This post is a result of
discussion about my previous post on Vedanta
(A question to vedanthins ).
Below is a comment by one of my
friends. I have analysed it explained by views.
FRIEND’S COMMENT
I don't want to be rude but here are a few words I need u to
understand.....
You cannot say a philosophy is wrong or
questionable. The whole world just lives on faith. It is the only thing that
separates us from animals. Humans do need something to hold on to. A mere idea
is suffice enough quite a few times.... Consider light for example- In 6th
standard they thought us that it travelled in a straight line as we grew it
started bending at any place it wants it became a wave and particle sometimes
both. None of them are wrong according to science You just need to apply
correct theory to get the correct explanation. If you try to combine one with
others obviously you will mess it up. You are just in the 1st step of
philosophy and I am still trying to find my way back in even then it is better
if you understand all the things and then come to a conclusion only then can
you find a meaningful solution to your problem.
MY REPLY TO THE ABOVE COMMENT.
You said "You cannot say a philosophy is wrong or
questionable" I don't know want you exactly mean by this if case 1: you say
it is wrong to question a philosophy or idea i strongly disagree in a
democratic society every idea is debatable
and everybody as a right to criticise to other ideas. Denying this like
denying basic human rights to people. Also it hinders development of ideas and
consequentially human progress. As a free thinker I see this as nothing but
dictatorship.
Case 2: If you are talking specific about discipline of
philosophy again I disagree because a
philosophical theory can be rejected or improved based on logical reasoning and empirical
evidence . in analytical philosophy or similar areas where philosophers
speculate on certain areas of the investigation as Philosopher Daniel Dennett
said philosophy is what you do when you know the right questions to ask (so he
calls AI a kind of philosophy) These fields when they develop into science
based on the empirical evidence these philosophical theories are either
rejected or accepted. (I would recommend Bertrand Russell’s Philosophy for
laymen for details). In value theory
(ethics etc) also philosophy makes progress (watch the video attached below for
details). Most of the time
philosophers try to find faults in other
theories or better formulate their theories against the criticisms.
You said “The whole world just lives on faith” Here by faith if you
mean believing in something without adequate evidence then I strongly disagree
belief in meaningless ideas which results in lot of nonsense . Accepting
something uncritically will result in people becoming puppets in the hands of
others(watch meme video by Dennett below). To
Further explain this let me quote
Sam harris (The End Of Faith Afterword )
My correspondent then went on to
point out, as many have, that each of us has to get out of bed in the
morning and live his life, and we
do this in a context of uncertainty, and in the context of terrible
certainties, like the certainty of death.
This positive disposition, this willingness to set a course in life
without any assurance that things will go one's way, is occasionally called
"faith." Thus, one may prop up a disconsolate friend with the words
"have faith in yourself." Such words are almost never facetious, even
on the forked tongue of an atheist. Let me state for the record that I see nothing wrong with this kind of
"faith."
But this is not the faith that
has given us religion. It would be
rather remarkable if a positive attitude in the face of uncertainty
led inevitably to ludicrous convictions
about the divine origin of certain books, to bizarre cultural taboos, to the
abject hatred of homosexuals, and to the diminished status of women. Adopt too
positive an
outlook, and the next thing you
know architects and engineers may start
flying planes into buildings.
I don’t know about yourself but
please don’t generalise it into whole world. Speak for yourself. Don’t
generalise your views into others. Here you are making an inductive
generalisation using anecdotal evidence (personal experience) this is an
invalid argument because anecdotes are not same as data.
You said “It is the only thing that separates us from animals.”
Where did you get this idea?? From studying neuroscience or biology etc?? I
think it is the mostly the opposite case human ability to ask questions to
understand nature etc i.e. critical thinking (Language intelligence) and of
course morality. You said” Humans do need something to hold on” Oh again don’t
generalise without sufficient ideas to A mere idea is suffice enough quite a
few times.” Of course I agree that
believing in god or some other thing even if it is false has helped many people
and of course they have every right to believe it. I get this type of comment whenever
I question religious ideas. My view is this I believe in the democracy so I
respect the people’s right to believe in whatever they want(God, Flying
sphagetti monster, Flat earth etc or the belief
that earth is actually flat but
looks spherical due to avidya (maya) and only liberated souls can see the actual
shape of earth i.e flatnessJ(pun
intended) ) But it is totally against the spirit of democracy and free inquiry
to demand some special status and
exemption from critical questioning for certain things (books, ideas myths etc)
just because some people consider it
holy. See I don’t believe in any God or religion (I am a Secular Humanist and
free-thinker) but I respect other people’s right to believe. But as I said
before when one discuss public policy issues one needs to go by evidence and
logical reasoning. Because some people Vedas or any other book as true (revealed truth shruthi) you can’t say
that nobody should critically analyse them. We can’t stop philosophical,
historical analysis because it is against somebody’s beliefs. For example we can’t teach some myths as history because some people believe it is
true. See I read philosophy or watch movie etc and I may like them very much
but others people must be free to like it or not . There are certain values as
sacred but just because I hold certain things as sacred it is wrong on my part
to tell others to question their validity Some people may believe that the
ideas of Karma, Rebirth, personal God is true but it is perfectly Acceptable
for people to debate about its validity because if it is true
it would have very serious implication on our view of the world so
people must be free to analyse it and
question it. In short I am arguing for separateness between government and
religion. Religion should be relegated to private sphere. I am unable to
understand what was so wrong in my questioning? I have politely asked people
about my doubts. It is not something new or radical it is been done by people
for more than 2500 years. What’s so wrong with it ?? If you think that I am wrong with my views (in
the article) show it is wrong and I will be happy to correct it. Say honestly
if instead of vedantha or sankara I had questioned any non-religious thinkers
(like Indian philosophers like Gangesa, Kanada etc) or western philosophers
like Kant, Hume,Plato etc what would have been your reaction? I think we are becoming insecure about our
beliefs etc so people are finding it difficult to question or critically
analyse these things. I am commenting not in specific to your view but to
general opinion I receive from people.
You said “Consider light for example- In 6th standard they
thought us that it travelled in a straight line as we grew it started bending
at any place it wants it became a wave and particle sometimes both. None of
them are wrong according to science you just need to apply correct theory to
get the correct explanation. If you try to combine one with others obviously
you will mess it up”. The fact that
Light acts as a wave and particle is a empirical fact it is not based on any
authority it is an phenomena observed in the physical world. The wave-particle
duality and Many scientific facts
(especially related to Quantum mechanics) are counter-intuitive but one fact we
need to understand is that the physical world exists independent of our
feelings about it. As somebody commented “The universe is not only queerer than
what we suppose but queerer than what we can suppose”.(see accompanying TED
video by Richard Dawkins on this topic). You said “None of them are wrong according
to science” I want to know what do you exactly meant by science? Science is not
some authority it is a tool (epistemological method to be precise) to discover
and understand the facts about the natural world. Unlike religion It doesn’t
accept any authority those facts about light is true because they are
experimentally observed i.e. these theories are logical inferences drawn from
replicable experimental evidence. I want to make the meaning of “truth”. The
scientific theories are not absolute truths they are most plausible explanation
w.r.t. to the current amount of evidence. As new evidence comes forward they
are revised. Please read more about philosophy of science it is very important
for an engineer.(see video below).
You said “ You just need to apply
correct theory to get the correct explanation. If you try to combine one with
others obviously you will mess it up.” I think what you are saying here is that
since I don’t know much about Vedanta I am having this confusion. May be this
is true or I think it is also possible that there is a genuine confusion in the
Vedanta(or at least sankara’s commentary on Brahma sutra). How can one assume
that there is no inherent confusion. The more I read about Vedanta I am think
there is inherent contradictions there (I will write a separate post on this) .Vedanta
is not strictly a philosophy it contains main different strands of
philosophical speculation there. Also it
is more appropriate to call sorietology instead of philosophy (see lecture by
A. Bharathi below) . My biggest problem with sankara’s views is that his
uncritical acceptance of Vedas as truth and even manu smruthi. A philosopher
always should be in a quest for truth he should start by questioning but for Sankara
logic was second first preference was to establish truth of religious books.(see
S.N. Dasgupta History of Indian philosophy part 1 ch 10 The Sankara school of
vedantha)
You said “You are just in the 1st
step of philosophy and I am still trying to find my way back in even then it is
better if you understand all the things and then come to a conclusion only then
can you find a meaningful solution to your problem.” I agree I am just learning
philosophy it is a very interesting and very useful subject. But if your
conclusion is based on the fact that I find disagreements in Vedanta than I
disagree with this view. Many people
have this view “ if you find disagreement
i.e. logical inconsistencies etc
then you are wrong” this is totally wrong because it doesn’t state the another possibility that the holy
books themselves are wrong(indeed they are wrong in many many cases). Of course
I will study more on this to come to
understand this but I want to state
that “final” conclusion need not necessary be that there is no inherent
inconsistencies in these texts.
If you wish I would like to have
more discussion on this topic with you because as David Hume said “New ideas
come through discussion among friends”)
Videos /links
1. Dan Denett – Memes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzGjEkp772s
2. Richard Dawkins – Ted Talk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1APOxsp1VFw
4.
Massimo Pigulucci videos on philosophy
b. Does philosophy makes
progress? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDUciNH-gIE&list=UL
