On History

ఈ మధ్య కాలంలో చదవగానే చురుక్కుమనిపించి, మళ్ళీ మళ్ళీ గుర్తొచ్చి, ఆలోచించగా "ఎంత నిజం!" అనిపించిన వాక్యాలు -

It is the misfortune of humanity that its history is chiefly written by third-rate men. The first-rate man seldom has any impulse to record and philosophise; his impulse is to act; life, to him, is an adventure, not a syllogism or an autopsy. Thus the writing of history is left to college professors, moralists, theorists, dunder-heads. Few historians, great or small, have shown any capacity for the affairs they presume to describe and interpret. Gibbon was an inglorious failure as a member of Parliament. Thycydides made such a mess of his military (or, rather, naval) command that he was exiled from Athens for twenty years and finally assassinated. Flavius Josephus, serving as governor of Galilee, lost the whole province to the Romans, and had to flee for his life. Momssen, elected to the Prussian Landtag, flirted with the Socialists. How much better we would understand the habits and nature of man if there were more historians like Julius Caesar, or even like Niccolo Machiavelli! Remembering the sharp and devastating character of their rough notes, think what marvelous histories Bismarck, Washington and Frederick the Great might have written! Such men are privy to the facts; the usual historians have to depend on deductions, rumors, guesses. Again, such men know how to tell the truth, however unpleasant; they are wholly free of that puerile moral obsession which marks the professor.... But they so seldom tell it! Well, perhaps some of them have—and their penalty is that they are damned and forgotten.

HL Mencken వ్రాసిన Damn! అన్న పుస్తకం నుంచి.

చరిత్ర సృష్టించే వారు, చరిత్రలో నిలిచే పనులు చేసే వారు, ఆ అనుభవాలను చరిత్రగా రాయడానికి అర్హులూ అయిన వారికి, పోస్టుమార్టం రాతలు రాసే సమయమెక్కడ ఉంటుంది? నిజమే, మానవాళి చరిత్రను 3rd rate men రాయడం దౌర్భాగ్యమే.

así es la vida!!

Dog finding a rainbow

It is no more crazy than a dog finding a rainbow. Dogs are colourblind, Gretchen. They don't see colour. Just like we don't see time. We can feel it, we can feel it passing, but we can't see it. It's just like a blur. It's like we're riding in a supersonic train and the world is just blowing by, but imagine if we could stop that train, eh, Gretchen? Imagine if we could stop that train, get out, look around, and see time for what it really is? A universe, a world, a thing as unimaginable as colour to a dog, and as real, as tangible as that chair you're sitting in. Now if we could see it like that, really look at it, then maybe we could see the flaws as well as the form. And that's it; it's that simple. That's all I discovered. I'm just a... a guy who saw a crack in a chair that no one else could see. I'm that dog who saw a rainbow, only none of the other dogs believed me.

Kate and Leopold

Stupidity, Intelligence and Erudition

In this world the apogee of intellect is to be very clever, very smart, very complex, very erudite. I do not know why people carry erudition in their brains – why not leave it on the library shelf? The computers are very erudite. Erudition has nothing whatsoever to do with intelligence. To see things as they are, in ourselves, without bringing about conflict in perceiving what we are needs tremendous simplicity of intelligence. I am a fool, I am a liar, I am angry and so on: I observe it, I learn about it, not relying on any authority, I do not resist it, I do not say ‘I must be different’, it is just there.

We live in confusion. What should one do? If I am stupid, Sir, it is no good trying to polish that stupidity, trying to become clever. First I must know I am stupid, that I am dull. The very awareness of my dullness is to be free of that dullness. To say ‘I am a fool’, not verbally but actually say ‘Well, I am a fool’, then you are already watchful, you are no longer a fool. But if you resist what you are, then your dullness becomes more and more.

Love and Pleasure

Is love thought or its product? Can love be cultivated by thought - become a habit? Is love pleasure? Love as we know is essentially the pursuit of pleasure. And if love is pleasure, then love is also fear - no?

What is pleasure? We are not denying pleasure; not saying we must not have pleasure; that would be absurd. What is pleasure?  You saw the sunset yesterday evening; at the moment of perception there was neither pleasure nor pain, there was only an immediate contact with that reality. But a few minutes later you began to think about it; 'what a delightful thing that was'. It is the same with sex. You think about it by building images and pictures; thinking about it gives you pleasure. In the same way, thinking about the loss of that pleasure - you have fear - thinking about not having a job tomorrow, being lonely, not being loved, not being capable of self-expression and so on. This machinery of "thinking about it" causes both pleasure and fear.

Is love to be cultivated as you would cultivate a plant? Is love to be cultivated by thought? - knowing thought breeds pleasure and fear. One has to learn what love is, learn, not accumulate what others have said about love -

To understand love is to understand death. If one does not die to the past, how can one love? If I do not die to the image of myself and to the image of my wife, how can I love?

One Drop

एक् खत्र हयात को सिखाता है सबख

क्भी शब्नम बना कभी गोहर बना कभी अस्ख   - Iqbal

ఒక బిందువు జీవితానికి నేర్పుతుంది పాఠం
ఒకపుడు మంచు ఒకపుడు ముత్యం ఒకపుడు భాష్ప బిందువు..

The problem of transalation

The problem of popularization should take a different way, like Mexican corridos(songs), stories, feature films etc.,

If you pick up some topic, for instance, 'ethical domain' it has a it has a specific referent. The moment you translate it to Telugu, it picks up all garbage from Manu to Dharma Saastras. These concepts are loaded with specific semantic content. When you translate, the semantic content gets replaced with commonsense. Philosophy of languages pick up this topic. The semantic content of these concepts are part and parcel of a theory.

A theory is independent of natural language. It can be said to be in a formal language. However, some or another formal language becomes part of commonsense. For instance electron, gene etc., are part of specific theories. They are also part of today's natural language.

Imagine a future theory, which is better than current theory. In that case, the concept and its referent gets changed. However, the commonsense retains the old stuff. One can't use commonsense to criticize this new theory. That people have been using is not evidence for truth of any theory. Even the word theory has a specific reference. These things will be known in the course of studying theories about theories.

Light, my light, the world-filling light,

Light, my light, the world-filling light,

the eye-kissing light,

heart-sweetening light!

Ah, the light dances, my darling, at the center of my life;

the light strikes, my darling, the chords of my love;

the sky opens, the wind runs wild, laughter passes over the earth. -    Tagore

Where do I find that world-filling, eye-kissing and heart-sweetening Light?

Happiness

Our experience of being happy makes us think that being happy is constrained by fellow beings, companies, etc. This conceptualization, true or not, has been peddled by management gurus, and psychologists, and we are sold on this. Is this true of human psychology? Or Is this a prima facie plausibility just because we experience that happiness is constrained?

2. Conducting research the way ethnologists do wouldn't produce knowledge. The way one poses questions depends on the background knowledge: in fact, questions are relative to some or another description.

3. Lets consider two ends of the spectrum: a Bill Gates and the poorest (in terms of financial worth) man. Indian traditions 'say' (scare quotes for different reasons) that we are not happy, *not* because some projects (desires, intentions, etc) that are pursued are failed, *but* because such projects are *ours/mine*. Here, both Gates and the poorest man are not any exceptions! There exist natural regularities that interfere our intentions, no matter how rich one is (for instance, I intended to drink milk to quench my thirst, and in fact I did, but my stomach got upset, which I didn't intend. One can imagine countless examples that way). Many do agree that natural regularities affect our intentions, but everybody thinks that there is some *relationship* between intentions and results. Indian traditions claim that there is no relationship between intentions and actions; they further say that the appearance that such relationship obtains is illusion the way that our experience of Sun's movement around Earth--which is our daily experience--is. Just knowing the claim that we are not happy not because of projects being pursued but because those projects are ours, does not make one happy! Something more is required: to experiment, problematize, the very notion of 'self'. Some Indian traditions claim that self is illusory as well. In intentional psychology, which is a product of semitic theologies and which mgmt gurus sell, self is taken for granted: that our actions are instantiations of intentions of such a self! That's why we hear slogans like 'be positive', 'believe in what you do'!

4. What Indian traditions say that one can achieve happiness, which is *independent of* what one has, of what one is, of what one attained, etc. One doesn't need to become ascetic, one doesn't need to renounce family, in order to attain happiness; this doesn't foreclose the possibilities of ascetics becoming enlightened.

5. Well, there are no requirements for one to become happy. In other words, it is wrong to say that those who go to temple and offer pooja-s don't attain happiness. Of course, some paths are better for some, but not for others: tantriks engage in 'sexual practices', which offend sensibilities of many indians, in order to get enlightened.

6. Anyway, RK mission, for that matter, any mission, doesn't have the intellectual capital: their ranks are filled up with half-baked bs. I say this, because RK mission guys couldn't even offer substantial critiques of Kripal's work, a work that makes Rama Krishna Paramahansa a pedophile. Same with all those who parrot new age metaphysics bullshit!

7. There is no eternal quest. It is a goal of every human being, a goal that manifests in different ways: from getting admisison, to jobs, to get married, and so on. So, this is amenable to any scientific investigation; in this sense, Indian traditions contributed to human knowledge. Our native languages are laden with such things: people say, one is to die without having any desires, so that one doesn't take another birth; and so on. Here, these junk swami-s, half-baked Indians give scientific gloss to rebirth and karma as though they are dependent on causality, without telling that what causality is. In actual fact, there is no punarjanma, but it is a cognitive strategy, a heuristic. Because we have lost the theoretical framework of our folk psychology because of islamic and british colonizations, we have taken over intentional psychology, and the other discourses. We think that we know what intentional psychology is, but we are ignorant of both intentional psychology, and our folk psychology; and our folk psychology beats any western psychology that exists in the market: in fact, our folk psychology is true of human nature.

Maaya and Gyaana

The problem with the writers of Atman, of Gyaana is that they don't know what they are talking about. How could it be true? This is an issue of understanding.

That earth is moving around sun is also a belief, is also a sentence, and also a proposition. It is also claim of theory. This proposition is a knowledge-claim. Then, what is the difference between this knwoledge-claim and gyaaana: reading Adi Shakaraacharya and offering another 'interpretation' will not do; it simply shows how 'erudite' one is. We have zillions of erudites, but one is not in a position to answer rudimentary questions posed by ordinary people.

Every one thinks that concepts are variables the way X, Y, Z are introduced by convention or by definition in C routine, or in mathematics. This is also screwing the new age metaphysics Indian junk. Concepts are not variables: they don't arise in vacuum; they are part of some theory or some understanding. When such theory/understanding is lost, we are left with slogans: that Universe is of God; Atman is God. What a nonsense!

Abt maaya. The world is not mirage, my friend. The world exists and impinges upon our experience. WHy don't you jump from a high-rising tower in Hyderabad? And see the mirage when you end up on death-bed. Indian traditions claim that our experience is not veridical; from this, it doesn't follow that world is mirage or is an illusion. Adi Shankara did not say this, but the modern interpretors junk do. Then, what is maaya? All traditions claim that maaya is a positive force; and that world is maaya, but not illusion. To illustrate this, let me play with a toy example: if you got Tirumala, you see dEvAlaya, I do building, whereas a martian (with similar constitution) sees a heap of stones. This is what Shankara says: there is *no* unique way of experiencing the world; however, we can compare two ways of experiencing the world: that's why we can make qualitative claims: that your experiencing of X is more illusory that my experience of what you experience; and so on. In western tradition, the failure of empiricist/positivist camps says that there are no 'positive facts' Indian traditions make the strongest claim: we can only know that our abductive inference of the structure of the world is false, but we will never know the true structure(s) of the world.

What, then, is maaya: it is human learning strategy, a particular implementation of (human) evolutionary learning ability. Whenever we navigate in the world, we problematize only aspect of it, while keeping stable the remaining. This ability prevents us from accessing the truth of the experience. In maaya panchaka, Shankara claims that the learned, the lay man, the Brahman are spell-bound by her( that is, maaya). And also he says, maaya is an effect.

Economic and scientific theories

The economists who support capitalism use rational choices, individual intentions to explain many to explain many economic phenomena: money, wealth, surplus value, commodity, financial crises, credit etc.,

Marxian economists abhor intentional and/or rational choice explanations. There is another reason to reject all neoclassical economic theories (all microeconomic theories), on the basis that intentional explanations are NOT explanations at all

It is very hard to digest Marx Das Kapital, but if you have read some philosophy of sciences, it is easy; because all scientific explanations are not of the type "premiss to conclusion". Scientific explanation goes in reverse direction: Given a conclusion (fact, phenomena), find the premiss (hypothesis.)Use this tip, and read scientific theories it clears up things.

Learning and Unlearning

Building RAC without knowing the innards of clusters is useless. Thst is what hyderabadi training centers do. Thats what Oracle training does; like the way we learn economics in highschool.

The growth of human knowledge has been explained by the activity of problem solving. Software is also there to solve some problems. Without knowing these set of problems, just learning installing is useless. For instance, teh so-called IP-addressing came into picture to solve a set of problems before that everything was done at mac-level (or layer-2).

******

The less talk, the better. Why do people should talk in the first place, except for survival in the sense of subsistence, they shouldn't talk at all; but people derive pleasure by doing so. When relatives gather, they either talk about their achievements (embellish their personalities), or criticize others (attacking other personalities)

There is a slice of the world that is being refered to maya. It is learning process, human learning process. This brings the duality; duality of the experiencer and the experienced. The experienced is the slice of the world, which we don't directly *see*. The experienced has the counterpart, experiencer. The experiencer springs into being whenever one experiences the world.

Reading things doesn't help. That is, Indian traditions are not philosophies. What Indian traditions try to do: break that damn learning process. The very act of breaking that learniong process is called Nidhidhyasa, contemplation - as it is called. But forget the name, important is what it refers to. People philosophize on contemplation "Mr.X said", "Mr.Y said" so on so forth, which is uselsee.

intentions and results

We dream as if things would be different. If things had been this way, I would have been different.

"Had I done MBBS and MD, came to US and became a pediatric surgeon, I would be making millions"

We dream as if those past counterfactuals give solace, as if the counter factual path goes the way we want it to be.

Whenever things dont pan out the way we want them to (in fact, they don't - and this is true), we think that, "had X, I would have been Y"; but this "had X" is also an intention, there is a hiatus between intending X and the wanted result that Y is. We forget this often times.

This is what people lament about, when they talk about their marriages. Soon after getting married, people realize that their marriage doesn't reflect some bollywood/tollywood movie. Then, they invoke the mantra: had I married my teenage love, I would have been leading 'happy' life.

hope and commonsense

Hopes are constrained by the world and its regularities. Our commonsense dictates that our hopes are related to the end results. But who is hoping, who is intending?

We have learnt many things without knowing that the latter were learnt. It is called sub-conscious learning. Some of them are false; some true. When I invoke commonsense, I refer to the false beliefs, eventhough it contains nuggets of truebits here and there.

We read news papers, journal articles and other stuff. Some genuine information is misunderstood by us and some junk is learned. Sometimes, we patchup holes in our commonsense. The holes are none but questions. Much of India commonsense is learned and recycled from textbooks which are taught from elementary school onwards. This commonsense is the image of current humanities.

Society

Assume that someone does social service in the hope that everyone else helps everyone else. But nobody reciprocates. What happens then? such social service collapses.

Why it has to collapse in the first place? People are not stupid.

Because, there is an experience of, 'my' family, 'my' projects, 'my' daughter etc. There comes the notion of agency. We all experience that way. Indian traditions claim that such experience is not veridical. They also explain why we are under that illusion, and how to get rid of that illusion.

All economic and social theories are built upon the claim that we are intentional beings. If we are not intentional agents, if everyone of us try to access that truth, a perfect system can be built. This is what ancient Indians were after. In that sense, they are light years ahead of present social scientific thinking.

Is Maya illusion?

Maya exists.

Whoever says maya is illusion, I feel like slaughtering those stupids, that repeat mantras mindlessly.

You equate non-existence with Maya, which is wrong.

The moment you cognize, you experience the world. You also experience the experiencer. This coming into being is due to the evolutionary-learning-process of human beings. No one is beyond this, rich and poor; intelligent and the dumb.

One can *break* this learning process, this is what Indian traditions do. The moment one breaks this process, the cognition doesn't enter the picture, unless on demand. Then you will function like a tape recorder. It records all garbage, it doesn't tell you whether it is music or its the word of your lover. Of course, if you want to go to Chennai, you gotta know things, you gotta remember. Call them functional knowledge. One needs that knowledge to survive. Thats all!

Maya is a learning process. Just reading a Shankara, discussing Advaita endlessly doesn't make you enlightened. You gotta break that learning process.. mere philosophizing is useless.

The first step is to keep the baggage minimal. If one gives up everything, one is close to that. Hardly do we give up. We are always about the future. We remember the experiences that caused pain and the ones that caused pleasure. We strive to avoid the former set, reproduce the latter.

In order to survive in the world, you dont need many things. Think about your pullampet citizens. They can live on millets. you can live on millets too, but you don't. You want to maintain some status quo, mimick someone else's status quo. "My sone wants to be an engineer", "I need to build a big house". Thats why you cant satisfy any of the human beings, no matter what you do, except for basic subsistence.

You assume that once you help someone, the latter will help others. That is wrong, because the guy is trying to help himself to maintain/mimick (others) status quo.