Occam's Razor

[Guest guest]

Dear Ananda Prabhu

 

> But

> ever since Sri Krsna Caitanya Mahaprabhu advented Himself during an

> eclipse, we must consider eclipses auspicious.

 

Can you give an appriopriate source for this statement? I have not met it

before.

 

 

> The second question has a premise that makes no sense. What possible

> rationale can a thinking human devise or create for postulating that the

> sun is closer than the moon? Every grade schooler knows that the earth is

> some 93 million miles from the sun, whilst the moon is only about 250,000

> miles from the earth. Those who claim the contrary can only expose Krsna

> consciousness to general ridicule.

 

You are assuming that because so many people believe in the data they

learned in school, the data must be certainly true. This is a highly

unscientific method of gathering knowledge on your side. How many of these

people actually analyse the methods of understanding the distances from the

earth to the sun or the moon. Most (I bet more than 95%) just hear and

accept, then repeat. I don't mean here I don't accept this data. I just say

they just believe it.

 

To give an example: Most children in Poland "know" that Hare Krishnas put

drugs in their food, color their cloths with the blood of animals killed in

sacrifices, brainwash people

with their chanting and philosophy, and kidnap children. They "know" because

people regularly hear in church sermons throughout the country on Sundays.

But if people "know", does it mean it is truth? Conformism is not always the

best scientific method.

 

Another problem is that you probably know the Vedic understanding of the

world in a very limited degree. Like in the fifth Canto of Srimad Bhagavatam

there are presented two ways of seeing the world. Do you really understand

them?

 

> As Purna Tattva prabhu suggests, astronomers, using

> a computational model that utterly disregards Rahu, accurately fore- tell

> eclipses to the millisecond and calculate tables of ephemeridae hundreds

> of years into the future. Since Rahu is not necessary to an understanding

> of the universe, why not simply discard Rahu, or treat it as a pretty

> legend only, like the "Just So Stories"? Let's accept with thanks the

> discoveries of the astronomers, and reject nonsense- spouting astrologers

> and anti-science quacks.

 

If you would understand even some basic facts about Vedic astronomy or

astrology that you try to defame, you would know that Rahu and Ketu are

positioned exactly in the direction of Moon nodes. They are not the nodes,

but they are placed on the line from the earth through the nodes.

 

I bet not "every grade schooler" knows that it is not sufficient that the

earth, the moon and the sun would be positioned in one line for the eclipse

to take place. The nodes have to be placed along that line, too. Otherwise

the eclipse cannot take place, because the three are in one line only when

the other two are. It is because the plane on which the moon goes around the

earth is not parallel to the ecliptic. If the Rahu and Ketu are placed along

the line that goes from the earth through the nodes, that means that Rahu

and Ketu are significant factor for the eclipse to take place. They are in

between, and according to the sastra they pollute the rays of the sun.

 

So, the scientists have chosen to think about the nodes, and the devotees

about Rahu and Ketu, because it reminds them about the churning of the milk

ocean pastime. I think devotees don't like the Occam's Razor principle in

work when it comes to the pastimes of the Lord, especially if it doesn't

make a difference from the point of view of astronomical accuracy.

 

> Basically it means that, when there are two explanations

> proposed for a phenomenon, the simpler one is the one more likely to be

> correct.

 

Another problem with your arguments is that you did not set up a scientific

standard for an understanding what is "the simpler explanation". It is very

much dependant on one's frame of reference, experience, habits, etc. So,

unless you prove that your proposal is most optimal, others would tend to

think that your understanding is very one sided.

 

Well, that is another field of epistemology, that is very important for

mature approach to the methods of science.

 

yhs