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Occam's Razor and Aesop's Contributions

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> Some devotees suggested that whilst modern science can predict eclipses

> and other astronomical phenomena with astonishing accuracy, we

> nevertheless ought to regard the alleged contribution of Rahu to equations

> of motion and gravitation. With sufficient manipulation and number

> juggling, a random constant can be added at one place and subtracted

> elsewhere, one supposes, if there is such an irrepressible desire to

> produce a more complicated formula than necessary to account for observed

> events.

 

 

I think there is also another point in your reasoning that I cannot accept.

You mistake claculations for explanations. These are two different

faculties.

 

It is not true that if I can measure something, it automatically means I

know the nature of the phenomenon, and I have a sole right to give an

explanation of it.

 

I can see that people die because of an illness, I can predict on the basis

of observation when they will die, what would be the symptoms in the

specific points of time of their illness, but it does not mean I know the

cause of the illnes, the mechanism behind the symptoms.

 

When the Newton has presented his laws of dynamics, he described the

physical events by formulas. To give the physical meaning to those formulas

he introduced the gravitational force as the cause, but he wrote he does not

believe in that force, which acts from the distance. Pretty amazing! But the

popular meaning of gravitation has spread around the globe for centuries. We

all know that usually everything falls down, but why? It is gravitational

force!

 

But then Einstein came with his relativity theory, which made the Newton

dynamics more universal and precise in computation. But what was the cause

of the physical bodies motion, then? Well, it was not gravitational force

anymore, but bent space, that comes from the mass of the physical bodies. It

is called gravitational field now! (Can you prove that the space is bent and

measure how much?)

 

On the basis of observation one can come to a quite precise levels of

predictivity. But in no way does it say anything about the nature and the

causes behind.

 

In no way I can understand how predictive ability concerning eclipses has to

eliminate Rahu's and Ketu's roles given them by Vedias for understanding the

phenomenon. I think that the Vedic brahmanas were far superior from the

modern scientists, being equipped with clever mind for calculations, and

strong faith for understanding.

 

It is quite a pride, that if I can follow the ways of the Lord's creation by

means of abstractive mathematics, I think I can usurp right to know

everything about it. Thanks God he put some entropy (chaos) into this world,

that forces me to use probability instead of certainty. In this way I can

assure innocent masses of people that I know everything, although I know

really nothing.

 

I am happy that Occam's Razor principle was reminded by Ananda Prabhu. It is

certainly a good tool from Krsna for the devotees's pride intoxicated with

freedom of probability. When you cut the probability out, the exessive

freedom goes away. With that intoxication dwindles and makes pride turn into

submissiveness, faith, love and devotional service.

 

 

 

"My kingdom is as wide as the whole world, and my desire knows no limit. I

always step forward, freeing the minds, weighting the worlds, without fear,

without compassion, without love and without God. People call me Science."

 

Gustave Flaubert

 

 

"I finished my search of the mystery of life on atoms and electrons, which

are not alive at all. Somewhere on the way the life has slept through my

fingers. So, in my oldage I turn away from that path."

 

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, Nobel prize laureate in medicine

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> This is pure speculation. Every part of of the Bhagavatam is bhakti

because

> it's in relation with the Supreme Lord. And the instructions are telling

us

> to accept it all whether it tallies with our imperfect mind or not. If

you

> don't follow the method of bhakti, what are you following?? Your mind?

Can

> your imperfect limited mind understand the glories of the super

intelligent

> Lord Krsna??? If so, it makes your mind>God. Than what type of God is

He?

> First thing is, do you believe in God?

 

>From my text you are deriving conclusions which I did not write and then you

are blaming me for these conclusions.

 

1. That I do not follow method of bhakti.

 

Method of bhakti means that a primary way of existence of the living entity

is to establish and maintain a loving relationship of some kind (santa,

dasya, sakhya, vatsalya, mathurya or some of 7 additional rasas). Nowhere

did I said anything against that. Bhakti does not have anything with

astronomy.

 

2. That my mind can understand the glories of the Lord.

 

Nowhere did I say so. He Himself can't fully understand His own glories, so

how could I? But we were talking about distance between Sun and Moon and

that is something within capability of our minds.

 

> > > We can see in ISKCON's everyday life that indeed such things as

> > > "moon paranoia" or anything out of common sense did never bring

> > > anyone "closer to developing love for Krsna". This is a hard fact.

>

> Is it devotional service to read the Fifth Canto??? This "hard" fact he's

> talking about is his speculation and biased observation. The fifth canto

was

> my main attraction for reading the Bhagavatam so much so that I made a

> multimedia CD out of it!

 

If you are a devotee and brought to that by 5th Canto, I congratulate - you

are an exception. But I have observer, talked to, lived with, worked with,

served with, a number of devotees of all ages, both genders, different

levels of education, in the course of a number of years, and what I said did

not came whimsically.

 

> > > If we ask modern scientists to give good proofs for what they say

> > > and if we blame them for cheating when they are wrong (or sometimes

> > > intentionally cheat) then we must apply the same system for our set

> > > of knowledge and beliefs.

>

> WRONG! Modern scientists follow the method of observe and test so

whatever

> they want us to accept, they have to show us how to observe and test it.

> However, they are not doing that (i.e., distances to planets, Big Bang,

> Evolution, etc.) Our method is that you approach a person who knows the

> Absolute Truth and inquire from him and by rendering of devotional

service,

> the Absolute Truth is revealed. WHY SHOULD WE FOLLOW THEIR

> METHOD??? THEY DON'T FOLLOW THEIR OWN METHOD. That's hypocracy.

> The problem is YOU ARE NOT FOLLOWING YOUR OWN METHOD and due to

> your lack of realizations, you have to adopt the imperfect method of the

scientists.

 

1. The fact that you accept certain method does not mean that it is the

correct one. Anyone can take some heritage of knowledge (Islamic? Christian?

Hebrew? Ancient Egyptian or Greek?) and say "I accept this and therefore

whatever comes from this source is correct".

 

2. It is true that if you find a person who posesses absolute knowledge it

is accepted as a good method of ascertaining the truth. But first you would

have to prove that this person really posess complete and absolute

knowledge.

 

Accepting persons as posessing absolute knowledge and general goodwill

without checking it first will lead to disaster. Certain persons in ISKCON

were accepted as such and what is the result?

 

Out of 11 first GBCs/gurus, 7 is not here any more, and what did they do? Do

I really have to remind you? Does the name "Kirtananda" ring a bell? Or

"Hamsadutta"? "Jayatirtha"? I will intentionally not go into those closer to

present date - too much bad feelings is still around.

 

Can anyone who has a title of "guru", maybe even with ISKCON stamp on it, be

accepted as a source of supreme absolute truth, without proving that he is?

 

3. As for the scriptures, we know that some scriptures (eg Bhavisya Purana)

could not be trusted in every place. So far SP books are not on the list,

but this heritage was transferred through thousands of years, and human

tendency is to add or remove or change. So a desire to check if something is

true is normal.

 

No sane person will, of course, check if we should really have a good

relationship with God. Anyone knows that much from his inner self. But for

practical things of this (material) world it is a good idea to check.

 

> > > If "accept it as it is" is not "blindly", then what is "blindly"?

Blind

> > > acceptance is when one accepts something without asking for any

evidence,

> > > either a direct, substantial evidence that can be observed

(pratyaksha)

> > > or an evidence of logic and reasoning (anumana) or in religious case

an

> > > evidence from the knowledge which came from God (sabda).

>

> Again speculation. Blind means there is no method of verification ever.

If I

> tell you, the Big Bang occurred and you accept it; that's blind because

it's

> something that scientists are NOT offering us a method to oberve.

However, if

> I tell you that you can also come to this stage of Krsna consciousness by

> practicing such and such thing and reading such and such books; that's

> verfication. It's called DIRECT PERCEPTION BY THE SELF not perception

through

> imperfect senses. How do I know that everything that the physics books is

> teaching is true??? I have not done observations on any of their

statements.

 

1. We did not speak about how to achieve psychological or spiritual changes

but what is the distance between celestial bodies. Neither did we speak

about Big Bang. Big Bang theory is just a theory since it cannot be fully

proved. The distance between Sun and Earth can.

 

> > > potential fanatics, who will in the course of time do more damage than

good.

>

> It's people who pretend to be devotees while rejecting their spiritual

masters

> who are the dangerous elements of the Krsna consciousness society. People

who

> mix up two different processes by picking and choosing what they like

through

> their imperfect minds and thus rejecting Krsna's system.

 

1. Those who reject their gurus although gurus are ok, are indeed dangerous.

Fortunately I am not one of them. But they are not the only danger. I have

seen the people who would glorify their gurus without any problem, but after

5 minutes of conversation, or even faster, you can see they're psychiatrist

cases. So far, intelligent ones in ISKCON still outnumber loonies; but if we

don't care, what can happen in the future?

 

2. Everyone must use his mind. When you see or hear any system of spiritual

improvement, you must use your mind to understand if it is a good system or

just a cheating. You may say that another person, an authority, can tell

you; but then you must first check that person before believing him/her. And

once in the process, you must continue checking. The practice in ISKCON has

shown that there were people who were gurus at some time in the past, but

then fell down. So one must keep his intelligence constantly alert, because

the fact that something was ok in the past does not make an absolute

guarantee for the future.

 

So you can see that you simply can't escape use of your own mind - or you

will be cheated sooner or later. Using one's own mind is not irreligious or

heretic thing.

 

> Okay, tell me the formulae; I want to calculate the distance myself rather

> than BLINDLY follow your foolish statements.

 

Uh oh. Now my statements are "foolish". I don't remember telling anything

such about you. I apologize if I did.

 

But of course I can offer you the math, and a simple version of it, easy to

understand. I'll make a separate letter for that since this one already has

a lot of topics.

 

> > mathematics is widespread at least in the United States and Canada. The

> > situation in Europe, Japan and China is probably not so bad, because the

> > secondary schools there are more rigorous.

>

> No material qualifications need to realize Krsna. I know calculus and

> differential equations, but I don't see how the scientists' observations

can

> be considered the ultimate answer given their constantly changing nature

and

> assuming conditions that they know nothing about.

 

1. No one considers them ultimate answers about God.

 

2. No one considers them ultimate answers at all.

 

3. I just consider them as best answers so far, and if anyone claims his

answer is better, I ask him to prove his answer.

 

4. We do not speak about constantly changing things. Distance between

celestial bodies is as it is and no scientist changed it ever since it was

calculated. For calculation you need basic trigonometry and trigonometry

itself did not change at all. So what changes do you talk about?

 

> > When we read "athato brahma jijnasa," this is an appeal to reason, not

> > the diktat of a closed mind...

>

> Stop speculating. It means to search out the cause of all causes not to

> BLINDLY accept some scientist who is constantly changing his theories. I

> still am waiting for proof that the physics books is accurate. I have no

> time to conduct the millions of experiments to prove it. So tell me, what

> method do I use to verify it except for just accepting it blindly!

 

"athato brahma jijnasa" means that now when we got an intelligent form of

body we should search for spiritual realizations and not remain satisfied

with material life. But no one said anything against that.

 

The above sentence (from the letter of Ananda prabhu) was intended to say

that we should search for spiritual realization in an intelligent way, not

in a way of blind acceptance and fanaticism. God is not a leader of a sect;

He loves us more than that.

 

> > Srila Prabhupada once told me: "You have a good brain. Krsna has given

> > you a good brain. You must use it for His service. Don't just be blind

follower.

>

> Exactly! You should take Srila Prabhupada's advice; use your brain to

serve

> Krsna not the scientists' speculations. Propagate His message not theirs.

> Take help from those who have realizations in Krsna consciousness not from

> those who constantly revising their theories.

 

1. Now you are extending SP's sentence to what he did not say.

 

2. We should serve Krishna and not serve speculations. But not all that

comes from scientists is a speculation (though some things are) and not all

scientists are equal. God gave us brain to make a difference.

 

3. I myself would not take help from someone who changes his theory every

year. But Earth-Sun distance and basic astronomy in our solar system are not

constantly revised, so your comment is out of place in that.

 

> > > And it would not be the proof to say "explanation A is absolutely

right,

> > > ergo, anything that differs from it must be wrong. And since

explanation B

> > > does differ from explanation A it is therefore wrong and A being right

> > > and B being wrong, we conclude that A far surpasses B".

>

> Krsna consciousness surpasses modern science; any fool can see that the

> process of Krsna consciousness demands no change and scientists are

constantly

> updating and changing. So best to avoid changing theories until you have

> fully examined the unchanging ones. And the taste of the pudding is in

the

> eating [those who are fully following].

 

True Krishna consciousness truly surpasses anything else; but what is a true

Krishna consciousness? Every time someone thinks he defined it, it proves

more complex...

 

We (I got tired of repeating) did not speak about changing parts of

scientific theories. So all comments about such parts are out of place.

 

> > > While giving a proof one must observe all standard rules of logic,...

>

> Yes, the logic is "I am imperfect and suffering. Is there anyone who is

> perfect and in a better condition who can help me?"

 

Nice words, but they do not negate need for logic even one bit.

 

> > microscopes, X-rays, etc.., is adequate and satisfactory, leads us to

> > external ridicule and disastrous internal disjunction between (alas,

all...

>

> Just choose your authority. Your imperfect mind or one who has seen the

truth

> and can show you the truth.

 

Oh? Who would that be?

 

> When I entered the physics class, no one proved every single statement to

me,

> everyone in class sat like ZOMBIES and accepted blindly whatever the

teacher said.

 

But in due course of time most of it gets proved. And the theory that Moon

is farther from the Earth than the Sun is did not get proved so far.

 

yours,

 

DVD

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