Subterranean Homesick Alien

Science and its Methods (Part 1 - Induction)

2011-06-02T23:45:00.007+05:30

It is for a fact considered that Science is our best hope for finding the true picture of the universe. It is so supposed that the scientific findings are free from the personal outlook, idiosyncrasies, or the individual ideologies of the scientists (both theoretical and experimental), who work on the research programs in the related fields. That is to say that Science is Objective. But recent arguments (spanning from the refutation of naive induction by Bacon, through Popper's Falsificationism and till Kuhn's Paradigm Shift - all to be explained in this and subsequent posts) has shown that science might not be as objective as we suppose it to be, and hence cannot be taken for granted.

For one, since the very start of the Scientific observation, we have based our laws on the outwardly strong, but inwardly hollow principles of Induction. Induction is just as simple as saying that the Sun will rise in the East because it does so everyday. That is to say that repeated observation of a phenomenon can support a scientific law. This seems a very plausible argument, which can be supported by our everyday experiences. Ofcourse Induction is a driving force, and an important one at that, for initial observational capacity of science, and it plays an important role. For a child in his very primes, it is inductive experience that (s)he might fall on a wet floor; it can be said that the child may fall down, making the same mistake again and again before (s)he realises what to avoid. This is the beauty of Induction, for one it does not need an extensive logical structure, for one it is inculcated in life forms much lower than ourselves. Hence to sign off Induction as a falsehood might not be amiable on our part.

But what Induction lacks is a skeptical, logical outlook. For example - if I have only seen white coloured rabbits in my whole life as for now, I cannot conclude that rabbits are essentially white only; and for the factual part, they certainly are not. That means that as we increase the number of observations, it may so happen that we could find a disparity that we never foresaw, if we had made a theory just out of Induction.

Now one may argue that Induction, is indeed statistically correct. A strong point in favor of Induction; but then can we base a scientific law on statistics? This I would leave as an open question, the one I would try to reason out in the next post.

Die Logik (Vol 1)

2010-08-02T19:59:00.005+05:30

This is a new entry on the already present huge world of Blog Carnivals.
The basic Reason to build this one, was the lack of Blogs dealing with Science as a Philosophy, on the blog-sphere, something that bugged me a lot.

> The First post, "10 Ways to Tell If You’re a Tree-Hugger", on the blog "Environmental Science Degrees", was a witty one. Ron Delfs, the author, has distinguished between a real tree hugger and the one who is faking it as it is an IN fag. Well Ron, thank you, for making me realise on what points I satisfy as a true tree hugger and on which ones I fail!!

> The second post reminded me of a book I read quite a while ago - "An Introduction to Philosophy of Medicine: Humanizing Modern Medicine" by "James A. Marcum", and specially 2 chapter in the book "Patient as a body or Person" and "Emotionally detached concern or Empathic Care". In the post, I'm talking of, "10 Incredibly Unlikely & Inspirational Physical Therapy Stories", on the Blog "A Hearty Blog", author Jennifer Kingsley, has noted down the second aspect of both the chapters I have mentioned - i.e. Patients as persons and the empathic look towards them rather treating them as merely mechanical bodies. Appreciable post.

>The third happened to be of my interest. Romeo Vitelli, in his blog "Providentia", posted a very interesting event under the title "The Flat Earth Fiasco". The psychological analysis of the Wallace-Hampden story was something that made my nerves race. It matched with my taste of read. This is a blog I will definitely follow!!

In all a good response for a first edition.
And a big appreciation to all the three authors who contributed. Thank You.
Keep Blogging and stay in touch.

Vocabulary for a Philosopher

2010-07-21T01:22:00.008+05:30

There is a lot of linguistic gap that needs to be covered for a student of philosophy, specially one involved in its scientific methods.
One such instance happens when I say something to be Illogical.
Illogical in English may mean something deprived of logic. But I don't mean to say that, nothing is deprived of logic, yes the extent of involvement of logic may differ. In the same way when I say Impossible, I do not mean something that cannot happen, but something that is rather improbable, i.e. the probability of it happening is very less. Hence, illogical means that certain thing makes lesser logic at that particular level as compared to higher levels.

So lets define two new terms in retrospective of Scientific Philosophy.
1) Illogical
2) Impossible

We certainly use these term a lot in daily life and more so often when discussing scientific undertakings. First of all, as I have said before, nothing can be illogical. Yes the degree of logic involved may vary. Lets take a look at the Logic - Complexity Pyramid again -

Again as mathematics lay on top of the pyramid as the most logical science ever bestowed upon mankind, its logic is supreme. Physics is a close contender, moreover because it is highly dependent on maths, for logical backing of itself. The main reason for this is because, while mathematical logic covers everything and represents it in the simplest of forms (ofcourse using symbols and equation, which to a layman may seem very complex!!), physics requires a more complex procedure of observation and inferences, which then are utilised to form mathematical models. Hence while maths claims everything to be probable, in what so ever proportion, physics holds this to be tested by observation, though with advent of quantum mechanics, this barrier between physics and maths is dissolving.
Now when me move further downwards, in theological and social perspectives, not everything is probable, or in simpler terms, things might occur which can be called "Miraculous".
I'll give an example - A large comet that falls on Earth as a meteor can be taken as a point of reference.
Now mathematically, this is rather a usual event, as every comet in the universe always has a probability of falling on Earth, the probability may vary from 0.999999999999999 to 0.000000000000001, but there is always a probability that this event can happen any time, hence a Mathematician who is, let us suppose, devoid of social links will never call it illogical or impossible (I prefer the word improbable), because for him, it always had a probability, yes statistics must be showing it as improbable, but he always has a tool of probability that dictates otherwise.
For a Physicist, this event is probable as maths dictates him, but if he is astronomically sound, and has been observing the sky, and never had a hint of this comet coming the Earth's ways, then for him it would be a bit surprising, though this can be attributed to error in his observation. Hence the level of illogical in physics with respect to mathematics increases, more things can be put as illogical (or low on logic) in physics than in maths.
For a theologian, who has neither the backing of maths or physics, this would be highly illogical, and so will it be for any layman, they would consider it as a Divine Miracle, if the approaching body is large enough, they might think of it as the end of the World when the object strikes the Earth. Here illogic increases its hold.
Hence the term Illogical is relativistic. The last case of Theological Logic would be considered as illogical in respect to Mathematics or Physics. But that does not mean that it has no Logic involved. How can I say that? Well if a theologian has studied his scriptures, he must have read about such events taking place in older times, though very rarely. He must also be guided by his scriptures that this is a divine sequence of events, and that it must have a effect on astrology. This dictates the Logic of the Theologian. Hence his point of view does not lack Logic wholly, but lacks it in terms of the more logical branches present above Theology.
Same is the case for Impossible, anything considered impossible on a level, loses its impossible character at the level just above it on the logic - complexity pyramid. A simple way to avoid the use of Impossible, is to use the word improbable instead of it, which necessarily means having a low probability. Hence the ambiguity is resolved to a level.

The problem is not with the sciences, its with our language. Philosophy, or any science for that, requires a constant upgradation of language, as the words already present, become insufficient to express the true meaning of new developments.
Also in case of sciences like mathematics and physics, which lay at the higher levels of logic, the use of a language is not very efficient, as when an equation is expressed in words, it looses its true meaning to the expression. Therefore many a time, a physicist's book for layman turns out to be more confusing than enabling for the layman to understand physics.

The solution is, ofcourse upgrading the language, and use of words that don't imply things very strongly, as it leave out the scope of doubt inherent in any science.

With all due respect to the Octopus, and the Parrot!!

2010-07-11T01:23:00.006+05:30

Football World Cup 2010 brought it with the thrill to millions of fans across the world. Ofcourse the question right from the beginning has been, and had to be, who will take away the World Champion trophy this time. And Football being a religion to millions, the enthusiasm had to build up, and what do people do to take out the enthusiasm, well, they may head to the matches and support their teams, engage in betting, both harmless and not so harmless, and finally circle around an octopus who seems to predict the results of the match and, out of sheer inquisitiveness, try to find out, before hand, who will win the match!!!
The result - Paul the Octopus gets world fame, what is it that he possesses, is it supernatural psychic powers which can tell the result of a match? Certainly he is an important piece of assured news to fill the empty slots of the masala hungry media, and for the people alike. What ultimately comes out of it, and it is something that would fly right across the face of an educated world, is a mad rush to what he will predict and if his predictions are right or not.

Meanwhile, a Parrot in Singapore comes to challenge Paul's decision. When Paul predicts Spain to be the world champions, the Parrot comes up to support Holland. Now the match reduces to if Paul would be right or the Parrot come out as the victorious psychic being. And as the world goes crazy over the showdown, and not football showdown I mean, it dawns on me how lame can people get over some pseudo scientific phenomenon.

I have a simple explanation based on Probability and Statistics.
Now each match has 2 probabilities - Team A wins, or Team B wins.
Therefore the probability that Team A wins = Probability of Team B wins = 1/2.
This is equivalent to a coin toss, where both Head and Tail have a probability of 1/2.
Now Paul has predicted 6 matches accurately, an analogy that you toss the coin six times and ask your friend "Head or Tail?"
And there is a fair possibility that he guessed it correctly all the six times.

So I and my brother, did the experiment. He tossed the coin, I predicted the side it will land on.
At the first go, I successively predicted 2 times the correct side.
Second try, I was able to guess 5 times.
Third try, 3 times.
Fourth Try, spot on 6 times.

That means it is not impossible to do this kind of stuff. Certainly, you may say that he did it the first time itself. I say yeah thats a lucky break, in lay man terms.
As we keep on increasing the sample space for the experiment, the probability keeps on decreasing, hence 6 times the coin toss, and guessing the right answer all the time is 1/64 (approx one in every 64 tries). Not tough at all, as in drawing a card from a well shuffled deck of card and getting the card you wanted is 1/52, (i.e once in every 52 trials) and then too while playing cards you may get the card you wanted, so Paul's prediction is not that a big deal, as the press has made it. And Paul has been wrong, Euro Cup 2008, Paul predicted Germany to win over Spain in the finals, Spain won.

The disappointing fact is that, an educated world keeps falling for pseudo scientific blunders like these. Paul the Octopus, Prophecies of Nostradamus, those of Fatima, and dozens of other mystics, who roamed throughout the History. I guess it is the human tendency to get an assurance of the future, but I hope we can atleast enjoy a match without the hocus focus of prophecies.

Why do Westerns believe that Indians are Good Call Center Employees??

2010-06-22T23:43:00.008+05:30

With so many hands, and heads and ears....
Certainly after seeing the Indian Gods, they drew this kind of picture of Indians in their mind!!!
Indian Gods generally have a lot of hands and heads... The post intends a pun on this appearance clubbed with the fact that the largest profession in IT industry in India is outsourcing and B.P.O. service providing.....
No intentional hurt to feelings intended....

The Kitty Art of Survival

2010-06-19T20:14:00.006+05:30

In late 1930s Schrödinger wrote:
"One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter, there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small that perhaps in the course of the hour, one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges, and through a relay releases a hammer that shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts."

This was a thought experiment to counter the Copenhagen Interpretation (developed by Bohr and Heisenberg), which states that more than anything, the observer is necessary for the interpretation of a system, the direct and desired application was that Light which by then was certainly a co-existence of particles and waves, could be looked upon as any one independently and the result would be according the parameter taken in account.
Schrödinger on the other hand maintained that the path of the object came into existence even before it was observed.
The above experiment was a thought experiment by Schrödinger to oppose the Copenhagen interpretation. The Cat in the experiment could be at any moment considered to be dead or alive if we didn't open the box. The direct conclusion that Schrödinger drew was that this state of Limbo that Copenhagen interpretation levied on the cat was impossible.
Though this experiment was flawed as Bohr later argued that the wave function for an observer inside the box would be different for one outside (link 1, link 2 for those interested in higher understanding), the experiment has become a cult example to show the uncertainty in every aspect. Classic examples are that of Sitcoms like Bones and The Big Bang Theory and Comic Strips (link).

Certainly, if Cats could read and understand, they would be freaked out to find themselves stuck in this state of Limbo....

Questions on Logic and its application in Religion (Discussion)

2010-06-15T17:09:00.000+05:30

Are our religions just blindly dictating a logical form which they cannot handle??
Or is it that the Logic, we have conquered till yet, insufficient to explain religious questions??

Experimentation on a new form of debating on the web.
Open for a whole week from
Wednesday, 16 June 2010 at 20:00 to Wednesday, 23 June 2010 at 20:00

Rules-
1.All points must be stated in the comments.
2.No points before or after the starting and end time will be entertained.
3.This is not a competition just a discussion.
4.Indecent language will not be tolerated.
5.Anonymous posts are welcomed but it is advisable that the person puts down his name.
6.It is an intellectual discussion, and citations for every argument must be provided if necessary.

Delhi goes "Green" @ X and Y

2010-06-06T00:22:00.000+05:30

A satirical approach to how "Environment Day" has reduced to a capitalist venture.

Click here to read.

X and Y.

Homage to Russell

2010-05-27T00:03:00.000+05:30

"Most people would rather die than think: Many do."
- Bertrand Russell
One of the most influential figures of 20th century, had his 138th birth anniversary on the 18th of May 2010, and 40th death anniversary on 2nd of February 2010.
His most important works include, work on Logic, Philosophy and Mathematics. But most importantly, his anti-war and anti-nuclear bomb movements, that got him convicted for more than one time.
"All movements go too far." He said, and truly demonstrated in his life.
I'm sure, he is one of the most read and highly regarded person in the history of world.

History Channel Video on Bertrand Russell..

Sorry, Indians not allowed!! @ X and Y

2010-05-15T02:49:00.000+05:30

A new commentary on Society.

Click Here to read.
X and Y

Whats the Fuss all about!! @ X and Y

2010-05-08T03:13:00.001+05:30

(People Celebrate Kasab's sentence)

Is this all we have reduced to, rejoicing the dystopian death, even if it is that of a terrorist?
Find out on X and Y. CLICK HERE to read.

Blog Address changed

2010-05-06T15:06:00.000+05:30

Sorry for the inconvenience to all the followers, the blog address has been changed to alienhomesick.blogspot.com
This has been done to make access easier. Thank You.

The Hindu History of Glory @ X and Y

2010-04-29T14:35:00.000+05:30

Take on claims by Hindu Fanatics on our Glorious History of Technical Advancements.

Click Here to read it.

Or go to X and Y.

Who wants to be a Milli-ampere?

2010-04-27T21:05:00.000+05:30

[Image courtesy- Kaun Banega Crorepati (Indian version of Who wants to be a millionaire), Concept by Author of the Blog]

Richard P. Feynman, gave the popular Quantum Mechanical theory, according to which, a fast moving subatomic particle, travelling from path A to path B, can be considered to be travelling by not just one path, but all the paths possible, for such a transition.
The theory is called "Sum-over-Paths" or "Path-integral formulation".
Feynman, was a American physicist, who taught at Cornell Institute and later at California Institute for Technology. His major contributions were in field of Quantum Mechanics, specially in explaining the behaviour of Sub atomic particles.
He was also present as a Physicist, throughout the Manhattan Project. Known for his charms and adventurous nature, he is considered one of the best scientists of the 20th century and certainly the most charismatic of them all. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965, and has a collection of various popular books on his life and science.

Understanding is Relative...

2010-04-27T19:15:00.001+05:30

[Image courtesy- www.CartoonStock.com. Idea belongs to the author of the blog]

Einstein, had on several account given a story about how in his younger days he would spend hours thinking, what would happen if he was sitting on a wave of light. To further extend it to the light as a cosmic speed limit and absoluteness in its speed with respect to any other object, he added that what if he was holding a mirror in his hand? Would he be able to see his image in the mirror or not? Newtonian Laws of Motion stated that if one travels at speed of light, the relative speed between the person and the light would drop to zero, in such case, it was not possible to see ones reflection in the mirror. Einstein, on other hand, proved that for a person travelling at any speed, including speed of light itself, the speed of light will always remain a constant, i.e. light would not slow down as you gain speed, hence one should be able to see his reflection in the mirror.
The above comic depicts that relativity exists not in only physical significance, but in people's capability to understand stuff.
Hope you get it, if not questions are welcome.

What if Newton was sitting under a coconut tree and not the apple tree!!

2010-04-26T00:46:00.001+05:30

[Image copyrights- John Cowther (edited to suit the idea). Idea belongs to the author of the Blog]

Certainly, it wasn't a one day's work to bring up a theory like that of Gravitation.
While the apple story goes around very well in explaining the concept, one wonders if it really happened. Anecdotes has played a big role in explaining science to laymen. Be it Newton's Apple or Galileo's dropping of metallic balls off the Pisa Tower (he instead had constructed an inclined slope and with ball bearings of different masses calculated the acceleration due to gravity as we know today). And if we consider, it is very useful when it comes to explaining science.
Surely it seems as if Newton came up with the story to explain people about his miraculous discovery that had combined the terrestrial and the celestial, or maybe it became a legend as it passed on from people to people.
Whatever, it has proved to be an interesting lead in explaining people gravity.

Problems with deriving Maths from Philosophy.

2010-04-23T22:36:00.005+05:30

I have recently observed that people try to derive maths from philosophy, trying to do the reverse process where we use mathematical logic in philosophy. I would like to draw the attention to the 'Logic - Complexity Pyramid'. If we take a look at it, we will find that maths lies on the apex of the pyramid, logically the superior-most of all the sciences in respect to its logic. In mathematics, we can finally represent everything in form of zero or one, hence mathematical logic is either presence or absence of an entity. Gradually moving down, the logical complexity increases, i.e. maths has the supreme and singular logic while Physics, lying just below it has mathematical logic plus logic derived from experimentation and observations. It must be noted that in Physics maths is only used as a tool to represent what is observed (example Kinetic energy can never be zero, even if a mathematical equation states so, or the use of -ve and +ve sign to denote charge). The logic becomes more and more diverse and less singular as we move down. The Biological sciences need the the logic of Chemistry to explain both physiology and psychology, the social and theological sciences need the psychology to explain the behavior of men as a group. And on at the base of the pyramid is philosophy, most complex of all the sciences and lacking singular logic. It utilises the logic of all the above mentioned sciences (maths, physics, chemistry, biology (including psychology), social sciences, theology, etc), and forms the most basic science which tries to explain everything. Maths on the other hand tries to, in the end, reduce everything to 0s and 1s. Philosophy takes these 0s and 1s, combine them with logic of physics and social sciences to find out why it is so. Hence playing the larger part in answering of more complex questions, but with least singularity in logic.
A perfect example of tracing maths from philosophy would be to try and find out an equation for metaphysical speculations of human brain. The flaw in this method is that though you will be able to process some information for the required equation, but you will have to take in account the social, theological and spiritual logics and hence the equation will never be able to suffice the test of universal applicability.

Deriving maths from philosophy, is like you try to trace a river back to its source from its mouth but in the process only take in account the main river and not its tributaries. In this case he traced this river back to the glacier of maths, but neglected the water of logic contributed by the tributary.
The analogy is significant. You are at flaw if you try to do this, and that is because you cannot neglect other branches of science while studying one of them, in this case mathematics. Sure you will get results, but they would be as ambiguous and flawed as your methods.
The question arises that can maths actually answer our philosophical questions? The answer is both yes and no.
Maths help solve our philosophical turmoils but only when combined with other sciences and never while acting alone. The Hierarchy needs to be understood, and applied, with each step moving downwards.
I won't say that the pyramid cannot be traced from the base back to the top, but it certainly is a difficult task than the one usually undertaken, i.e starting from top and moving down.

I'm a Citizen of this Capitalist Nation @ "X and Y"

2010-04-14T06:41:00.001+05:30

Another post on the Capitalist life style that we have embraced so easily and mindlessly.

CLICK HERE to read.

X and Y

Let's Capitalise on DEATH @ "X and Y"

2010-04-14T00:48:00.000+05:30

New Blog @ X and Y, sarcasm on Capitalist issue of Obituaries that appear in the newspapers.

CLICK HERE to read.

X and Y.

The "Unknowable" and the "Unknown"

2010-04-02T22:20:00.001+05:30

I am not a follower of Osho, and neither have a read much about him. Therefore talking to a friend who knew about him and his teachings, I realised my opinions about him were not very accurate.
First of all I would like to remark that he had a lot of influence (or similarities) to Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophical ideas.
Said that, I would like to jump to the real reason to write this blog.
I don't know if what I have been told is totally true, and I have not been able to confirm it on the net (my only resource for this particular topic), so I'll consider what I know to be accurate, (readers are welcomed to illuminate me if I'm wrong)
Just like Wittgenstein, Osho said that "Everything cannot be explained", specially in case of The Creator. Or as my friend said - "Unknowable" (i.e. We can never find out if God really exists).
This followed a debate with him of which we reached no conclusion (as usual for such topics).

The basic point where I differed from him was that while he maintained God as "Unknowable", I kept it as "Unknown" and claimed that with further expansion of science, we may at some point know if he exists or not. My point was that God is nothing but a mass imagination, which can be explained by psychological studies.

But I confess a problem with Psychology, yes it is the least developed science, and that can be explained on basis of one aspect all together. We can study the psychology of any lower life form (apes for example) but not that of equal ones.

Hence it is likely impossible for humans to discover their own Psyche. It is attributed to the fact that while studying Psychology, the observer needs to be more intelligent than the subject. While we can study apes, we will need some superior alien life forms to study us. The reason is that we can always be deceptive and manipulative, which an equal life form will not be able to detect while a superior one would be.

But I do maintain, that studies on apes have revealed that Mass Perception of concepts and illusion is possible. I haven't been able to locate any example of it on internet, but as soon as I do, I'll provide a link.

Finally, I would like to say that I consider God as Unknown and not Unknowable.

Angels and "DAN"mons

2010-03-27T14:44:00.000+05:30

Logic-Complexity Pyramid

2010-03-27T13:57:00.001+05:30

Purpose of Being.....Questions on Aim of Life!!

2010-03-26T21:31:00.000+05:30

All the Religions have an underlining thought that we have a purpose here on earth and thats what the Lord Almighty has sent us here for. This can be defined as the "Purpose". All the religions have defined that we have a purpose, but ambiguously enough to leave the scope for further addition or editing.
Many people may argue, that science also defines a purpose, but let me first clarify science as two different aspects-
1. Science as a Philosophy
2. Science as a Technology
While science as a Technology always has a purpose, that is to make life easier and efficient for humans, hence it has both "Purpose" and "Efficiency" aspects, Science as a Philosophy only has the "Efficiency" aspect, it doesn't define a purpose, just laws of nature that strive for efficiency in their applicability and prediction of events. So please don't confuse between the two.
Now moving back to the original question-
What is the "purpose" of life, as defined by different religions?
I researched on a lot of religions and concluded on two purposes that most of them define. Let me take them one by one-

1. Praising the Almighty- All the religions (with exception of some sects of Buddhism), cater to the belief that the most important thing in life is to praise the almighty, for creating us and this beautiful life and to pray to him for better times and our needs and to thank him for whatever is happening and whatever he has done.
It seems to me as though God, if religions are really his spokesmen, had a very noble purpose in his mind while creating us, and that was that he needed beings to praise him and to worship him. Certainly we have a very egoistic God who needs to be praised then.

2. To follow God's will and then be rewarded for it by achieving Heaven- Certainly every religion tells us that good deeds of our are rewarded by an afterlife in Heaven and opposite for misdeeds by afterlife in Hell. Certainly it looks like Reality TV, oh lets have THE HEAVENLY IDOL, or SO YOU THINK YOU CAN GET HEAVEN.

Other purpose of life is that God wanted intelligent beings like us to explore his laws and meaning of world, this again looks like God's idea of an ego boost. Or that he wanted to observe that how well can intelligent beings respond and adapt to his laws, certainly he isn't God then, Because he needs to observe and conclude hence he never had the supreme knowledge.

Anyways, this ambiguous, double standard talks of religions have certainly left us with weird conclusions, certainly we are either a show piece of God's creativity that he can boost his Ego with or else we are in a reality show, working for the rewards of heavens, where we may spend our afterlife.

To conclude, I would say that we have no purpose of being...we are here because we happened to be a part, a stage in the elegant process of evolution, and that to one with enough brains to raise questions on existence and the need of a superior being and, most important of all, existence of ourselves!!

The Sitcom of Resurrection

2010-03-18T01:54:00.000+05:30

(Pseudo)Science and Existence of Soul!!

2010-03-15T20:04:00.000+05:30

An interesting thing happened lately...
I got involved in a blog argument (my first one)....
The guy I had the argument with, some random guy who believed in oneness of universe and the idea of soul and, this one is truly disturbing, soulmate.
This got me thinking about the realm and influences of the Pseudosciences in our society.
Just to give an example- Karl Popper once said that astrology is one of the most prominent Pseudosciences as the practitioners kept a lot of the 'science' behind it confidential. Even those who (claim to be) more transparent, always predict in a manner that is too vague to be refuted. Also it has been seen that the practitioners never give stress on developing the science and to update it.
To give an outline definition, Pseudoscience is anything that claims to be a scientific endeavour but doesn't adhere to any scientific methodology.
So I set myself for a little research on it over the internet.
I found a few post (the first page of google was filled with his reference only when i searched for "Existence of Soul") from this scientist called "Marco Biagini, PhD. Solid State Physics". So first of all I set to search more about this person, I found a facebook profile, after searching a lot of Marcos, by his name (contained Trojen virus); a twitter profile (27 followers and no tweets) and also a few sites which claimed to have his personal information (they all turned out to be some other Marco, and on searching for like 3 pages I found a slight reference which was nothing more than what I already knew (Name and PhD in Solid State, no reference to where he works, lives and any other credible information).
Anyway I read his posts on the "Existence of Soul". Ambiguously written and based on only the argument of conscious, ofcourse forgetting things like evolutionary biology, it argued about the existence of soul based on the above point alone and only against the materialists.
One of them, which I found utterly interesting goes like this-
"An independent argument to prove directly the existence of God is the following.
Science has proved that the state of the universe is determined by some specific mathematical principles and equations, the laws of physics. However we know that mathematics cannot exist by itself, but it exists only as a thought in a conscious and intelligent mind. In fact, a mathematical equation is only an abstract concept, which existence presupposes the existence of a person who conceives such a concept. Therefore, the existence of this mathematically structured universe does imply the existence of a personal God; this universe can exist only if there exists a conscious and intelligent God conceiving it."
Can someone please explain me what this is supposed to mean. Does this mean that God imbibed mathematical concepts in us?
Then certainly we should have known all the maths as soon as we gained consciousness after infancy.
Other links to his arguments are-
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/fedeescienza/answersnf.html
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/fedeescienza/answersnf.html#dom19e
http://hypography.com/forums/philosophy-forums/1516-scientific-proof-of-existence-soul-god.html
(sorry, I didn't know how to insert the link so please copy and paste them)
I wasn't able to get a word they said. If you do then please explain them to me too.

A Thinker......and A Philosopher!!!!

2010-03-14T10:56:00.000+05:30

Philosophy....What it was!!!....What it is!!!!

2010-03-14T10:15:00.001+05:30

Philosophy, like science has never been static, rather it has been equally dynamic as science.
Philosophy as a realm of study started long ago with trace able accounts of Socrates and Aristotle. At this point of time we cannot distinguish the sciences from it.
Aristotle observed the Moon and the effect of Earth's shadow on it and logically concluded that the Earth must be round (example of his scientific aptitude), he combined it with the theological status of the Earth and placed it on the center of Universe to give us the model of the Universe (example of his philosophy as it had no logical conclusions) that Church adopted, and later Copernicus and Galileo discarded to give us the Sun centric model (science detaches itself from philosophy or rather science moves ahead). But science and philosophy can never be detached. With the advent of the 20th century and development of Quantum Mechanics and Relativity, we see a very drastic change in science, where Classical science was replaced by more logical and observational methods. Same happened with philosophy.
Philosophy became more logical, even at times much more that physics to form a new realm of studies, which we today study as Meta Physics.
Even the Social Philosophy went a step ahead to collect data and records to interpret social trends more logically.
Now the point is, if we don't cling on to the classical science till date, why cling on to the old philosophy??
The Neo-philosophers, if I may call them, conclude logically to the given facts.
They don't day dream about the society but work just like a physicist to reach theories.
Moreover philosophers like Russell and Popper even have criticised science on rational bases for ill logical conclusions (read my previous post 'Philosophy of Science and Questions on Existence!!!').
To conclude with, how many things have you kept with yourself since the medieval times??
None I guess!!!
Then why Medieval Philosophy???

Philosophy of Science and Questions on Existence!!! (Continued)

2010-03-13T21:29:00.000+05:30

Philosophy of Science and Questions on Existence!!!

2010-03-13T20:06:00.000+05:30

Bertrand Russell in his book - "The Scientific Outlook" (Routledge Publication), claims to a very interesting aspect of scientific discovery. He has correctly and insightfully observed that more and more philosophical thoughts are coming from Physicists. Also that as we know from the ascent of Quantum Theory, we have reached a point where even an atom has free will to act as it wants, what it is restricted by is the probability and a set of equations. With this he claims that the Philosophical Oneness of Universe has rightfully collapsed, as we have come to realise that the concept that world is Unity is rubbish and to claim that it works on the concepts of continuity, orderliness, coherence or any other property that professes Love is rubbish. But recently Physicists have abandoned logic which supports the above statements and have vouched for Theology as an explanation. Many Physicists have pronounced that in recent course of advancement, it is probable to re-establish the truth of religion. Russell has expressed the doubt that most of these physicists have done this not on the basis of their scientific outlook but as a responsible citizen to defend virtue and property.

One of the most devastating arguments against these thoughts of Theology derived from physics is that if God exists and exists as we define him- the Creator of Heavens and the Earth and its controller, we cannot vouch for the Second Law of Thermodynamics, i.e. that with time all the Universe is becoming more and more chaotic. If God existed as we see him, The Unity to the Universe, the orderliness and the coherent Being, why is it that the laws of this perfect and orderly being are just his opposite, i.e. the ones that make the Universe full of chaos?

The question that can be asked is this- Is God amenable to his laws or not? If he’s not, then we cannot infer him by any causal law and hence no Physical experimentation can lead to him existing in any form. If he is, then he is bound to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and hence he also must have a creator at a point and thus loses his status as a Creator.

The dilemma of existence of God continues with the theory of Evolution, with Theologians and a bunch of Physicists arguing it as the God’s divine plan which is unfolding slowly. Russell gives is that how can we justify the ‘Divine Plan’ of God when he even after being infinite power, lets children die in young age due to meningitis? Some argue that the child has to suffer his parent’s sin, how can we justify this as a just law of God? (Ok so your father stole, lets imprison you?)

He later argues that today the scientists are so dismayed by the wrong use of Science that they restore to the older traditions and theological explanations, which is opposed to the basic scientific logic. And this is pitiful for a scientist.