Religion

In tune with all the other ruminations of my mind, the next concept I decided to tackle happened to be religion. Unlike my previous treatise on the topic written in a frenzy of indignation and outrage, this time, I have tried to be as cold, dispassionate and detached as possible. Personally, I do not believe in anything, for I believe that I am not qualified to judge how the universe might function. But it does not stop anyone from scientifically dissecting and studying the concept of religion and its metamorphosis to organised religion and universal liberalism in some cases.

Fundamentally, what is religion?
It is a set of beliefs and theories on how the universe as the promulgators of the tenets saw it works and functions. It need not be true, it need not be false, but the interest or the need for this concept is more sociological and ideological. It is more of a set of rules than a system of unravelling the mysteries of the universe, although the latter is a significant part of religion. It's chief concern lay with the society than with the heavens.

Man is a social being. Therefore, in order to live among other such beings, each with objectives and aspirations as self-serving and diverse as one's own, a protocol has to be stipulated. The protocol goes by various names and forms from the Ten Commandments, Shariah, Dharma, Tao, etc depending on the region. Judeo-Christian cultures have the Ten Commandments, Islamic culture has the Sharia, Hindu, Buddhist and Jain cultures have Dharma, and so on.

If one looks at all these scriptures, one would notice striking similarities between them, indicating an underlying symmetry, the sociological need to arrive at very similar sets of rules across diverse cultures and beliefs. This means that the fundamental sociological needs of every human being is the same, regardless of the culture, race of geography. They are:

• The need for respect: Human beings crave for the respect and approval of their peers. It is an evolutionary trait to make us want to be agreeable to others, so that we remain a social species. No matter what anybody says regarding how they live life for themselves, and how they are not influenced by what the neighbours will say, they will always do, for we are hard-wired that way.
• The need for survival: This need is not restricted to us alone. Every organism does the most in its power to stay alive. 
• The need for comfort and pleasure: We constantly strive to make life easier for ourselves, it is also an evolutionary trait, perhaps trying to make us work towards the betterment of our own lives to give us a better chance of survival.

To broadly cater to the above needs, humans have constantly tried many strategies in the past. We were hunters and gatherers, we then invented the techniques of agriculture to make life easier for us, so on and so forth. But these needs frequently intrude upon the same of another, demanding a resolution of this issue in order to maintain man as a social animal. This is the first necessity of religion; to identify boundaries on the pursuit of one's needs in order to extract maximum benefit for maximum number of people in an ideal case, or in a more practical case, to extract the benefit as equivalent to one's position in the society's pecking order, for it was rarely egalitarian.

It's next concern was to enforce these boundaries, in a form as agreeable to the followers of this set of boundaries on one's personal liberties. This is very similar to managing a bunch of people with the carrot and stick approach. The stick is the limit on one's liberties, the carrot is the fulfilment of need 1: the need for respect. A person who acts unrestrained and has a seeming disregard for another's needs suffers from diminished respect and approval from the society than another who binds himself by these norms.

This now established, these rules have successfully infringed upon personal freedoms for the sake of the greater good. Now, there is another need to be addressed; something not discussed as of yet. It is not a necessity like the above three, but still is important to keep people from getting restive and frustrated. Man is an intelligent being, at least when compared to other species that share the planet. With such a large brain, man was occupied by the need to survive, escape predators and devise hunting strategies when he was a nomadic hunter or gatherer. As time progressed, man got less busy and got more free time in his hands, letting his intelligent and curious mind wander into pondering the questions of life and its purpose.

Once again, it was religion's responsibility to answer these questions and man tried to explain all phenomena he observed satisfactorily with the resources and knowledge at his disposal at that point of time, with his imagination filling the gaps. Religion also became the bridge that connected us to nature, gave a seeming purpose to existence and provided us with answers that satiated our appetite for knowledge. This is religion in its crudest form; it lays out rules for peaceful co-existence among the society as the formulators who defined its confines saw it, it provides answers to questions that emerged from the long periods of inactivity brought about by a settled lifestyle and it tries and maintains order among the group of people with whom the formulators of the same identified.

As one can see, religion can be purely attributed to addressing a sociological need to maintain order in a society of individuals with interests and aims as diverse as themselves. This was probably why government and religion were barely discernible in most cultures till around a hundred years ago, they both more or less had the same function. This was the sole reason, apart from man's egregious odiousness, that religion transformed itself into organised religion.

Organised Religion is probably the reason for everything that is wrong with our world, from terrorism, the crusades, the holocaust (it was not so much as religious as racial, nevertheless), I could possibly go on. One could name any problem on a large scale, not something like one failing in mathematics, and possibly trace it to religious intolerance. So, how did something devised to maintain peace become something of a cause with which one can justify killing thousands of people? For this, one must compare our society with a pack of wolves, or a pride of lions, or hyenas, or any social animal.

Elephants, for example, have the matriarch at the helm, with other females following her to any end. This was a system devised by the mind of elephants, who also had similar needs like our own. It was probably noticed that males tend to often get rowdy and uncontrollable when they went into their teens, while females remained sensible and docile. Therefore, they had to go. Males were kicked out, to rot in the open grasslands, while the females had the wisdom of the matriarch to guide them. Males, when kicked out, formed their own bachelor herds, which is a different story. This is a female-dominated society unlike our own, where the women called the shots. However, it must be noted that this system of obeisance to the matriarch is restricted to the herd. Another female of another herd would munch grass disrespectfully and pass water in front of our matriarch with impunity if it came to it. That female would have her own matriarch, whom she reveres above all else, and would be offended if somebody did that to her.

 Similarly, we are also like a pack of wolves or a herd of elephants, who have respect for a common entity that maintains order within the clan, restricted to the clan. Formulators of their religion concerned themselves primarily with furthering the cause of their own clan alone,  not humanity in general. So, there must also be a clause in every religion that calls for loyalty to that religion, as  a clan could identify itself then only by religion, nationalism is a relatively new concept. Added to loyalty alone, there must be a mechanism that ensures that the clan is defended from other such clans, either through hard influence (invasion) or soft influence (conversion). So, came the concept for fighting for one's religion in order to defend it. The defence of religion is a vague grey topic, open to interpretation, and hence even though Christians, during the crusades, invaded the Holy Land that was thousands of miles from Rome, they were not attacking Islam, but defending Christianity. We, however, need this "one of us, one of them" mentality if we are to survive, or we would have just dissolved into another clan, which typically in olden days involved enslavement and or or ethnic cleansing. So, religion had to have teeth to defend itself and its followers, the defence being subjective owing to practical considerations. Although anachronistic, this trait of religion has existed tenaciously throughout history, and while the world would be a much better place without it, the world would not be a good place without religion itself, for all the reasons mentioned above.

I assume, therefore I am

These were the thoughts that were running through my head the other day, when it was noticed that I had way too much free time in my hands. "Who am I? What do I perceive? How do I know what I perceive is consistent with the truth? What if there is no truth? What if esse est percipi? What if to be is to be Perceived?"

I shall endeavour to answer these questions within the bounds of reasonable assumption. First of all, there are two classes of schools of thought as far as philosophy is concerned: Rationalism and Empiricism.

Rationalism is that branch of philosophy that takes a set of logical statements broadly proven to be true, or at least assumed as such by stuffy windbags who think they know everything, and takes them in conjunction with each other in order to build compound logical statements that would be true if the fundamental statements were true. In effect, one could build up the most complex set of arguments and prove them as true or false as the case may be, if one knew the right set of logical statements proven to be true, in other words, the first principles. A pure Rationalist who frequently gets ahead of his or herself would argue that any truth, however complex can be arrived with a few statements that may be inherently true, like "The Sun Rises in the East".

Empiricism, on the other hand, is slightly pragmatic; it considers only statements that have already been proved true, and makes no attempt to further or extrapolate the proved argument to prove another one, for it was not experimentally proved. In English, a Rationalist proposes, an Empiricist disposes, the Rationalist then attempts to demonstrate against his or her will, and if successful, the Empiricist accepts or rejects.

As one can clearly see, the two schools of thought are at odds with each other. A Rationalist is today's Theoretical Physicist, the Empiricist the Particle Physicist, and each views the other with utter disdain. But one thing that both the schools of thought have missed is the fundamental assumption, the most fundamental one. I refer to the one where we innately assume that what we have proved is absolute.

For example, to prove that the Earth is round, Magellan circumnavigated the globe. This was based on the assumption that Magellan really did so and that he was not pulling a fast one on the Portuguese public. If one were to prove that he indeed circumnavigated the globe, he has merely proved that one of the projections of our planet is a closed geometric figure. In order to prove that it is a sphere, one must prove that every projection of our planet is a circle. Magellan had considered only one plane, presumable along the equator, and has merely proved that it was a closed figure, not a circle. It might just as easlily have been an ellipse or a hexagon about the plane of the equator along which he sailed. So it would only be reasonable ( as defined by philosophers ) to reject Magellan's proof of demonstration as a rigorous empiricist. But how about all the later evidence? How may one process the satellite imagery of our planet in innumerable perspectives? We accept this visual proof of our planet's roundness as valid because we can see one of the projections of our planet as a circle. This in conjunction with other photographs taken from different points of reference leads us to the conclusion that since the projection of our planet at different points of reference taken at random is a circle, it must be a sphere. But a purist empiricist would argue that one has only proved that various projections of our planet are circular, but one has failed to prove that it is circular from every possible point of reference and therefore the proof is not valid. So, considering the apparent foolishness and the head-up-his-arse-ness of the empiricist, one simply cannot produce infinite number of photographs to convince him. Instead, we ask him to assume uniformity, that is, we ask him to apply the rule of induction, the rule of extrapolation that says since the projection of the earth at the given point of reference is a circle, the projection from a point that is infinitesimally close to the given point would still be a circle. Therefore, from every point, the projection of the earth to every plane is a circle, and therefore, it is a sphere. This now moves into the realm of rationalism, which can satisfactorily prove that the given logical statement is true based on the truth value of a more simple logical statement, which in this case is empirical evidence.

The statement, however can also be approached in a purely rational way, without any empirical evidence.
The first logical statements are:

• The universe obeys all laws of physics and mathematics consistently. 
• The earth is made of matter.
• The earth exists in the universe.
• Matter experiences the force of gravitation.
• The law of gravitation is true and accurate.
• An attractive force pulls matter closest to the point of origin of the force as possible.
• The sphere is the only solid curve as solution to the collection of all points that are of no greater distance, with respect to another point, than a fixed arbitrary value.
• All the above statements are true.

So, these statements taken in conjunction with each other would suggest that the earth would experience the force of gravitation as it is made of matter and exists in a universe that obeys all laws of physics and mathematics. This force of gravitation, as suggested by the law of gravitation, is an attractive force, and therefore, tends to pull matter to points closest to itself possible. As suggested by the law of gravitation, the point of origin of the force of gravitation is the centre of mass of the object in question, the earth. As the centre of mass of the earth exerts the force of gravity on all other points on the earth, it tends to get as close to the centre of mass of the earth. This would mean that there is a great tendency for points of the earth to get as close to the centre as possible, and therefore, as dictated by statement 7, it would be a sphere.
QED.

Thus, one can prove that the earth is spherical without any satellite imagery, but it would be foolish to assume that this proof is absolute. The empiricist who looked at the rationalist explaining the proof to him would have had a contemptuous countenance as he could provide the rationalist with countless examples of meteors and asteroids that are of any shape but spherical even though all statements collected by the rationalist as first principles were true, his reasoning sound. The only explanation is, he must have overlooked some statements he must have included in his proof, for example: The force of friction and cohesion binds all points in a solid to a degree of freedom so minute, that it forbids the points to move as close to the centre of gravity of the solid as would otherwise be possible.
This would mean that even though all these were true, some other phenomenon occurred that let the earth violate the above statement overlooked by our rationalist and let the points move around freely. While the theory is that the earth melted into a liquid due to the heat of friction, other such objects were less fortunate, with solidity trapping them in hideous shapelessness. This now seems satisfactory, there is also empirical evidence to buttress the claim, there is visual proof of magma underneath the earth's surface and everyone is happy.

However, there are inherent flaws in both the above reasons that simply escape one's attention. These are what one says one takes for granted. First of all, to debunk the impossible to prove empirical proof, even if one were to, by some magical feat that demystifies infinity and transcends it, produce infinite photographs of the earth from every possible point of view, I would not be seeing those photographs as they were, but I would only see it as I perceive. There is simply no way of telling whether what I see is a faithful reproduction of what is, or anything exists at all beyond what I perceive. If the former were true, I would see only what I wanted to see, or some unseen force, within or without, wanted me to see. So I might just as easily see them as circular projections of the earth as another empiricist sees triangular projections of the earth. So, my proof is rendered in-absolute, and completely dependent on the observer. The latter on the other hand, would mean I could see whatever I want, it simply doesn't exist, a mere hallucination on a scale that is grander than anyone ever imagined possible. In either case, the proof becomes observer dependent robbing them of the absoluteness required to prove a fact. Therefore, by proving something empirically, one simply gets over this inconvenience by ignoring it or assuming the credibility of one's senses.

The above reasoning in itself is not empirical, it is the extrapolation of existent ideas to arrive at a contradiction. Thus, it is a rational explanation and no one has produced infinite photographs of the earth. But if I were to somehow prove that a rational proof can be discredited in the same way, it would mean that the above proof of indeterminability in itself has been rendered null and void. This, however, does not mean that empirical evidence can now be justified, as it is not so simple a universe to assume that the negative of a negative is a positive, but is an indeterminate state, assumed in most cases to be positive through induction and extrapolation with the assumption of uniformity of the universe. As in the school of Hegelianism, an idea can be comprehended by robbing oneself of it; the second part of the An-sich: Anderssien: An-und-für-sich series that mean in itself: out of itself: in and for itself. Hegelianism argues that any development of any idea is a triadic process; the first is the idea itself, the second, the opposite or sublation of the idea in the pursuit of its greater significance and the final re-institution of the idea in a more refined and agreeable form. So, in this triadic process, I would only be in the second stage of Anderssien if I disproved and therefore robbed myself of the ability to prove rationally. The third stage would be to outline a rational proof disproving the rational proof leading to another indeterminate state.


The proof is as follows:
We have taken a set of eight statements generally construed as true by general judgement and have built up more complex ideas based on them ultimately arriving at the fact that the earth is round. If, however, by some unaccounted factor, one of the basic ideas were to be discovered false, the entire supposition comes crashing down. The theorem of Rationalism is, "If any idea or phenomenon can be proved as logically sound and consistent by rational arguments, it is logically sound and consistent."
To prove the above theorem, the following statements are taken as first principles:

• The idea or phenomenon to be proved can be proved rationally
• The capability to rationally prove the idea or phenomenon is within our intellectual confines.
• The theorem itself.

Now, if I were to disprove any of the above statements, the whole school of rationalism comes down precipitately. Let us take the first statement; it is straightforward, it is merely an assumption that the idea can be proved rationally. There is no way one can prove it unless they use the proof of contradiction. Assuming that any statement cannot be proved rationally would imply that it cannot happen as one considers the fundamental principles of physics and mathematics to predict the phenomenon or idea. If the idea cannot be proved, it therefore cannot happen. Even this proof has an underlying assumption, which if disproved can crash the argument. The assumption is that the fundamental principles of physics and mathematics are absolute and of immutable veracity. If we can somehow prove that a phenomenon not predicted by these principles can occur, we have successfully disproved the contradiction, thereby disproving statement 1 of the set of first principles. For example, existent physics and mathematics could not predict the uncertainty in the position and momentum of a particle with sufficient accuracy and therefore have been incorporated into physics as an inherent limitation of the observer and the system which, in the absence of the observer, is in an indeterminate intermediate state, just as the Schrodinger's cat. For a brief instant, just after the observation of the limitation of existing physics and the redress of that limitation, mathematics collapsed, rationalism failed and had to be propped back up again with this work around correction introduced into physics. This suggests that the platform we hold for absolute truth in itself is not immutable, but changes with time, as new phenomena are unravelled. The observer does not lead, but lags the system, with a varying set point that accounts for errors produced in the previous iteration. This would mean that any argument can be proved rationally by playing with the most fundamental axioms of physics. Therefore, it is impossible to disprove the first statement.
Moving on to the second one, one can never prove the statement. If we do not have the capability to prove the statement, we will not have the capability to disprove the statement, and the statement will stay in an indeterminate state, glossed over by an assumption that we can prove the phenomenon under question, and see where it goes from there. The third statement leads to ad infinitum and therefore has been left alone. Ergo, it is impossible to prove rationally that a rational proof is valid for any idea or phenomenon. If I cannot prove the credibility of my tools, I cannot use them. If I cannot use them, I cannot prove the fact that I cannot prove the credibility of my tools. We have now entered a state of mutual contradiction that can only be allayed by an assumption on one side to keep the wheels moving. The assumption is that rationalism is valid and therefore applicable.


This, however is not the absolute standard for reason, there can never be an absolute standard. If there can never be an absolute standard, there can be no reason, only a set of conditions, as in, if this were true, that is true. Therefore, I merely assume that this is true, accept it as my most fundamental principle and build ideas from there. But there is no way to tell if it is true, for there is no such thing as the truth.

Good Riddance (Time of your Life)

There are times in every man's life, when he has to shrug it off and call it life. I have done precisely that when it comes to the last four years of my life. We've had our ups and downs, I've had my downs and downs, I've sworn at a couple of teachers quite liberally and have basically made my transition from a fat douche to a slightly less fat douche in the years I have spent on the dusty streets of NIT Trichy. From marathon AOE matches to bad movies to escape the power cuts that last through the entire day, it has been one bumpy ride from the blinking idiot in first year who bunked his first class in the college out of ignorance (ask Gokul, he was a part of this charade) to the blinking idiot who bunked all later classes out of apathy (ask anyone in my department). In this twisted journey, I have met more convoluted characters (read TB, Adharsh) than out of a Quentin Tarantino movie (read HK); some of you interesting (you), others mindbogglingly dull (everyone else), on the whole, it was a nice sample set of humanity in general that greeted my eye when I first walked into the walls of Agate hoping it would have a western toilet. All things said and done, it was a defining journey into adulthood, our own four year long barmitzvah that one needs to remember for the rest of one's life, for I'm sure that forty years down the line, if I'm still alive ( chances are, at this rate, I won't be, so you're invited to the funeral, by the way; bring champagne ) and whenever someone mentions the word Tsunami, there would always be a little part in me that would jump and turn around hoping it was someone from college trying to call me.
Not for the last time,
Tsfu