage is a socially sanctioned sex. If one makes a sweeping
statement like that to each and every marriage it may sound like a gross
stereotyping and unfiar to many couples, but as an impersonal statement
about baseline it may not be that far from the truth. In fact, not just
arranged marriage, marriage(mating) itself, if viewed under the micrscope of
evolutionary psychology appears to be a contractual act between the two
genders in any animal species. Bertrand Russell is famous for his quote that
marriage is a legal prostitution. Timely reminder, I am not (Nor are the
sociobilogists are claiming that it is the case with all men and women, but
it is the baseline tendency. We as individuals do have the potential to
override it, but many will conform to the baseline for pure statistical
reasons. In lower animals this sexual contract of sex is most obvious, they
don't posses the advanced cerebral cortex that gives rise to a higher level
of consciousness to modify their biological imperatives. This has been
documented galore in all kinds of animal research. In her excellent book
"Anatomy of Love" anthropologist/biologist Helen Fisher says in page 94 (I
quote exactly):
[ You may wish to argue that these women (and women in many other cultures)
all engaged in prostitution for purely economic reasons. But many say they
like the sexual variety. And the women who pursue this vocation are not
alone. The animal kingdom is rife with loose females. Chimpanzees/many
female birds/bugs/reptiles copulate in return for food. Among Australian
Bush people, the male's offering is called nuptial gift. Prostitution
deserves the venerable title "The oldest profession in the world).]
One may feel disgusted at the crass mode of stating it but Fisher is stating
a fact that she realizes as a biologist.
Psychologist Susan Blackmore says in her book "The Meme Machine" on page
124: "Women are more interested in the status of a potential lover than his
physical appearance."
Evolutionary psychologist David Buss's finding is that women put priority on
wealth & Status.
Dr. Laura Allen, a biologist at the University of California, says:
"Women want Money, men want youth and beauty" (p-209, Gender Shock - Phylis
Burke)
Another author Esther Vilar, says in no uncertain term in her outrageous
book "The manipulated man" that husband wife relationship is based on "sex
as a reward" basis. There is an entire chapter titled "Sex as reward".
Maybe she is extreme in her views, but she is not stupid either, being a
physician and having studied psychology. She also cautioned about the
exceptions and in fact she dedicated her book to the exceptions (both men
and women) who she calls courageous to break away from this mold. Now let me
come back to the easy and popular level of social attitudes and customs and
its influence on marriage. One thing all readers failed to address was the
choice factor. One school condemned arranged marriages (I also condemn it if
imposed on someone) and some eulogized its benefits. What is important is to
let an individual decide freely. Its true that long established social
customs can get so ingrained in someone (specailly a female) that they even
loose the courage to break away from it even if allowed the freedom to
choose how thay would pursue the search for a mate. Prolonged existence of a
custom can have a debilitating effect on individual's mind and cause sever
inhibition in them to be able to act freely even when given the freedom to
break away from the long held traditions and values. In a society that
forbids/discourages free mixing between genders, a boy or a girl has no
choice but to resort to arranged marriage even if their parents are open
enough to permit marriage through re;ationship. On the other hand in those
cases where a boy and a girl were able to strike up a relationship, their
orthodox parents got in the way. So it is important is develop a culture of
openness toward allowing relationship to develop between genders. And then
if anyone (man or woman) decides out of their free will to opt for arranged
marriage (Due to inherent shyness, lack of confidence in being able to
choose the right one etc) then by all means help them. And if on the other
hand anyone is capable of and is lucky enough to find Mr./Ms right on their
own then don't get in their way. Granting an option is the best course. Of
course sincere advice and suggestions should be acceptable as well, like in
a free market where one should be able to choose as long as it is not
against the law and basic human morality. I can bet if arranged marriage is
initiated as a social practice (as a choice, not by imposition) here in USA,
there would be no shortage of eager customers to avail of that as is evident
from talking to many Americans in personal conversations as well as in some
TV talk shows. Many will be spared the traumatic rituals of bar and dating
scene, where they are just looking for a wife without being too
discrimanting. Not all men and women (baseline) are looking for an ethereal
chemistry, the spark of a heavenly romance, the feeling that they were made
for each other etc. Many are pragmatic, just want to have a good provider,
or a good wife in the tradictional role etc. These desires are often
complementary between them. It is only with those who don't seem to toe the
baseline (Count myself in!) who requires something beyond this baseline (and
base!) criteria. Some have mentioned the arranged marriage of their parents
and how nice it worked out and objected to such a characterization to
sweepingly cover the ideal relationship their parents enjoyed. Its true such
crude characterization should not be appleid to each and traditional
marriage without qualification. But here the problem is that when tradition
gets so firmly entrenched in our psyche and where women are fed a romantic
vision of an ideal provider/nurturer who will take care of her and
substitute her father it is bound to generate a corresponding fantasy about
marriage in her and that heavy cultural conditioning will completely hide
the more raw factors that are at the root of the institution of marriage.
Coming back to a debate sometime back as to who to blame for the
exploitation of women in ads or the language and reqirements in matrimonial
ads it is now clear that to blame one sex or the other in isolation for this
is superficial and is a result of the lack of a deeper understanding. It is
a mutually feeding process that was inititated in the long past rooted in
the instinct for survival and propagation as a species and maximizing the
interest of the selfish gene. We see our image in the animals, specially in
primates. Culture has added a new layer to it. The only blame we can lay on
is on those who seek to impose any values and systems on others against
their will. We should condemn gender domination or control, abusive acts by
husbands toward their wives etc. If men and women are granted equal freedom
and rights and left on their own devices, any rituals, mating criterion that
one chooses to adopt and not under coerciion or using deceit, is a fair
game. It may be surprising for many to know that it was woamn activist who
fought afainst the move to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. Woman political
activist Phyllis Schlafly formed a foundation called stop the ERA ! She was
representing a substantial segment of women who would rather choose unequal
rights and all the priviledges of a conventional wife rather than compete
with men for the same priviledges. So its a matter of choice. Traditional
social practices suit many women well, like staying home and not working
and they were afraid of loosing that option if true equal rights were
implemented. But they should not fear, since there will always be males to
gladly accomodate them. And vice versa. For each strategy that a male or a
female adopts, there will always be a willing customer to complement that.
In fact the mother of Female Human Psychology Helen Deutsch have discussed
in details in her two volume tome "The Psychology of Women" this
complementary aspects of men and women. But again I must remind this the
"IS" part, not "Should" part. There are and will be those like me who don't
conform to this baseline. And its OK too. I can suggest the following books
for those posters who are interested in the topics of male female
relationship, marriage, etc These books are written by scietists who have
done years of research and come up with these remarkable insights in the
light of the fundamental lessons of Biology, genetics etc.
1. Anatomy of Love: A Natural History of Mating, Marriage, and Why We Stray
- Helen Fisher (1995)
2. Sex on the Brain : The Biological Differences Between Men and Women
- Deborah Blum (1998)
3. Beast and Man : The Roots of Human Nature - Mary Midgley.(1995)
4. Myths of Gender : Biological Theories About Women and Men -
Anne Fausto-Sterling (1992)
5. What's Love Got to Do With It? : The Evolution of Human Mating
- Meredith Small (1996)
7. The Alchemy of Love and Lust : How Our Sex Hormones Influence Our Relationships
- Theresa L. Crenshaw (1997)
6. The Meme Machine - Susan Blackmore
7. The Evolution of Desire : Strategies of Human Mating - David Buss (1995)
Date Wed, 25 Jul 2001 121918 -0000
Subject [Aalaap] Re Response to Shabnam Nadiya
[...]
1. True, women and men are biologically different. But even that
difference is quite minute in terms of the finer genetic analysis.
The gender characteristics in a human embryo only starts to develop
after six weeks of conception. Some biologists even refuse to accept
gender as a valid concept (Like Anne-Fausto Sterling in "Myths of
Gender: Biological Theories About Women and Men"). Another book that
also exposes more such views is: "Sex on the Brain: The Biological
Differences Between Men and Women - Deborah Blum".
Whatever difference at the genetic level between male and female that
biologists agree or disagree, there is almost no difference on the
fact that these differences have no bearing on their functionality
and performance as humans. That is mainly constrained by cultural and
environmental conditioning.
Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 09:00:37 +0600
Subject: [Aalaap] Re: The Complexion Complex!
At 8/21/01 01:17 PM, "Zakaria Khondker" wrote:
>like Bangladesh should look for darker skins that will have more biological
>advantages. Now is the time to rethink about our complexion complex and
>redefine beauty more scientifically, with more emphasis on
There are three aspects to this issue. The ethical aspect (The moral ought)
and the biological advantage aspect (The utilitarian ought) and the "The
right to have subjective preference" (The "IS" part since that is the way
it is for most). It is important to keep the distinctions.
The "OUGHT" part is really inapplicable here on any count. First, any use
of "should" in this matter of subjective preferences is a contradicion in
itself. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. One cannot ask anyone to redefine
his/her sense of beauty and consider an orchid prettier than a daffodil!
"Redefining Beauty" is an oxymoron. The only "ought" in a utilitarian sense
that can be meaningful as have been pointed out above is the relative
advantage factor for skin color in tropical region. But that also clashes with
the "Right to choose" clause. One can and is entitled to ignore the advantage.
More importantly, the characteristics that contribute to biological (genetic)
advantages are symmetry,height, and some other physical characteristics
(The three part documentary on DSC/TLC channel on 'The Science of Sex',
by Desmond Morris, sheds light on this fact quite interestingly. David Buss's
book on evolutionary psychology also refers to these advantages). Then one
should add those as well in the utilitarian "should" list. At the end this
utilitarian "ought" will eliminate a significant number of prospective mates
in principle.
So this utilitarian "ought" will invariably clash with a moral "ought" which
seeks to establish egalitarianism. So there is no way to speak of an "ought"
free from contradictions . We have no choice but to leave it is as "IS". Nature
will take care of itself. The important point is to realize is that the
indebatable "ought" is applicable to not "discrimnating" anyone for skin color
in all matters in society where equal opportunity applies. Mating is not one of
them and may be the only exception to this valid "ought".
Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 18:01:55 +0600
Subject: Re: [BMFC] PEACE in as the west does (P.C )
At 8/17/01 11:13 AM, you wrote:
>
> I guess if we can begin to regard some religions as 'different'
> rather than 'better or worse', we can begin to gain more tolerant
> atmosphere. We're far from this mentality though.
>
>
Ideally sounds good Cyndie. But as much as it may be
easy to verbally affirm the expression "different"
publicly for P.C reason, it would be hard (and needless)
to program one's own mind to believe in one's heart
that beliefs/values etc are ONLY different, not better
than the other (in a subjective sense). Its like trying to make
oneself believe that all women/men are merely different,
not more or less attractive than one another when dating,
even though for politeness we may lie and praise all
equally, or when voting Republican or Democratic , we do
not view them as merely "DIFFERENT", but we do make
value judgment to vote for one or the other. My point is
that it is not wrong (and is unavoidable, humans are
not robots that can programm themselves to think one
way or the other) to believe that "X" is better then "Y"
(Subjectiuvely speaking). What is wrong is acting on that
subjective belief /value judgement to unfairly treat
"Y" in PRACTICE. It is certainly possible (and should be
emphasized) to program one's mind to control our acts
and treat all fairly in practice, an analogy would be
irrespective of who appears most attractive to me I
will still select the most qualified person for a job/
promotion etc. I may have belabored this point, but
I think it was worth doing it.
Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 21:56:57 +0600
Subject: Re: [BMFC] PEACE Hugs right back at You! (women accomodating by nature?)
At 8/18/01 09:16 AM, N Fitz wrote:
>
> Has anyone else noticed how the messages seem to be
> divided between the males being more aggressive (no
> big shock huh?) and the females who seem to be
> reaching for peaceful means.
> Perhaps as nurtureres us Ladies just have an easier
> time accepting the differences between individuals!
While accepting the fact that males are in general biologically
programmed to be more aggressive than females (Thats the
animal part of humans) it is by no means a "no exception" rule.
And it is also true that males are in general more left brained
(logical and analytical, again always exceptions). Thats why you
noticed males to be more critical minded and logical (But there has
been signal exceptions to this rule in this forum where men have
shown to be very illogical, though argumentative). But being
logical/analytical is certainly not indicative of one's aggressive
nature. Does Mr. Spock look aggressive to you? Not to me. :)
Women in general (Again with excpetion clause) are indeed
more accomodatig and willing to ignore the differences or look
the other way when issues are raised. One may remember the
Town Hall meeting of Ted Koppel in Jerusalem where
Hanan Ashrawi (The women Palestinian spokesperson) looked
the other way when an Israeli audience asked why the
Palestinian's official website still calls for destruction of Israel?
All she could say, just focus on the good part. (Again ignoring
the issue of differences, being a women). In other words women
tend to sweep under the rug all festering issues for the sake of
accomodation. Nice intent. But doesn't work. Would have worked
in an all women world. But men and women are invariably joined
in all worldy affairs. What women sweep under the rug, men will
retrieve it when it gets stinking rotten and cause greater
damage than if they hadn't swept them under the rug, but confornted
them head on and resolved it then. But then they wouldn't be
typical women:)
Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2001 11:48:58 +0600
Subject: Re: [BMFC] PEACE History of slavery in Muslim nations ancient
At 8/17/01 09:20 PM, you wrote:
>
>There is no blameless society or civilization. Can
Agreed to all of the above. But I must add some
clarifications. Just because there is no blameless
(Repeat, its agreed on) society or civilization, should
that make it morally unjustified and considered finger
pointing to condemn/criticize/oppose any incidents
of wrongful acts of certain of religion/race at present?
Wouldn't that be tantamount to condoning such acts. How
do you propose to resolve this contradiction? Just an
sincere rhetorical question.
Secondly, its true past of ALL is a tainted one. But its only
that past of "X" can be compared with past of "Y", just as
present of "X" can be compared with present of "Y" to make
a point. But it doesn't help to cite past of "X" to justify
present of "Y" to make any point or vice versa. Now regarding
slavery, it is still there in Muslim world under a different guise.
I will refer all to the following two articles :
Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 11:01:41 +0600
Subject: Re: [BMFC] PEACE in as the west does (True meaning of Tolerance)
Well, it sounds great and is politically correct to affirm that "ALL"
are equally as good or as bad. But it would not be honest to say
that. By any objective criteria you set up you it can never lead to
a mathematical equality between them in any attribute(good or bad).
Tolerance should not require one to artificially affirm or believe that
all are equally bad or good in an unqualified way. Then it is no true
tolerance, as it becomes a mechanical one, not requring any mental
self-discipline. True tolerance is when despite BELIEVING that some
are worse or better than the others (in whatever sense) one still does
not DISCRIMINATE (in any sense) between them in PRACTICE and are
not PREJUDICIAL towards individuals in PRACTICE. That does require
a lot of mental self-discipline (i,e not reflecting one's belief in practice)
A good guide is, never INITIATE a "holier than thou" stance when no
one is saying anything one way or another. But if someone gratuitously
starts to preach superiority of their own religion/belief/race etc OR
gratuitously pick on another's as being inferior THEN its a fair game
to say "Tu Quoque" or argue in reverse. Yes, the West/Christianity had
a bloody past. But past is irrelevant, unless as I said if West/Christianity
starts to pick on the past of East/Eastern religion, then one should
point out the past of West/Christianity. But the issue of concern is
NOW/PRESENT, and when someone claims that Islam is the best
religion, best guide to life etc when majority of the countries based
on Islam still forces religious coercions on dissenters, women
(some may willingly accept such coercions as religious injunctions,
but that is irrelevant) and are officially discriminatory towards
other religions, or when someone claims that Hinduism is the most
superior religion, when the stigma of casteism is still not completely
ersaed, then can any reference to the stigmatic past of
West/Christianity help in justifying such claims of "holier than thou"
by followers of these religions at present?
The point is blaming game does not start simultaneosly by all in
unison. Someone initiates it. And we have to identify the initiator
and request him/her to quit blaming instead of blanket advice to
all, including the respondents to the initiators.
From [email protected] Thu 6 Aug 1998 15:04:42 -0700
Subject: Re: [ALOCHONA] How should we judge our leaders?
On Thu, 6 Aug 1998 17:07:52 Abhijit Mitra wrote:
>> that be a great idea? Imagine a person who was caught stealing from a
>> store...and he was made the Prime Minister. This person could not resist
>> stealing a mere thing....what do u think he will do when he gets so much
>> power? This may be a bad example...but it is the simplest.
>Makes sense. If when he has a grocery store at his disposal, he steals a
>loaf of bread, when he has the national treasury at his disposal, he will
>steal billlions of dollars. So then, I take it you don't disagree with
>Republican activists when they say if Clinton can betray his own wife, he
>can also betray his own people? I agree, what do you think?
The hypothesis that if one can commit crime on a small scale then one can
also commit crime on a larger scale can be justified ( on a plausibility
basis) only if the crime for each scale is of the same sort (e.g cheating
etc). But if the crimes are of different nature in the two cases then it
cannot be hypothesized with so much certitude. For example in Clinton's
case it quite POSSIBLE that he may not believe (in a dogmatic way) that
adultery is wrong although he had to routinely vow for that in the marriage
oath. But on the other hand he may believe in not stealing money from national
exchequer and may genuinely believe in implementing reforms in economic and
health sector to improve the condition of average Americans (not as a dogma
but out of sheer hobby/interest. But effect is same for the beneficiary, the
American people). My purpose of stating this is to show the fallacy of the
extrapolation argument and not to (or to) defend Clinton.
From [email protected] Thu 6 Aug 1998 19:17:07 -0700
Subject: Re: [ALOCHONA] How should we judge our leaders?
n Thu, 6 Aug 1998 19:52:08, Abhijit Mitra wrote:
> When one commits adultery in the Christian world, one is breaking the vows
> one took in church.
> When one becomes President, one takes a vow on the Constitution to protect
> and serve the interests of his country.
> Both are vows, are they not? If Clinton can break one vow, why can't he
> break another?
The relevant issue here is not 'WHY' one CANNOT break one vow
if he/she broke another. One can (maybe). The issue I addressed was the
logical flaw in making the CONCLUSION that one breach in vow necessarily
IMPLIES another breach of a DIFFERENT vow. As I tried to illustrate
(didn't seem to get across) through Clinton's example. One can take one
vow without MEANING it (since they don't believe in it their heart) and
take another vow which they happen to believe in their heart and wouldn't
break it as such. For example Clinton vowed to TRY to fix the health
care problem and indeed tried (but failed, but thats a different issue),
Betraying his wife (Hypothetically speaking, I have no proof, may be true)
would not change his genuine desire to fix the health care problem.
George Bush also didn't keep his vow that he would not impose new taxes
but did anyway. But would he (or did he?) betray his his wife and break
marital vow? I hope this time my point got across. :)
cosmic thinker
Date: Thu, 3 Dec 1998 15:56:38 -0800 (PST)
Subject: M5 - Re: [ALOCHONA] What is Love?
[Ullash-LMs: A very articulate mail followed by a love song at the end.]
Ahh, that eternal question! But lets lay some groundwork before we attempt an answer,
shall we? Lets agree first that there IS such an entity called love, or else one would
even have asked what it was. Like Descartes said "I think therefore I am", by asking the
question one is proving its (love) existence. Now Shuronjona is deeply disturbed by this
question. Lets see what I can do about it with my two cents (Hope its much more worth at
the end of this discussion :). Secondly, lets be careful to distinguish different
aspects of love, viz. (1) Romantic Love, (2) Filial Love. (3) Sibling Love and (4)
Philanthropy (Love of Humanity). I am guessing Shuronjona was disturbed by the
question as it applies to (1). (2),(3)and (4) hardly triggers any question. But this question
"Whats love" is raised usually by individuals dissatisfied in their romantic (love)
aspirations anyway. Nevertheless lets do some anatomy of love. Like all emotions it
should be perceived by either the CAUSE or EFFECT that is involved. For example
FEAR is the emotion that is CAUSED by a perceived threat of a physical harm and the
EFFECT is sweating, drying of mouth, rapid heart beat etc. Similarly love as a concept
can be understood by its CAUSE and EFFECT. Lets list them
CAUSE: (For love in the sense (1) above)
------
The beauty of a person of opposite sex in a integrated sense. This includes the
physical beauty, the charismatic gait, locution, manner, demeanor and last bu
not the least that special chemical reaction that exists between that persons
involved in the feeling of love.
EFFECT:
-------
1. Makes one want someone's company intensely even when there is no word or
conversation between them and a strong sense of missing them in their absence.
2. Makes the sight and and touch of that person extremely pleasant and and an
intense desire for physical intimacy.
3. A strong belief that this person was just made for you and that
the you have met your destiny.
4. Other effects that are in common with (2), (3) and (4).
These are the ESSENTIAL ingredients of love. Any other effects of love are
reflections of individual idiosyncracies and are not ESSENTIAL, in fact some of them
indicate infatuations, maudlin mush, obsession and may infact end up in a bitter
outcome rather than the pleasant/lasting effect that a true love is meant to be. In
a true, mature love, you needn't feel dumb, blind, crazy, lose thinking power etc.
for example Shuronjona says:
>Over all love is blind. You like to be in love, it is a nice feeling that
A blind love is what it is "blind". A dangerous entity :) Unpredictable
consequences :)
>One cannot think straight when one is in love. Every time when you are trying
Another dangerous effect. Not necessary.
>of one's life. It is a cherished feeling, filled with anticipation, worries,
>miseries, and happiness. It is also filled with emotion and excitement. No one
Miseries and worries are not DUE to love, but due to the imperfections
in the love or in the expression thereof.
>feeling that makes you act dumb, sometimes it makes you smile without a reason
>
No, you don't have to feel "dumb" to feel love. Maybe that is the
wishful desire of some who want to BE LOVED.
Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2001
Subject: Re: [Aalaap] The Rationalistic Fallacy
This is in response to the introductory comments of the article
"A Common Rationalistic Fallacy" posted on October 29. The article
of Mr. Massimo Pigliucci is well-written with many valid points and there's
little to disagree with. He is well-known skeptic and has written many
skeptical articles. I will as a side recommend reading his excellent article:
The Case Against God: Science and the Falsifiability Question in Theology
But the author of the preamble to the article of Mr. Pigliucci made some o
bservations that are not in sync with the article of Mr. Pigliucci and reflects
some invalid general characterizations which I intend to address.
Regarding the comment:
[An attempt to define "faith" strictly with the COLD tools of logic and rational
thinking may leave out the EMOTION--the rather illogical and irrational human
sentiments the presence of which is equally valid--which might be comparable
to someone's claim that she knows quantum mechanics when she might not.]
My response:
An attempt to define faith can not be done any way other than logic
because faith cannot be defined by faith, because the very notion of
definition is rooted in dialectics, not faith. And if the author implied that
any attempt to define faith (with logic or not) may leave out the
EMOTION, the question is, leave from what or whom? Well, regardless,
one can say SO WHAT, or SO BE IT. Intangibles like emotion cannot be
imposed ot taken away artificially. And if the emotional aspect of faith is
based on such factor that it evaporates after a putative logical attempt to
define faith, then such emotion does not have an ontological basis for
existence, and thus its sustenance or disappearance is not an issue worth
raising. And it ("it" according to the commentator is this logical attempt) is
NOT comparable (As was claimed above) to Mr. Pigliucci's quote of Feynman's
comment " If you think you understand Quantum mechanics, you don't
understand Quantum Mechanics". That quote of Feynman was made to
emphasize that Quantum Mechanics is extremely difficult to comprehend and
is not fully understood even now by any Physicist. Metaphorically speaking,
one needs to understand at least 90 % to know that they don't understand it
100%. It is the most profound insight of human understanding of nature, and
it still has unsolved mysteries, like the notion of "time", role of observer in
observation to name a few. So anyone who says he/she understands it does
not even understand it 90%, so in effect does not understand it. But the
commentator used this quote to make a point that has nothing to do with
the intent of Feynman or Pigliucci. A red herring fallacy indeed.
Next I want to address some allegations made in the intro. It was a
one-sided allegation that non-believers call believers this or that (stupid, hoax, .).
Now it is not hard to find one example of any case that one wants to zero
in, the fact is it is more often the otherway around. It is the believers who
more often call the non-believers "liars", "hate-mongers", "Immortal", "devils",
"paid agents of ", occasionally issuing personal threats.. If someone aspires
to act as a Prud'Homme and insist on prudery then for credibility the
insistence should be directed at all, including self. Attributing "cretinism",
"vomiturations of platitudinous fetors" etc to only non-believers, where such is
equally or more applicable to their detractors, takes away from the credibility
of any aspiring Prud'Homme.
Lastly, regarding making a big issue of calling something a hoax. Calling
something a hoax may be considered impolite if one insists on strict
adherence to prudery. But it does not make it wrong automatically. A is not
wrong when he calls it a hoax the claim of B that the earth is flat . It is not a
matter of perception or emotion. It is a matter of insisting on priggery. Whether
one uses the word hoax or not the fact remains that not all claims deserve
equal acceptibility, and some deserve outright rejection. Whether or not one
chooses to call it a hoax is a matter of political correctness, not perception.
When the claims of the discovery of "cold fusion" were rejected it did not
matter that it was not called hoax, it was rejected and spurned. There are
objective criteria to decide the degree of truth in a claim. Thats why we have
tests, reviews to screen out the false claims. Thats why astrology or dianetics
is not taught at schools at tax payers money, but astronomy and genetics is.
If someone claims to have seen a laws of science at work in scriptural verses,
it is dismissed by the majority scientists and is thus never a part of any
mainstream curriculum. Calling such a claim a hoax may not be palatable but
is not unjustified by any objective criteria. One important point worth noting is
that between two extremely opposing viewpoints the truth does not always
have to lie somewhere in the middle, but can lie in one of the extremes.
An example is when the claim of A that earth is flat is labelled by B as a
hoax, it does not make the labelling of B wrong, regardless of whether the
hoax is a due to a perception of B, or whether he was emotional in labelling
the claim of A as a hoax. The bottom line is that there are objective criteria to
label if something is a hoax or not. When such objective criteria are available
to make a judgment, calling a spade a spade may not be polite, but is not
incorrect either. It is the common myth propagated by post modernists that
all ideas, views are equally worthy, that none is more true than any other. In
other words, they echo the same mantra that nothing can be dismissed as
hoax, it is a matter of perception, and even the laws of science are mere
perceptions of scientists!. One can see the crass fallacy in all these. The
ultimate example to illustrate to what bizarre extreme the post modernists
will go to accomodate any views and ideas without considering its objective
merit is provide by the famous "Sokal's Hoax", where physicist Alan Sokal
intentionally submitted a paper as a hoax to see if it is published by a
prestigious post modernist journal. Lo and behold, it was! He tried an
unorthodox experiment: "submit to a fashionable American cultural-studies
journal, Social Text, a parody of the type of work that has proliferated
in recent years, to see whether they would publish it. The article, entitled
'Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics
of Quantum Gravity', is chock-full of absurdities and blatant
non-sequiturs.... By a series of stunning leaps of logic, it arrives at the
conclusion that 'the p [pi] of Euclid and the G of Newton, formerly thought
to be constant and universal, are now perceived in their ineluctable
historicity; and the putative observer becomes fatally de-centered,
disconnected from any epistemic link to a space-time point that can no
longer be defined by geometry alone'.
The article was accepted and published!. Worse, it was published in a
special issue of Social Text devoted to rebutting the criticisms leveled
against postmodernism and social constructivism by several distinguished
scientists. For the editors of Social Text, it was hard to imagine a more
radical way of shooting themselves in the foot.
So, the moral is calling something a hoax is not a big issue to raise, not
worth raising one's hackles, rather the big issue to be raised is the attempts
by postmodernists and puritanic stickler for political correctness to distort
the meaning of democracy to mean that all claims of truth are equally valid.
Aparthib
BMFC# 178
Re: to Cyndie, Re: Atheism kills imagination
At 8/17/01 07:31 PM, you wrote:
>
>[...]
>
Saudi Arabia lot more tolerant of it's people's
rights than other Muslim countries?? Any example
of such tolerance in SA not shown in any other?
SA does not let anyone play or hear music in public,
have strict dress code, women cannot go out alone.
Only Talebans can be compared with their intolerance
towards people. Saddam Hussein may be a ruthless
dictator, but a ruthless dictator need not be a religious
bigot. Iraq's foreign minister is a christian(Inconceivable
in SA). There is a thing called Bagdad Symphony playing
Western themes (Inconceivable in SA). No restriction
on women in public life (Inconceivable in SA). It is
because Iraq chose to be an ambitious nation while
remaining secular that it didn;t make any friends
among the Islamic regimes in Middle East. Even
Jordan, Syria also are more liberal than SA towards
their people. SA and US of A are bedfellows just to
share the oil/petro-dollar in everythings else they are
poles apart. US influence has zero effect on SA's social
policy (Not that the US cares, it only cares for oil). A
US soldier will lose his body limbs if he tries to do
some merrymaking like they do elsewhere.
Date: Sun Aug 19, 2001 12:24 pm
Subject: Re: PEACE No act of injustice should eer e overlooked by anyone
At 8/18/01 11:15 PM, other worldtrader wrote:
>[..]
While agreeing to the first part about a "group of
people" doing what you mentioned, I strongly disagree
to the generalization in the second part about "Muslims"
(implying ANY Muslims) not having the "same" love and
affection as Westerners (Implying ANY Westrners). It may
be true for the group referred to in the first part, but not
in general. One can cite more than one example of westerner
dumping their children/spouses for lust and comfort. Does
Susan Smith of Viriginia who drowned her three kids just to
be accepted to her boyfriend ring the bell? Can anyone beat
such cruelty? Generalizations are dangerous. It is very
important to EXPLICITLY add "not ALL" if ALL is not meant
in matters of such sensitive generalizations. This is not only
a case of stereotyping, but also a gratuitous "holier than thou"
utterance, both being untenable.
From me Mon Apr 5 1999 14:04:52
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [ALOCHONA] Calcutta Book fair and West Bengali Intellectual Elite
On Fri, 02 Apr 1999 17:31:26 [email protected] wrote:
Point #1:
>'The organizers of the book exhibition deeply disappointed the
>> > visiting Bangladeshis when their Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was formally
>> > introduced in the gathering as the Mukhaya Mantri '
>[...]
>However, I think that it was a serious faux-pas, and therez li'll or no base of the
>thought that W.Bengali intellectuals had to berate Bangladesh. I think it is being
>blown out of proportion by some section of Bangladeshi press. Is the reputation of
>Bdesh so fragile that it can be destroyed by single utterance of the word Mukhyo
>Mantri, that too at a place thatz politically and economically removed from the
>mainstream of India?
>
>I think Bdeshis who think in that fashion r actually giving vent to their lack of
>confidence in themselves. I am an Indian, if at any Pakistani gathering AVB is
>referred to as Mukhyo Mantri of India, I wud care the least- our source of pride can
>come from other sources like e.g., Prof.Sen's Noble or Indians at Microsoft who made
>Windows95 possible, and that pride is so strong that one statement by any other
>country's press/intelligensia wud hv least effect on me, as my pride in my country is
>too strong to be jolted by one statement. I just don't care what Paki press talks
>about ABV. To me, my pride will be hurt if Pakistan is able to secure more foreign
>investment than us. But yes, as a politician I wud hv taken strong objection to it if
>I hd the idea of getting a political mileage out of that, and that is what is
>happening in Bdesh.
>
Excellent point! [...] It is really
frustrating that there is a victim mentality when one is deficient in something.
The instinct is to blame on others and display supersensitivity to
criticism/prejudice/etc by others but almost zero sensitivity in focussing onto
oneself and trying to improve one's flaws and deficiencies, IF any. If one is
confident enough in one's ability and stature then other's views/opiniions/
mischaracterizations should only be dismissed with a laugh instead of a paranoid
hysteric reaction. A subtle thinker will realize that a paranoid hysterical
reaction only betrays one's inferiority complex. IF (Note IF) we are inferior then
the only logical think we can do is take practical steps to improve ourselves,
not a hysterical reaction. If we are not inferior then the whole thing is a
non-issue and we should move on.
>[...]
>Point # 3:
>
>The influential Bangladeshi intellectuals generally carry the reputation of
>> > looking upon Calcutta as the cultural Mecca, "
>
>If Calcutta/WB is the cultural Mecca, then so be it. If that is the wrong mindset of
>Bdeshi intelligensia, then itz upto them to correct it. Cursing Cal intelligensia will
>definitely not help. If Dhaka is able to produce one Rabindranath(sorry folks, he was
>from what is now WB, having established one (Vishwa Bharati) and helped establishing
>another (Jadavpur) university in what is now WB, and only had his zamindari in what is
>now Bdesh),one Nazrul(incidentally our neighbor at Manicktalla, Calcutta, and Promila
>Devi was a family friend of ourz, and Nazrul, one of the most stringent followers of
>Sri Ramkrishna and Kali-Bhokto), one Amartya Sen, one Mrinal Sen, and one Satyajit
>Ray, we will look at Dhaka/Bdesh as the cultural Mecca of Bengalis. But history and
>present is on the side of Calcutta/WB. I don't think cursing Calcutta intelligensia
>will help Bdeshi intelligensia get anywhere.
>
Agreed. But I question the assertion (Not by Raja Roy) "The influential Bangladeshi
intellectuals generally carry the reputation of looking upon Calcutta as the cultural
Mecca". On the other hand they are going out of the way to prove BD is DIFFERENT
(with sometimes implied superiority) from WB. The late Ahmed Sharif discounted
Tagore as irrelevant to BD culture and society. Many others feel that way. A small
segemnt may look upto Calcutta/WB. A third segment (the more balanced one) sees
the whole Bengali culture in its entirety made up of the long traditional Bengali
culture/litterature that developed in Calcutta/WB and the that developed in EB/BD.
It is wrong to put one over the other or to discard one for the other. We all love
the beautiful fairy tales of Dakhshinaranjan Mitra Majumdar (Thakurmar Jhuli etc),
works of Tagore, Nazrul, Jasimuddin, Sufia Kamal, Syed Ali Ahsan etc. There is a
universal Bengali appeal of chharas like "Hattimatim Tim Tim.." be it in BD or WB.
Thanks Raja Roy for your nice comments.