Sulekha.com

To Ash05,


Yes, Bhaskara made the discovery of 0.  But  geometry (Euclid), sine/cosines, rational numbers, irrational numbers, complex numbers, everything else in Mathematics was invented by the great greek civilization followed by the europian mathematicians later in 15th century.

Philosophy (not the religious kind, but a rational kind) that resulted in the formation of new stream of philosophy called science, are all great contributions by greek civilization.

That's what my point was. We have very little contributions to show as our achievements.
We owe our intellectual developement to the western world. This truth may not be very great for our self-steem. But I would rather face the ugly truth than believe in rosy falsities.


And btw, West is not hell-bent on defining India. In fact India was never an important country on global radar since the beginning. This is not my subjective opinion. If you read global newspapers, people hardly used to mention India. For them, India was a country full of filth and beggers. Just now India is getting some coverage elsewhere, because of outsourcing, China and India are beginning to emerge. But still the west see these countries as source of cheap labour and not some great source R&D centres. And that's again not some subjective opinion, because R&D (patents, etc) generated by India is abyssmaly low.

You can adduct your thumb and touch your index tip. Well you are man. No othetr mammals can. Only the human species can. And who can forget the tale on Ekalavya? Ask her, Denice, and she'll tell you about manicures and nail polish - the fingers are sexual signals.

They have whorls on the pulp which can be clue to dermatoglyhic markers to identity or congenital disease. The triradius at the base of each finger can be used to calculate the ATD angles, whichj in turn is characteristic of many diseases or afflictions. Insensitive (Hansen's), or thick pulped (hyperkeratinized) Carcinoma of oesophagus. Extra ridges -Darrier's. Flexed - Duputryen's , flexed - mein de accoucher, mein de griffon. Webbed - Meyer Schickerrath

 

:)))))))

 

now you could have written this asa blog in it self....I will have to rummage the medical dictionry to know what you mean by all those exotic words..:)

sounds maithili to me..:)

but you are a "Genius" indeed to be talking to goldfish, dogs and your fingers ..thanks saar

hats off to u..:) 

Dear Denice

What, me lonely? I've got eight more fingers besides the little one to give me company! Never lonely sir, with 'digit'al world around. Besides these biomechanics and kinetics of the fingers have given me fourteen research papers: about taking abreak, well I guess I do need a sabbatical. Coming to think of it again, maybe you are right. Who but a loony will talk to dogs, donkeys, goldfishes or fingers?

But fingers are more Denice than just useful appendages for work.

Now sit back Denice and see your fingers. They actually talk. They can be absent, adactyly, elongated - archnodactyly (Marfan's), short and broad, brachydactyly (Rubinstein Taybi), curled, klinodactyly, fused, syndactyly, they may be tilted one side or other, windmill vane like (Noonan's), knotted at joints, arthritic. Show transverse ridges on nails, hypocalcemia or trauma. Konb on nail bed - chronic anemia.

You can adduct your thumb and touch your index tip. Well you are man. No othetr mammals can. Only the human species can. And who can forget the tale on Ekalavya? Ask her, Denice, and she'll tell you about manicures and nail polish - the fingers are sexual signals.

They have whorls on the pulp which can be clue to dermatoglyhic markers to identity or congenital disease. The triradius at the base of each finger can be used to calculate the ATD angles, whichj in turn is characteristic of many diseases or afflictions. Insensitive (Hansen's), or thick pulped (hyperkeratinized) Carcinoma of oesophagus. Extra ridges -Darrier's. Flexed - Duputryen's , flexed - mein de accoucher, mein de griffon. Webbed - Meyer Schickerrath

In literature, we have 'a finger in every pie', or in rhyme where Jack Horner 'pulled out a plum with his thumb - you could drum you fingers in tension or crack them in arage. You could clench them in fury or open them for plea or goodwill. The ratio of length of each finger to the other could give clue on one's latent sexual preferences. You can point to or accuse with your index. Make a V like Churchil, or make a U like rajnikanth in Baba. Really Denice, they tell stories, these fingers - all you have to is look and listen. 

Well you see Denice, this is only a sampling. The fingers can tell us much. Of our health, our history, our fate. They do talk sir, and loudly too.

regards - ixedoc

India is an idea to most Indians. India existed in our minds reaching back to millennia. India is not a political entity to an Indian.

It is perhaps useful to reflect that "India" as it exists today in global affairs, with its geo-political boundaries and attendant problems, was "defined" by the West. India to the west is that chunk of land the Mountbatten handed over to Nehru. It is natural that our conception of self is somewhat at odds with their conception of who we are. That indeed leads to labels of terrorism versus freedom struggle, expropriation of ideas and related issues.

Moreover, how the west (or east) would like to see us is a function of geo-political expediency. When you are a nice spiritual centre posing no threat to anyone, you are liked by everyone. It is when you assert yourself that the labeling changes.Witness how the Japanese have changed in three decades from "those copycat harmless gadget makers" to an economic threat, and see what is happening to the labeling of China as it moved from "the yellow peril" to "strategic trading partner" and now to "the most significant defence threat." The propaganda apparatus lies with the west now (not that the Japanese, Chinese or even us, are angels), and they use it to the fullest to change labels from New and Improved to Old and Despicable. 

We began to assert ourselves without the necessary apparatus and power. Inevitably, we failed to be taken seriously. To think otherwise would be a mistake. And if we had to live with that for so long, the fault lies with us as a collective. We might have had a glorious tradition but we are hardly in the league of leaders today. Instead of saying our socialist or other policies failed, I would say we failed as a collective.

If indeed we want others to see us the way we see ourselves, we need to be powerful - economically and militarily-first. Period. After all, it is power that talks, and nation-states defer only to force or show of force.

However, this need not mean we reject western thought or eastern thought. We have always been exchanging ideas with everyone around. It is a question of choice. Whether you are capable of thinking for yourself and saying, "this is what I like and I will adopt; I think this is stupid and I will junk it." Most people on this site perhaps will come back and tell me that they did make the choice of adopting Valentine's day using their own thought processes. Of course, it is difficult to refute that unless you catch them unawares at the Restaurant, loudly ordering  a glass each of the house pour please. Sorry, could not resist that.

Unfortunately, the right in India is a very effective foil for any substantial reform. Today it is constituted by Monkeys and not thoughtful individuals. To characterize them as "peculiar" is an understatement I would think.

Salil: We should not be chauvnistic and excessively patriotic. Agreed. However, not all inventions have taken place in the west. India also has a tradition of science and logic. After all, your entire life (not you but in general) of code entry depends on one number: 0. So, get away from that extreme of condemnation.

 

wow, cutieeeeeeeeeeeee, and work of a genius!

I think u gotta get out Doc ..I can't think someone thinking about their fingers so hard and even talking to them...height of aloneness..

 

To  Riot,


"If you'd wish to buttress your claim of the above, all you'd have to do is to cite the relevant papers that have actually investigated the above claim in practice."

I was talking about discoveries and inventions by which new knowledge gets added and not "recycling" the existing knowledge. Of course, if you can logically deduce soemthing from the existing knowledge, that's also a new knowledge. (kinda axioms in maths)
It seems like what you are saying is new scientific knowledge gets added in science without proper evaluation.


"You accept that science might be proven wrong in some matter or the other and in the worst case, it may be proven wrong in its entirety"

It's not entire science is proven wrong. What I said earlier is - Humans make mistakes, realize and then correct their path and go closer to the reality. (these humans are scientists)

"" You cannot expect that which is held absolutely true to be changed according to the claims on reality that science makes which it admits apriori may be wrong itself. To do so would be to act in a totally irrational manner"


And nobody knows absolute truth. But it is sacred in science to get to know that. That's why when a scientific community makes a mistake (these mistakes happen because the verification of the claim is also based on existing knowledge.) and later realizes it, it corrects itself instead of fighting against the reality.

Religious community does not correct itself even if proven wrong and they spend up considerable time fighting the reality instead of embracing it. And they end up nowhere near absolute truth.
e.g. When Darwin found out about evolution, church opposed it. When Copurnicus claimed that earth is not the centre of the universe, he was opposed.
When social reformers rebelled against casteism, self-proclaimed keepers of hinduism fought against it.
When Salman Rushdie writes 'Satanic Verses", he was foisted with a death sentence.

Science is at least humble and claims that it does not know absolute reality and its purpose it to know it.
But religious scriptures claim that they already know it even though their claims on reality are pathetic -
if you commit sins, you rill rot in hell, etc,

"If Mohammed claimed that all people who don't believe in Allah are infidels and it does not matter if you kill them, you have to believe in that."

To argue successfully, there must be a degree of coherence. The above is not a claim on reality that can be compared to Bernoulli's principle for example even though it is a claim on reality. Its a logical claim and its true as well. "

If you think that we are all infidels and our lives are not as important as religious muslims, then good for you.
May I have the evidence please?

"there's no point in doing science because you can't discover patterns/laws if the constants change all the time..."

You are confusing these constants with reality. There is chaos theory to explain the complex unpredictable environments. If complex systems are unpredictable. so be it. Truth does not have to be predictable.

"any scientist must believe that nature is repeatable and obeys fixed laws."

Again, its not about blind beliefs. You tend to think in black-n-white terms i.e. either nature is completely predictable or completely impredictable. Science has validated and proven that some aspects are quite predictable and some are not (complex systems like weather). So, in your terms, the experiments conducted on complex systems will not have the same results. The beauty of science if reality is unpredictable, science will say so instead of claiming that it is not.



"just because certain religious feelings are so expressed in the brain and logical thinking is so expressed in the brain doesn't cast light on the truth of either any more than in the descriptions so provided."

You are confusing this to be my arguments against your argument about thoughts whether scientific or religious are the same.
I was not trying to explain the differene between them. I was saying If you truly want to know the answer to the question of life after death, you can get it by studying anatomy.


"Just because you repeat an experiment a thousand times at different places doesn't evaluate that the reality that science describes is true except that the experiment is repeatable and the results are the same."

These experiments are not some games scientists play. These experiments are formed in such a way that if they give the same results, it logically proves/validates the theory.

"It works best when some experiment can be repeated but it doesn't evaluate to truth because it is repeated but only to the extent that the founding beliefs that are held by the experimentors have not yet been proven false. "

Yes, but the beliefs of the scientist who put forth the theory and the person validating it may not be same. So, it's not "I-kiss-your-ass-you-kiss-mine" scenario as you described. In person's loyalty is to the truth and not to his beliefs. If he finds an evidence that challenges his or existing community's beliefs, he puts it forth.
The game in scince is rather who-gets-to-the truth earlier.

: I feel the idea of soul was created by people

I agree