Tuesday 21 April 2015

Science and Creativity
I have repeatedly said that the means of solving India's ( and indeed the world's ) massive problems is science.
What is science ? Science is that knowledge by which we understand nature ( the object of the natural sciences ) or human society ( the object of the social sciences ), and utilize that knowledge for our benefit.
 In India, science was represented in ancient times by the Nyaya philosophy, and its companion, the Vaisheshik, both of which belong to the shatdarshanas or 6 classical schools of Indian philosophy ( see my speech ' Sanskrit as a language of Science ' delivered in the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, online or on my blog justicekatju.blogspot.in and on the website kgfindia.com ).
 According to the Nyaya philosophy, nothing is acceptable unless it is in accordance with reason and experience. True knowledge arises through the fo
ur pramanas ( means of acquiring true knowledge ).
 Of these four, the pradhan pramana or main source of acquiring true knowledge is pratyaksha, or knowledge arising through the 5 senses.
 But pratyaksha ( direct perception ) can also sometimes lead to false knowledge, e.g. we may see water at a distance, but it may be a mirage. So  correct knowledge may not always come from simple observation or cognition. We have to also apply anuvyavasaya, i.e. testing by reason, as in a cross examination, what we have observed, to acquire true knowledge.
 Apart from pratyaksha there are also other pramanas. The second pramana is anumana pramana ( logical inference or qayas ) e.g. where there is smoke there is fire. We may not be able to see the fire, and so there is no pratyaksha, but we can infer it from the smoke.
 Anumana is also an extremely important source of knowledge. Rutherford never saw an atom with his eyes, but he understood its structure by inference by the scattering of alpha rays ( helium ions ) when directed at a gold foil. Nobody has seen a black hole ( because it is so dense that light cannot escape from it due its gravitational pull ), but we can infer its existence and position by the movements of neighbouring heavenly bodies.
 Shabda pramana means a statement of an expert, and this is also a means of acquiring knowledge. For example we know that e=mc2, not by our own reasoning, but because it has been said so by Einstein, who is a reputed physicist, and we believe him, though we may not ourselves understand how he arrived at that formula. Similarly, a doctor is a medical expert, so we believe his diagnosis. In school we accept what our teacher tells us.
 The fourth pramana is analogy ( upama ). But the last three pramanas are ulltimately dependant on the first, that is pratyaksha or direct perception.
 The Nyaya Vaisheshik philosophy gave tremendous theoretical support to the growth of science in ancient India, and to our great scientists like Aryabhatta, Brahmagupta, Charak, Sushruta, Bhaskar, Varahmir, etc
 In Europe modern science begins with Copernicus ( 1473-1543 )., who in his book ' On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres ' said that it is the earth which goes around the sun, and not the sun around the earth.
 This was  an excellent application of what would be called ' anuvyavasaya ' in Nyaya philosophy.
By simple observation we see that the sun seems to go around the earth, as it arises in the east, goes up in the day, and sets in the west. But the principle of anuvyavasaya says that correct knowledge is not always obtained by simple observation. To obtain correct knowledge, the observation has to be tested by reasoning.
 So Copernicus ( and long before him, Aryabhatta ) reasoned that we would observe the same phenomenon ( of the sun arising in the east, going up in the sky in the day, and setting in the west ) if the earth was rotating on its axis. Hence he concluded that the earth was going around the sun, and not the sun around the earth.
Today we take this reasoning for granted. But for the medeival world it was blasphemy  It shook the Jacob's ladder which faith had built between angels and men, and the belief of men for 2000 years. It transformed a geocentric and anthropocentric universe into a kaleidoscope of stars and planets in which the earth seemed only a speck. It changed everything--distances, significances, destinies. And God, who had been close by, and who seemed to inhabit the clouds, disappeared into the far reaches of an infinite space,
This reasoning required a tremendous flight of imagination for those times, especially when this new and revolutionary idea was totally contrary to the seemingly time tested theory of Ptolemy, endorsed by the Bible. It required creative thinking of the highest order.
With Copernicus the modern age begins. With him, secularism begins. With him reason delivers a smashing blow to faith immemorially enthroned, and man begins his long journey to rebuild with science the shattered world of his fantasies.
Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Maxwell, Planck, Einstein,Bohr Heisenberg, etc were similary later scientists who defied conventional 'wisdom' and allowed their minds to soar, using their creative thinking
 I may take a recent example.The wave-particle duality in nature, which says that particles can be perceived as waves, and waves as particles, is a  striking illustration  showing how science tries to penetrate appearances and go behind the world of our ordinary experience to understand the truth.
 As is well known, Newton believed in the corpuscular theory of light ( that is, light travels as a shower of particles ) while Huygens believed in the wave theory, that is, light travels as waves. Subsequently the work and equations in electro-magnetism of the British scientist Clerk Maxwell seemed to support Huygens theory. However, later the Quantum theory of Max Planck seemed to support Newton's theory, and Einstein's research of photo electric cells supported Planck's theory.
 But still later Louis de Broglie propounded his theory that particles can be perceived as waves. This was later vindicated by experiments as it was found that particles exhibited the same features as waves, that is, they undergo diffraction, interference and polarization.
 Rutherford had established his model of the atom, somewhat like a solar system with a positively charged nucleus at the centre, and negatively charged electrons orbiting it. Niels Bohr postulated that the electrons could  move only in certain definite orbits, otherwise they would radiate energy and crash into the nucleus. And it was left to Schrodinger to establish that an electron would not radiate energy if its orbit consists of an integral number of de Broglie wave lengths.
 While for ordinary experience Newton's physics would do, it breaks down at the micro level and at speeds approaching the speed of light. Then Einstein's Special and General Theories of Relativity apply.
  Today the situation is that while we have made progress in the natural sciences, we have yet to solve the problems of poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, lack of healthcare and good education for over 75% of the world's population, including over 75% population of India's population. These problems cannot be solved by knowledge of the laws of natural sciences, but of those of those of the social sciences. It is to these problems that we have now to principally address, and to solve them will require tremendous effort and all our creativity

6 comments:

  1. Vijayaraj VP
    April 21, 2015 at 1:19 PM
    Dear Captain,
    In recently started JANAM TV - malayalam, Sanskrit news hour is included..... very happy to see the move by Channel to save the our SANSKRIT language. the mother of all languages.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=freapSaQ428

    ReplyDelete
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    Capt. Ajit Vadakayil
    April 21, 2015 at 1:39 PM
    hi vvp,

    sanskrit news must have SUBTITLES in english , local language

    capt ajit vadakayil
    ..

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    Shruti Khajuria
    April 21, 2015 at 7:40 PM
    hi captain,
    i remeber getting a reply of a query i had put related to making sanskrit news compulsory. they simply rejected it saying that its a suggestion not a query. I don't know where to put suggestions other than on twitter.

    Delete
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    Capt. Ajit Vadakayil
    April 21, 2015 at 7:57 PM
    hi sk,

    put a query again.

    ask them why they are REJECTING suggestions from a citizen .

    demand an answer.

    capt ajit vadakayil
    ..

    Delete
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    Shruti Khajuria
    April 21, 2015 at 8:07 PM
    This was there reply- "It is a suggestion a not covered under division in public grievance"

    Registration Number : PMOPG/W/2015/0042032
    Name Of Complainant : shruti khajuria
    Date of Receipt : 16 Nov 2014
    Received by : Prime Ministers Office
    Forwarded to : Department of School Education and Literacy
    Contact Address : Ministry of Human Resource Development
    Room No. 107 C Wing, Shastri Bhawan
    New Delhi110001
    Contact Number : 23381097
    Grievance Description : education: WE INDIANS DO NOT WANT GERMAN - WE WANT SANSKRIT . ALL BENAMI FRONT INDIAN MEDIA IS ROOTING FOR GERMAN, JUST SHOWS THEY ARE ALL JUDASES . Modi must ensure compulsory SANSKRIT NEWS on prime time WITH SUBTITLES . in future CONSCIOUS COMPUTERS which can laugh at a joke or tell the moral of a story, can be created by programming in DIGITAL language sanskrit , using organics and water for memory . http://ajitvadakayil.blogspot.in/2014/07/nasadiya-sukta-rig-veda-5000-bc.html
    Current Status : CASE CLOSED
    Date of Action : 26 Mar 2015


    Details : It is a suggestion a not covered under division in public grievance

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    Capt. Ajit Vadakayil
    April 21, 2015 at 9:01 PM
    hi sk,

    THIS SHOWS WHAT OUR PMO IS WORTH !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. WHEN YOU SEE A BOX- " FOR COMPLAINTS ONLY - NO SUGGESTIONS ALLOWED "

      IT MEANS THE AUTHORITY IS KAAM CHOOR --SEEKING TO COVER THEIR ASSES.

      WE HAD THIS SYSTEM ON OUR SHIPS AT SEA.

      THE SHORE OFFICE WANTED ONLY "PAST EVENTS "

      THEY WERE NOT PREPARED TO DISCUSS THE PRESENT OR THE FUTURE.

      IN MARTIME TERMS THIS AMOUNTS TO A NAVIGATOR LOOKING BEHIND AT THE SHIPS WAKE AND REPORTING ALL BEHIND THE SHIPS WHICH IS RUSHING AHEAD.

      I HAVE DEALT WITH SUCH SHORE BOSSES WITH AN IRON HAND AT SEA.

      I MANAGED TO REVERSE THIS TREND BEFORE I RETIRED THREE YEARS AGO - BY WRITING TO TOP BOSSES OF MARITIME AUTHORITIES..

      ONLY DRIPPING CUNTS ( OR KAAM CHORS ) WILL LOOK BEHIND AT THE SHIPS WAKE - AND EXPECT THE LOOK OUT MEN TO REPORT ONLY OF SHIPPING TRAFFIC BEHIND THE SHIP.

      http://ajitvadakayil.blogspot.in/2010/04/dynamic-risk-assessment-on-chemical.html

      THE POST ABOVE IS A CONDENSED FORM OF A LECTURE FOUR HOURS LONG .

      A hazard is something which is of potential danger , but it has NOT YET HAPPENED . This can be compared to a fishing boat right ahead while sailing. The look out man who reports this to the OOW has reported a HAZARD.

      ON PRO-ACTIVE CULTURED CHEMICAL TANKERS WE LIKE TO HEAR OF HAZARD WHICH HAVE NOT YET HAPPENED –THE SAME WAY THE BRIDGE OOW WILL TAKE A DIM VIEW OF THE LOOKOUT MAN WHO REPORTS FISHING BOATS IN THE SHIPS WAKE.

      Once the fishing boat has gone behind the ships wake , it is no longer a hazard, for it has happened. It could now be classified as a NEAR MISS if the ship missed it narrowly or it just grazed the ship—scrapping off paint and causing a scratch.

      Of course if the fishing boat was damaged severely or it sank it is now classified as an ACCIDENT.

      This is why capt ajit vadakayil was famous at sea-- he never suffered CHOOTS gladly.

      capt ajit vadakayil
      ..

      Delete
  2. STOP PRESS;

    WHY ARE ISRAEL DARLINGS ARUN JAITLEY AND RAGHURAM RAJAN KEEN ON ISLAMIC BANKING IN INDIA?

    HAVE THEY NOT HEARD OF AN ISLAMIC “front”BANK NAMED BCCI - RUN BY THE JEWS , BASED IN PAKISTAN ?

    Did they NOT hear of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International scandal of the 1980s, which funded activities such as money laundering, terrorism, arms trading, and the destabilization of governments?

    i am right now watching the movie THE INTERNATIONAL on star action movies . it shows how R runs Islamic banking using his crypto Jews in Pakistan, Saudi ,Kuwait etc

    The "black network," arm of the BCCI bank functioned as a global intelligence operation and a Mafia-like enforcement squad.

    Operating primarily out of the bank's offices in Karachi, Pakistan, the 1,500-employee black network has used sophisticated spy equipment and techniques, along with bribery, extortion, kidnapping and even, by some accounts, murder.

    The black network - so named by its own members – stopped at almost nothing to further the bank's aims the world over- and this included laundering HEROIN DRUG MONEY..

    Our coastguard just caught 600 crores of Pakistani heroin, right?

    The more conventional departments of B.C.C.I. handled such services as laundering money for the drug trade .

    I used to work for a Hong Kong based company in 1991-- everyday walked past this BCCI bank at Maker Chambers . Mumbai Nariman Point. The swank office was just open with swank staff – full of good looking girls – no business was going on.

    This shipping company based in HongKong ( owned by a Jew ) forced all sailors to open an account in BCCI bank.

    Otherwise you monthly allotment to you family will arrive 2 weeks late. So many sailors lost their money.

    The US National Security Council used B.C.C.I. to funnel money for the Iran-contra deals, and the CIA maintained accounts in B.C.C.I. for covert operations.

    B.C.C.I. worked closely with MOSSAD / CIA in arms deals.

    B.C.C.I. was started in 1972 with the putative mission of becoming the Muslim world's first banking powerhouse.

    SO OUR ALICE IN GUJJULAND IS REALLY NAIVE , RIGHT ?

    http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/Kerala-govt-gets-RBI-nod-for-Islamic-banking/articleshow/21887855.cms

    http://www.sunday-guardian.com/news/swamy-sabotaged-islamic-banking

    THANK GOD SWAMY SABOTAGED THIS BANK.

    BCCI bank’s original purpose was to pay bribes, intimidate authorities and quash investigations.

    capt ajit vadakayil
    ..

    ReplyDelete

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    ReplyDelete
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