Beau-Ideal

Global Warming -- The Truth and The Myth - 2

2010-02-28T21:48:00.000-08:00

The history of climate temperature trends

History is greatest source of knowledge. After all history is nothing but an accumulated knowledge of innumerable minds, events. To have a better future we must learn history. We observe, analyze, learn, correct and better ourselves which leads to evolution. But what if history itself is a puzzle? What if the hands which pass on the history to new generations mishandle it? For better or worse - how to trust?

The question arose and man baffled. He is common man, like me.

Ask a psychologist on why a person is behaving as he is and he will explain it to you. Ask him to observe and link the behavior of all family members of that particular person and that will be a challenge for psychologist. Then ask him to link the behavior of all the citizens in that city, state or country. And then to interconnect behavioral nature of human being in whole globe! The probability of making a mistake increases in each stage. Why does it happen? When you need to interlink two data you need to find some relation between the two. In simple terms you need a formula that should hold good for all and satisfy all conditions. To find it is real tough task ahead. Something similar happened with global warming. There were theories to explain warming of the climate. Now people wanted to connect them because they strongly felt or their theory pointed to an overall increase in average temperature on Earth. The real challenge was to study the pattern of changes in average temperature over the past and the present. This could demonstrate us how temperature varied all the while in the past, how it is changing[increasing] in recent years rapidly and if it continues this way how would our future look like?

But it is not as simple as it looks. There are many challenges involved in this. First, collect the historical data of temperature on Earth. It requires an answer to, from what all locations we should pick temperature data which could give a meaning to what we say ‘Global’. Next, need to find the mean temperature with all collected information. Also you need to determine on differentiating the data based on factors such as ocean, land, which layer of the atmosphere, etc. The factors in a particular location which could have been exposed to some sudden climate changes due to natural/manmade pollution also need to be taken care of owing to the impact it might have on the mean value of the data.

As I have mentioned earlier there was no temperature data available until recently. A team of scientists used paleo-climatic data from about 17 sites around the world to generate a thousand year long records for both northern and southern hemispheres. This used multi proxies of temperature sources such as tree rings, ice core. Jones et al. came up with a report which affirmed 20th century is the warmest of last 600 years.

But later it received high criticism over the methodology used in constructing temperature trends and to correct the UHI effects [UHI refers to the tendency for urban areas to have warmer air temperatures than the surrounding rural landscape, due to the low albedo of streets]. Different individuals reported their studies indicating, in regions as in Australia, northern or southern hemisphere the stations that are considered for the study by Jones et al 1986 were affected with UHI. Considering Australia, Jones et al 1986 looked at 86 Australian stations and rejected 46 (25 Short term – 21 long term). Of the 40 they used 27 were short term and 13 long term. Of the long term there were 5 large cities. There are claims that Jones et al systematically truncated data and ignored more rural data.

Even the Peterson 2003 report which claimed there is no observable difference in urban and rural trends in its network has been criticized by many. If we consider both rural and urban trends there is a difference of about 0.7 ⁰C. And when you consider cities with major league sports franchise along with rural you will find over 2 ⁰C per century!!

Moving little back in time, IPCC 2001 report came up with a terrifying graph:

This is famously known as ‘Hocky Stick Graph’ with its look-alike pattern. The debate concerning the methodology started in 2003 with Stephen McIntyre, the editor of Climate Audit, and Professor Ross McKitrick, a Canadian economist, raising voices against Mann et al.’s [Michael E. Mann, Raymond S. Bradley and Malcolm K. Hughes] hocky stick graph claiming that the graph has serious flaw/defects in its data and calculations. This led to two important investigations. One by scientists convened by NRC [National Research Council] and other one by three statistician chaired by Edward Wegman, statistics professor who was also past chair of the National Research Council’s Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics.

Interestingly the outcomes of two investigations differed. NRC report supported MBH [Mann et al.] reconstructed temperature graph and mentioned that though there are shortcomings in the statistics they are small in effect. And the Wegman report [committee on energy and commerce report] mentioned that MBH98 and MBH99 were found to be "somewhat obscure and incomplete" and the criticisms by McIntyre and McKitrick were found to be "valid and compelling." Both listed the reasons of their findings.

Also Mann did not wish to make the data/source code used in their study public. But finally he had to make the data public after a lot of criticism and pressure. Once it was available reviews are done and in 2005 McIntyre and McKitrick mentioned that 7 of their 10 findings are confirmed by reviews. But again in 2008 Mann et al. published updated reconstruction of Earth’s surface temperature and again McIntyre and McKitrick reported new studies with criticisms.

If that is one story few skeptics also came up with below interesting graph:

It is crystal clear from this graph that there is dramatic increase in average temperature starting 1990. But the point to note is there is dramatic decrease in number of stations starting 1990!! Is this merely a coincidence? Is the loss in number of stations uniform across the world? From the data it was found that this loss in stations occurred mostly in former Soviet Union, China, Africa and South America. Now, that is called cherry-picking the data to prove that global warming is happening and very fast.

In recent time, especially after climategate incident the temperature data reliability has become most suspicious. At the end of 2009 New Zealand Government’s chief climate advisory unit NIWA is put under fire for manipulating raw climate data to depict a strong global warming trend which did not exist. And similarly it happened in Russia as well. IEA [Institute of economic analysis] issued a report which claimed Hadley center for climate change based at British Meteorological Office headquarters had probably tampered the Russian-climate data. It is said that while Russian meteorological stations cover most of the country’s territory, the Hadley Center had used data submitted by only 25% of such stations in its reports. And the data of stations that are not listed does not show any substantial warming in late 20^th century.

To understand this cherry-picking is not really difficult. Consider below:

The temperature patterns in both look different. If I want to support global warming I use only Bangalore’s data skipping Cochin’s. While this is just a very raw example to show what can be done to prove global warming.

And coming to very recent time, while I am certain most of us felt January 2010 is mostly found to be the coldest one. But surprisingly it is found that, considering sea surface temperature January 2010 is second warmest in last 130 years. But at the same time land temperature is not that significant [12^th warmest]. And coming to sea surface temperature it is attributed to El Nino conditions in the pacific.

Now the question is - With all this information what do we understand? The only answer I can give is, the history of temperature trend itself is still a big question.

We need to check few things before we move further or else this discussion becomes incomplete.

Truth always emerges out of a contradiction. Contradiction raises questions. And the truth that contradiction cannot exist starts a quest for a higher truth which will clear the contradiction. In this way, contradictions play a very important role in growth of science and hence the society. But on the other side, there are forces that create contradictions to mislead us from the path of truth. What is the motive behind these forces - is a different question.

So where does the questions, concerns or claims of the skeptics stand? Are they to mislead us? Are they delaying the steps that need to be taken to avoid a global disaster?

Existence of Global warming is not a claim or an idea with little importance. You started with an idea that global average temperature is raising. And you wanted to prove it. Now, to prove it you must prove that it exists. In order to do that you need to compare temperature data over many thousands of years and not mere few tens/hundreds of years. But the fact is we don’t have such data available. When we tried to get the data generated using proxies they are being questioned for which there no satisfactory answer is given.

Even when it seems that most agree to the point that in recent years temperature definitely increased there are certainly great differences in the views over many questions such as ‘what is average increase in temperature?’ or ‘as global warming supporters really claim, is it mainly due to greenhouse effect?’

But for this complexity of the situation do we see any solution? Is there a way to achieve consensus over a methodology to clear our views over the temperatures trends in the past? One probable solution I can see is to go public. Make the information, every source code public. Don’t make any adjustments to the raw data. Let all men of related section debate over the approach. I am certain we will find a more correct and efficient approach. No one can hide any truth; mishandle any data without letting know others. Don’t you think then people will have more satisfaction over the way things are moving. If you want to put up a theory let others observe, analyze and scrutinize it so that the validity of your theory is established. In this process your theory might undergo few changes for the better and correct itself. Don’t you think this will avoid any chances of creating a contradiction with an intention to mislead people?

And finally, don’t you think this is possible? It just requires an open debate with a chance for everyone to review the data. While there might be concerns over financial terms like funding for the research which force the scientists in corresponding research field to withhold information they have. But yes, if it continues that way I really don’t see any other way to establish the truth in simple way; not at least in the short period we expect. It might really take tens of years just to clarify all questions relating to history of temperature trend. The truth has to emerge one day. But with the approach we have right now it is going to take more time.

In order to move further to other topics let’s consider the point that global warming is happening and leave aside the question ‘At what rate?’ Further sections will deal with questions such as, ‘Is it something we need to really worry about? Is it natural or man-made? What are policies brought up to curb global warming? What should we do to avoid any possible disaster? ...’

Next post on the factors contributing to global warming...

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Global Warming -- The Truth and The Myth - 1

2010-02-07T06:21:00.000-08:00

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Why 100? If I were wrong, then one would have been enough!!

Einstein quoted this when he was mentioned about publish of the pamphlet or booklet of the form ‘One Hundred Scientists against Einstein’ which primarily opposed his theories. I felt this famous quote is just pertinent to the discussion to start with. Why – let’s check that later.

Global warming is one of the most debated topics of current time. It has been placed among top debated topics list from last many years - till date. With 2012 doomsday it was easy. It was easy because the facts were clear. Only the mind willing to understand, analyze and convey the facts was required. But with global warming it is a different story. It is not just the result of some superstitions, ideas of some religious fanatic, fear mongers greed, or so called pseudo-science mixed up with science creating confusion among the people. But here we need to deal with politicized science, the differences among scientific community itself, and the lack of transparency which makes this topic complex, and difficult to conclude.

I started studying about global warming in 2007 for a couple of months – and later came to a decision but could never actually share it with most. Now again from last couple of months this is making headlines. So this time, I thought, let’s get into little more details and sort them in an ordered manner. And I started writing this. But it takes time, I agree. Considering I already have some background on this, it still looks a new challenge. And to write it – you really can write some hundreds of pages. But the aim is to make it simple, understandable, concise, and effective enough to have a clear conclusion.

Before I get into dealing with assumptions, better to check the facts. The facts as in what global warming is, what are the factors that are found [or thought] to be causing it, what is current opinion of scientists or governments or people on global warming, and what are some incidents that added to boost the distrust between each other in all these different sections.

Global Warming and the Current Opinion

Now to start with, what is global warming? It is increase in the average temperature of Earth. And in 20^th century it increased by about 0.56-0.92 ⁰C.

The concerns for global warming grew as scientists started claiming that it might actually lead to catastrophe if not controlled.

Until late 1960s there were no data sets of temperature. Murray Mitchell of the U.S. Weather Bureau's Office of Climatology had the most complete set of data at the time, but it mainly was for northern hemisphere. Later after collecting existing data it was found that earth was getting warmer from late 19^th century to 1940 but then it started cooling. Then again after 1975 it started getting warmer. James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies attributed this cooling to aerosols and mentioned while cooling effect due to aerosols is for a short term, the increasing CO₂ level will continue to contribute to warming of the climate through greenhouse effect. And that, he stressed, is more concerning as it might lead to natural disasters.

Melting of glaciers, dramatic variation in climate impacting agriculture and everyday life, droughts, rising sea levels encroaching land are all symptoms of global warming impacts. The predictions and beliefs a great deal according to many studies conducted time to time. It also varies in great deal based on region. Considering US, in 2006 Americans were much less concerned, about 20-40% about global warming. But by 2007-2008, 97% of the population was aware of global warming and 63% considered it as a serious threat. And 36% was aware of global warming and not considered it to be a threat. By 2009 end, Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that only 25% of adults thought there is consensus about global warming among most scientists. And about 59% of Americans think scientists have falsified the research data to support their own theories and beliefs about global warming. The confidence on global warming kept on dropping and reached to 46% from 51% last year in US.

This pattern of increased belief and then a drop over time is almost the same in most of the countries. The recent incidents of Copenhagen Accord failure, Climategate incident, IPCC statement about Himalayan melting might have contributed to growing disbelief in global warming. Apart from that the extremists among scientists at the both ends, the not-so-concrete opinions of governments, large number of economic influences from various sources have confused common people. Also to form a opinion on global warming people must rely on experts in the corresponding field for the data. And the distrust of whether the data they are providing is accurate or twisted is another reason to turn-off the enthusiasts.

On the other side the advocates of global warming say there is no skepticism left and a clear consensus on the matter of global warming exists; though the surveys tell a different story. Still, a large number of increasing opinion is to curb the GHG [green house gases] keeping safety and clean environment in mind.

Even in political area the opinions vary. Comparing Republicans and Democrats, the belief that global warming has already begun has fallen from 47% to 41% among republicans whereas it increased from 46% to 76% among democrats in the period 1998-2008. Also the percentage of republicans saying media exaggerates the seriousness of global warming has increased from 34 to 59% among republicans, and is decreased from 23 to 18% among democrats in same 1998-2008 period.

That was to understand the current opinion of the people belonging to different sections in the society. The curiosity that people have on this very topic is much because global warming affects their lives directly. It is them or their next generation that is at risk. And people are confused on what to believe because of so much conflicting news which keeps appearing every few days. There are so many haunting questions but we do not know what to believe?!

Is global warming really happening?

Is global warming man made or natural?

Is global warming a boon or bane for mankind?

What steps should be taken to control global warming?

And finally a more important question is, can we or science answer to these questions at this stage?

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2012 doomsday - why it gained so much attention? - 7

2010-01-26T10:45:00.000-08:00

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The Call

I put my point and nothing more is left for now. At the end I wish to give call to common people as well as men of science.

The call to common people:

-- Join me in asserting ‘Doomsday prediction is a hoax’

-- Don’t fall for the gimmicks of fear mongers but ask for the basis of their prediction. If you really think it is something you alone can’t analyze approach any person who might be just right resource on that particular subject.

-- Spread this to message to your friends and relatives and every known person and don’t say ‘I don’t know’ but say, ‘doomsday is all hoax’.

-- This is not just for 2012 predictions but for all such future predictions. So try to imbibe the way to analyze any such events and filter to figure out what percentage of truth it has.

The call to the men of science:

-- Please don’t hesitate in asserting ‘the world won’t end in 2012’ as you know it best and people want to hear it from you.

-- Involve yourself in more and more public interaction programs to help them understand what is right and what is wrong. And more importantly, show them the right way of thinking.

-- Understand your responsibilities towards society. It is not enough to work but more important is to make people aware of what you are doing and to tell them why it is good.

-- Inspire young in the society to have interest in science and to be creative so that they can learn to be open to science instead of aiming to have a job and work like robots.

-- Instruct politicians and the government on what steps are required and how to tackle any issues that need science.

Related links:

Maya and other religion based opinions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_Long_Count_calendar http://www.hindu-blog.com/2008/11/2012-in-hinduism-how-hindu-religion-and.html

http://ww-iii.tripod.com/hindu.htm

http://www.officialcountdown2012.com/survival-guide/2012-end-of-the-world-predictions-3-ways-the-world-could-end

http://2012endoftheworld.co.cc/hindu/pralayadoomdays-in-the-hindu-view.html

http://www.hindupage.org/homee.php

http://hinduism.about.com/od/basics/a/goldenage.htm

http://2012rising.com/article/2012-the-kali-yuga http://hinduism.about.com/od/basics/a/goldenage.htm

http://2012earth.net/doomsday_2012.html

http://prophecy2012prediction.blogspot.com/2008_08_03_archive.html

http://2012planetalignment.org/tag/predictions

http://www.quranreading.com/blog/quran-learning/doomsday-december-21-2012-end-of-the-world/

http://www.suhaibwebb.com/blog/islam-studies/world-to-end-2012-answered-by-imam-mustafa-umar/comment-page-1/

http://www.islamforsalvation.com/2009/11/13/2012-as-end-of-the-world-islamic-view/

http://www.planetbahai.org/cgi-bin/articles.pl?article=371

Different theories and counter-arguments

Breakthrough Science Society - Article on 2012

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html

http://news.discovery.com/space/david-morrison-nibiru-2012.html

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/planetx/science.html#orbits

http://www.lunarplanner.com/HCmovies/HCmovie300Frame.html

http://alignment2012.com/whatisga.htm

http://www.astronomycast.com/listeners/questions-shows/questions-show-alignment-with-the-galactic-plane-destruction-from-venus-and-the-death-of-the-solar-system/

http://www.universetoday.com/guide-to-space/galaxies/galactic-plane/

http://www.universetoday.com/2008/10/03/2012-no-geomagnetic-reversal/

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=511

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/10mar_stormwarning.htm

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/29may_noaaprediction.htm

http://www.universetoday.com/2008/06/21/2012-no-killer-solar-flare/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Toba

http://www.december212012.com/articles/disaster/3.shtml http://skepsis.no/?p=599

http://abcnews.go.com/International/Story?id=5301284&page=2

http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/ask-an-astrobiologist/intro/nibiru-and-doomsday-2012-questions-and-answers

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012-guest.html

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html

http://2012unveiled.com/2012-blog/20/year-2012-the-apocalypse-and-the-christian-bible/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/6227357/Web-bot-project-makes-prophecy-of-2012-apocalypse.html

http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/perturbing-the-oort-cloud

http://www.mikebrownsplanets.com/2008/02/i-do-not-pseudo-science.html

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080818-mm-earth-core.html

http://www.ralph-abraham.org/talks/transcripts/hyperspace.html

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/planetx/nutshell.html

http://astronomyspace.suite101.com/article.cfm/astronomy_fallacies_2012_doomsday_prediction

http://decipherment.wordpress.com/2009/10/11/q-a-about-2012/

http://www.sfreporter.com/stories/my_oh_mayan/5176/all/

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/main/6401842.html

http://www.universetoday.com/2008/05/19/no-doomsday-in-2012/

http://2012planetalignment.org/december-2012-doomsday-predictions-–-save-yourself

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/relax-the-end-isnt-nigh-1804340.html -- movie

http://www.starrynighteducation.com/sntimes/2008/06/#art1

http://www.sltrib.com/Nation%20and%20World/ci_13534048

http://2012thetruth.com/2012DoomsdayPrediction.php

2012 Hoax

Mass Hysteria and other

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2009/10/2012-end-of-the-world-2012-doomsday-2012-movie.html

http://www.december212012.com/

http://www.december212012.com/articles/news/the_final_days.htm

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/11/091106-2012-movie-end-world-fears-maya-predictions.html

http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?topic=84540.0

http://santitafarella.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/a-2012-prophecy-suicides-will-accompany-the-advent-of-december-21-2012/

http://2012thetruth.com/2012ApocalypseR.php

http://www.astroengine.com/?p=909

http://voiceofsikkim.com/2009/10/18/scientists-try-to-calm-2012-hysteria/

2012 doomsday - why it gained so much attention? - 6

2010-01-26T10:43:00.000-08:00

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The fear mongers

When we have large section of people who tend to believe 2012 doomsday predictions there is another important section which wants people to believe it!! These sections of people keep looking for an opportunity to make big money and this is just right for them.

Take a look at our Hollywood moviemakers. They keep looking for such new concepts. While doomsday is not a new concept, it appeared now again with a freshness in it. So Roland Emmerich came up with movie ‘2012’ which has a budget of $200 million and grossed more than $767 million. This is 5^th highest grossing film in 2009[‘The Day After Tomorrow’ which was also a disaster movie depicted catastrophic effects of global warming and was directed by same director. Gross revenue of that movie is $544 million]. Moviemakers know that movies based on a catastrophic disaster are rare to fail in box office. So they jump as soon as they hear such disaster prediction. Now to make a movie they need a story. And as it is fiction they need not care for facts. If they go for facts they would end up making a non-disaster movie!! So you can be sure that always a movie based on disaster has to show disaster happenning. And of course they don’t have choice but having the main character to support that prediction by providing facts. And as we need to make movie interesting it will have lot and lot of skeptics and almost all government officials and scientists would go against him. You can note that these skeptics won’t bother to check evidences or details but they just laugh off. Director is well aware that otherwise it doesn’t impress the viewers much. So the story goes…

The same thing applies to media as well. They want viewers. So they want exciting news. And now they got it: 2012!! They really don’t want to take sides because they are well aware of its impact. People will get the idea or the point that media is depicting. And excitement no longer sustains. So they continue their struggle to retain that excitement in the mass as long as possible. How can I forget it influenced a young child in India for suicide over LHC collider doomsday fear?!

Even in newspapers I rarely see an article condemning this 2012 hoax published in front page or at a location where people can notice it quickly. You will get it somewhere in the middle of newspaper with some 30-40 lines scribbled where rarely someone takes pain to read.

The question we need to consider is, is it moral or ethical for media including television, newspapers, and movies to depict a baseless prediction as some top priority issue? When we have grave concerns in our society such as economic imbalance, poverty, terrorism etc how moral it is to divert all attention to doomsday stuff? They have forgotten their moral responsibilities. They are moved to a stage where they don’t have anything left but to look out for profits. They have lost their souls. They are well aware of the impact of this on the society. Still they continue with what brings them money.

While I don’t believe all of them belong to this category what we see today shows majority of them belong to this category.

What about the religious gurus? They are welcomed with great respect and provided a nice chair to sit and every facility one could seek for. Then these gurujis start talking. They talk about just everything in the universe from science to philosophy to your lives. I hate to see it. It’s irritating to the core. But I force myself to sit and hear him talking things he isn’t aware of because that’s how we understand them, study them. But these gurujis have studied minds, minds of the common. They know very well what to say and when to say. All they know is mantras which make them superior to others. Apart from that they know nothing. They come and talk about science? It is disgrace to science. They are going to tell us what global warming is? Ask him the definition of global warming. They are going to tell me if I do pooja god will be happy and let me escape from doomsday? Doesn’t god know how to distinguish good from the bad but need a pooja to do that? Every saying of these guruji get them one of the two things: Name or Money.

If I hurt feelings of any of the readers I beg your pardon. Our true enemy is not our differences in opinions. It is not our respective religions, not our casts, not our colors, not the borders that separate us. But it is these people who have lost their morality and it is their greed. I feel very sad when I see we give so much respect and waste our money on so many useless things because some guruji asked for it. I wonder why can’t we just analyze and see what life he is leading, where our money is going, how he can have his own home, car, nice amenities and his own living!!

Let these gurujis and babas aside, we have politicians to look at as well. What intention a politician can have in supporting doomsday? There are many reasons why they might be willing to support doomsday hype. In Karnataka [India] we already have a chief minister who performs pooja for anything and everything imaginable. The very first day he became chief minister he went and performed pooja to his chief minister chair!! Now if he himself believes in doomsday theory I won’t be surprised. That is anyway his personal belief and does not fall under this topic.

But I want to discuss the dangers of influence of such beliefs in a minister. It is not really surprising if we start seeing government projects put on hold because they want to see what would be the impact of 2012 doomsday. They will say we will resume work if everything is fine or else we might lose large sum of amount vanished by doomsday partial catastrophe!! Why does people need any education, any facilities when they are about to die soon in disasters? What if we see a partial damage and damage is done at the places where we are planning to invest money? Also why can’t government itself perform a Maha Yajna for the sake of good of all the people in the state?

Though these look very farfetched this kind of thought will definitely influence politicians. And not only politicians but also the common people who with such thought might become less resistive to any injustice. This very same doomsday news can be used as a very effective weapon to divert people’s thoughts from current burning issues to something that actually doesn’t exist.

It is very much possible and majority of politicians we know won’t hesitate to use this for their own advantage.

These people are the fear mongers who do not wish you to forget the 2012 doomsday until it surpasses and they can come up with a new doomsday prediction.

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2012 doomsday - why it gained so much attention? - 5

2010-01-26T10:42:00.000-08:00

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The scientists and the known

We have many who know the facts. When I say facts it is facts and figures corresponding to all the events that are put forth by doomsayers to support their theories.

Now when a supporter states, ‘geomagnetic reversal is going to prove fatal for the human species in 2012’ the known scientists or others start providing information related to this geomagnetic reversal. Ok, it happened so many years ago, we don’t have a specific time to foretell when it is going to happen, even if it happens there is no evidence to say it is going to cause adverse effect on human beings.

Problem with such statements is, again common man misses the conclusion. The question he asks is, ‘you are saying you don’t know when it will happen next? Means science can’t really assert doomsday is not going to happen. There are people who are very affirmative in their statements when they say doomsday is near and it is going to happen on that exact day. They seem to know more than you. They even have evidences to what they are saying. What do you have? You just keep saying you don’t know. I want you to prove that doomsday is not going to happen in 2012 and so to prove doomsayers wrong. Do that and then I can believe in what you want me to believe!!’

The scientists are doing their job by providing what is the truth. But that is not enough. They need to put these things together and assert that doomsday predictions and theories are all baseless, pure speculations, and tampered themselves to mix up with each other. And they need to assert that no one can predict future and tell why no one can predict future. Only prediction about future can come from a scientific analysis which can logically, objectively show why it is predicting what it is predicting.

In scientific field people make accurate statements. So they hesitate to say geomagnetic reversal is not going to happen in 2012. Because the fact is they don’t know when it is going to occur. But what responsibility they should take up is, to go forward to people and convince them that, ‘geomagnetic reversal can happen anytime which no one can predict. No person can predict that it is going to happen on 21^st Dec 2012. So the news that it is going to happen on that day is a big hoax. And it is not going to cause any casualties let aside the catastrophe.’ Then people will understand. This is one task that people in scientific field need to take up.

Fear mongers actually try to make use of this uncertainty of science in predicting future to make their point. But we need to note that while science cannot predict it no one else can. It is only the stories that can really have true foretellers. If you think clearly you find that all the foretellers are not better than any other good magician. They are good magicians who make their living in the name of having super natural power. Or they utter something which looks like a code and when you decipher it you see that it really happened!! There is nothing but a psychological aspect here. They say exactly something which could be deciphered to get more than one meaning so that you will get the meaning you are looking for. Anyway, if you are not satisfied on this point I will be getting back with different article soon. But the truth is there are no real foretellers in this world. Only science can foretell anything in this universe that is possible. So tell fear mongers that when science could not foretell how can you? What basis you have to prove your point? Why should I believe you?

And many come up with question, ‘can you disprove what that doomsayer is saying?’ Now, I will certainly disprove it if only you can prove me wrong when I say ‘a person can continue to live even if we remove his heart and brain from his body’. Do it. Prove me wrong and I will prove the doomsayer wrong!! The point here is simple. The question disproving doesn’t arise at all if we don’t have proof for it. The very truth that there is no proof to it is itself proof that it is not valid.

And still some other come up saying, ‘Haiti earthquake happened recently, Tsunami happened in India and Srilanka regions, Katrina hurricane killed thousands. When we have seen such natural catastrophes happening and are not able to stop them how do you say doomsday won’t happen in 2012?’ I wonder where our foretellers were when these natural disasters hit us. But we have lot and lots of such foretellers claiming they had known it would happen and predicted it well before!! Anyway coming back to this particular question, the point is no one is saying catastrophes will never occur. But the question we are dealing with is predicting such catastrophe well before without any basis is incorrect, immoral, and unethical. Tsunami might again hit us in 2011, why 2012? Yes, we can see few natural disasters as we saw until now but how do you predict it?

In fact if our system works as expected, and we have sophisticated precautionary steps well planned we can actually see to it that these natural disasters harm no lives, at least not significantly. If you ask me, the question of earthquake killing hundreds of thousands of people[officially as of 24^th Jan 150000 people are buried in the capital alone] is not important than the question of living condition people in Haiti before earthquake. Check these facts:

-- As per GDP per capita, every person gets only $2 per day. That comes under extreme poverty section. -- Of about 8.2 million population 1% [which is ~80,000] of them are rich and hold half of the country’s wealth.

-- So considering GDP and this fact about 8.1 million people are hardly getting $1 per day. Such is the extreme state of country’s economy.

-- At least 225000 children are under slavery.

-- Debt per capita is $169.

-- Over 90% children suffer from waterborne diseases and intestinal parasites.

Now, would it be better for Haiti if no earthquake would have happened? No. The reality is something else. If the economic condition of Haiti would have been better and assuming the system was efficient then the chances were that they would be able to identify forthcoming earthquake bit earlier, they would be prepared well to save their people and to provide them with better relocation facilities, and even the infrastructure itself would have been better to withstand the earthquake. That would have saved hundreds of thousands of people from dying.

I think this is real problem we should be discussing about; we should be looking into and not baseless predictions about 2012 doomsday.

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2012 doomsday - why it gained so much attention? - 4

2010-01-26T10:33:00.000-08:00

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Why people believe?

The theories mentioned above are not ALL. These are few popularized theories that exist among us. But as mentioned we do not have any evidence to show that these will occur or if they occur it is in 2012.

Then why? Why all of them say it happens in the 2012? There must be something in it. It cannot be a mere co-incidence. This is how majority of people think. Good if you asked these questions to yourself. But it is sad if it made you believe in doomsday prediction.

Let’s look at the different sections in the society that might easily fall for such predictions:

One large section of society comprises of uneducated people. Many poor families could not afford expensive education in current society even they wish to. They depend on either physical work in the industries or the agriculture. The environment they live cannot possibly provide them any opportunity for intellectual growth. So they understand many natural phenomena, natural laws, the links between different sections of the nature and society, the responsibilities of an individual holding different positions in the society. When they themselves can’t grow intellectually because they can’t afford education and because they can’t read or write they tend to believe in what those whom they believe to be intellectuals tell them. While there is large section of such poor uneducated people we also have a large number of people who take advantage of it to make a fine living out of it. These people are our Babas, Gurujis, or similar kind of people.

Also this uneducated, poor section can’t even get a statement, assertion that doomsday is not going to happen from the media as well. And if they have any educated respected person among them they find that even he can’t assert that doomsday is not going to happen.

So it is very natural that they tend to believe doomsday is going to come. Even different religions taught them some kind of prophecy about the end of the world. Religious prophecies won’t give out the date but all of them have a doomsday prophecy. The people think, ‘See!! It is coming. The intellectuals found the year which is 2012!!’ They get colorful picture and description of how it is going to happen as well.

Now, a question remains. Why the so called intellectuals do that? Why babas or gurujis say doomsday is coming? Let it aside, why even an educated person can’t assert doomsday won’t happen? We will look into first question bit later but let’s consider this educated section now.

Tell me frankly what you feel about our education system. It is kind of worse that I have seen or heard and that is getting more and more worsen each day. What they teach? What is quality of our textbooks? How the exams are conducted? What is the aim of getting education? Answer these and you will get the picture of what an educated person look like today. The current society is creating educated fools, educated robots. First, education is expensive. Second, there is nothing that it teaches except to get you some certificates and hence a job. The aim of a student is to clear the exams and get a job. The aim of a teacher is to make his students pass well so that he can earn a good name and hence good salary. The aim of an education institution is to get more students, get them good scores and hence make lot of money. Between this no one cares what should be educational content. People take up science and they don’t even get an idea of what scientific thinking means. If you want to be a software engineer you need not know how solar eclipse occurs do you? Why the hell a doctor should care for economy when his work is to treat patients? In one of his documentary, the biologist and proponent of evolution Richard Dawkins asks a chemistry professor how old he thinks the earth is? The answer he gets is, it should some thousands of years. As Dawkins also comments, being a professor in science field how can someone think the earth is just a few tens of thousands of years old?! People in scientific field do not know the basic facts of science. Then how can we expect them to get a thinking mechanism that is scientific. It is different topic to discuss but yes, this is what our education system is. It is aiming at creating robots who can just do their jobs but don’t have a scientific outlook, their own thinking or analyzing capability, and any creativity.

These types of people who say earth could be just a few thousands of years older are impractical, unscientific but educated. People respect them because they are in science field. But in reality they do not know science so they can’t really tell what the reality is. There is not much difference between these people and uneducated.

Another kind of section is people who are educated and are practical people who know what science says. But the issue is with their thinking. This section wants to keep science at a respectable place but they do not like to mix it with other aspects of their lives. The tradition says the number 13 is bad omen so I believe in it. Now I don’t want to mix it with science so I continue with my belief. And my astrologer says ‘some planet is in bad position in my current astrologic chart so better to avoid any good programs till it goes off and go for a pooja’ I will go for it. Science can’t really help me in this because this is not within its boundary. This is the kind of thinking this section has. Now it points at one thing. They believe that there is something more than science. And that superior thing can explain things that are inexplicable by science. You can’t really use scientific method to believe this superior thing. This very thinking make them believe in doomsday predictions. They don’t trust science outside the boundary that they put. Not when it comes to doomsday prediction they try to think standing outside that boundary. But outside that boundary belief is everything; there is no place for any basis. So most likely they fall for it. Or in case they made up their minds not to believe it, still they can’t assert that it is not going to happen because of contradiction they are facing. With this conflict of mind they cannot help others as well.

These three sections make majority of the population. There are people who pretend to take it lightly by saying, ‘Anyway we can’t do anything when it happens, then why worry?’, or ‘at least I won’t have to pay my bills then, that’s good!!’, or ‘anyway this society is full of crap, injustice and cruel. Let it go!!’ etc. Even when they make such remarks they know that they are uncertain about what to believe, what is right approach, how much they should be worried about. They belong to the section where they have contradictions in their minds and are confused about how to approach.

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2012 doomsday - why it gained so much attention? - 3

2010-01-26T10:28:00.000-08:00

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So-termed “Scientific predictions”

There are many predictions that are believed to be scientific by the common man. These vary from a plant, asteroid hitting earth, Sun flares destroying earth, volcano destroying the earth etc. Before you start with these topics I must say, there is a big difference between the general speculations and scientific speculation. A scientific speculation consists of some boundaries which define limits to how far a speculation could go. Like we say, we expect solar flares and that might cause some damage to our infrastructure.

Let’s look at them one by one briefly:

Nibiru or Planet-X or Eris:

Many people are not clear with the relation between Nibiru and planet X when they talk about them. Many say Nibiru itself is called Planet-X also. But many believe they are different.
Anyway Nibiru is a planet or brown dwarf[the celestial object which is not completely a star nor a planet is called brown dwarf. These are called failed stars in general terms] which orbits around sun every 3600 years. And it is claimed to be found by Sumerians or Mesopotamians in their time. Ironic thing is these claims came from modern writers who claimed such thing in fictions. There is no evidence to say that actually it was found or noted by Sumerians or Mesopotamians. In fact, the interesting point is it was supposed to hit us in 2003 as per doomsayers. But unfortunately they failed but did not lose their belief. So, they moved the date to 21^st Dec, 2012!!
Planet-X is a name given to any possible object. In 1983 many sources of infrared are found but many suspected objects found to be distant galaxies. But that news of lots of infrared sources are found, created stir among the media and public. Many started with this planet-x theory and are continuing till date. They just want to believe it, so are continuing to believe it even if scientists made it clear there is no such thing. Between, now the claim is even this is about to collide earth on that very same fateful day. Now what else should I tell except that there is not a single evidence to prove it?
Eris was also once a planet-x but now is recognized as dwarf planet which is smaller than our moon. And it is in an orbit that will bring it closer to earth by minimum of 4 billion miles. Absolutely there is no proof to say that Eris might even touch us!
Those who claim that these exist even provide images, videos to make us believe. But they are all false and images of other celestial objects tampered to present them as real Nibiru/Planet-X. So, don’t fall for them.

Galactic alignment:

The Galactic Alignment is the alignment of the winter [or December] solstice sun [winter solstice happens when the earth's axial tilt is farthest away from the sun at its maximum of 23° 26'] with the Galactic equator[The Galactic Equator is a virtual line that describes 0 degrees longitude and 0 degrees latitude, and acts as a divisionary line between the northern and southern hemispheres of the Milky Way galaxy. Don’t mistake it for Galactic center!]. This Galactic Alignment occurs only once every 25,800 years. Earth wobbles very slowly on its axis and shifts the position of the equinoxes and solstices one degree every 71.5 years. This causes December solstice sun to precess through the Galactic equator. And now, doomsayers say that in 2012 this galactic alignment is going to happen. And the doomsayers say that Mayans were aware of this galactic alignment. And that this galactic alignment in 2012 will be causing the catastrophe.

But the truth is galactic alignment is not a single day event but is of 36 years as precession depends on the diameter of the sun. And the most precise alignment has already occurred in 1998 with no major incidents observed. Also there is no evidence that Mayans were aware of precessions and gave any importance to solstices.

Geomagnetic reversal:

Geomagnetic reversal is where our earth’s magnetic north pole shifts to South Pole and magnetic South Pole shifts to where north magnetic pole is present.

We understand that earth has its own magnetic field. Also it spins as it orbits. This spin, in fact causes churning of molten iron inside and a stable magnetic field. But it happens that magnetic poles slowly shift and at one point of time suddenly switch their positions leading to geomagnetic reversal.

Now we don’t have any idea when that might happen. It has been observed that there is no regularity in time period between the pole reversals in the past. Last geomagnetic reversal occurred 780000 years ago.

When scientists do not know when this pole reversal will happen next, our doomsayers being far more advanced than the scientists predicted that it is going to happen in 2012!! They also have theories of Nibiru, planet-X, solar flares that are going to cause this geomagnetic reversal. Still moving ahead they seem to know that it is going to have catastrophic effect on earth while our scientists assert there won’t be any bad impact from geomagnetic reversal!!

Blackhole alignment:

At the center of our milkyway galaxy we have Sagittarius A* which is a very compact, bright astronomical radio source. It is very likely that we have a supermassive black hole located near this Sagittarius A*.

Apparently in 2012 this supermassive blackhole would cause gravitational disruption to solar system which will be proved fatal for earth. Why should it happen on that very day itself? Because we are about to have galactic alignment on the very same day!! Now that we know the precise galactic alignment was in 1998 which already is a past. Still doomsayers say it is going to happen on the day!! Even if we assume galactic alignment would happen in 2012 it scientifically makes no sense to say that it is going to cause gravitational disruption. Remember, as I already mentioned galactic alignment is not galactic center!! So we are still about 26000 light years away from galactic center. And for that supermassive blackhole to disrupt gravitational field it should come many million times close to us. And that is not going to happen.

So there is not a single scientific evidence to prove that blackhole alignment is going to cause havoc on earth.

Solar Flare:

Solar activity follows a natural cycle called solar cycle every 11 years. The activity peaks every 11 years and reduces to minimum every 11 years. Similar to earth’s great ocean conveyor belt we have a conveyor belt in sun but of charged hot gas. When cold sunspots are swept by this belt they will reach where sun’s magnetic dynamo amplifies them. Then they will float up to the surface. At this time we see solar flares. Naturally at the peak time of solar cycle there will be more sunspots and hence more solar flare.

As we see scientists at present are almost certain that it will be an average solar flare. Still they also mention that the similar sized solar storm which occurred in 1859 [Carrington event] electrified transmission cable, set fires in telegraph offices, produced Northern Lights so bright that people could read newspapers by their red and green glow. And yes, considering today’s high-tech technology it might cost more expensive than then with damage amounting to 1 or 2 trillion dollars! But yes, it cannot damage the life on earth. So in worst case we are going to experience damages to satellites, transmission cables etc but not to life. In fact the damage to infrastructure we are talking about is the worst case. Majority chances are that we are going to experience much little trouble than this like a delay of 1 or two hours in some satellite programs or having trouble making a call and like that.

Also most important point to note is, this solar storm will be occurring in 2013!! So, if doomsday already occurs on 21^st Dec 2012 we need not even worry about solar flares, Isn’t it?!! So yes, in any angle this cannot lead to a catastrophe!!

Volcanic eruption:

Lake Toba is located in the middle of the northern part of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. We have seen the largest volcanic eruption in this location last time with a VEI[volcanic explosivity index] intensity of 8. This is biggest known to us in last 25 million years which wiped out about 65% of the total population!

Although the volcanic eruption took place in Indonesia, it deposited an ash layer approximately 15 centimeters thick over the entire Indian subcontinent; at one site in central India, the Toba ash layer today is up to 6 meters thick and parts of Malaysia were covered with 9 m of ash fall. In addition it has been calculated that 1010 metric tons of sulphuric acid was ejected into the atmosphere by the event, causing acid rain fallout.

Now it is said that it completed its 74000 year cycle will again erupt in 2012! And it will be bigger than the last time, so almost all the human species will go extinct!!

But the fact is, it is estimated that last time this volcanic eruption occurred 67500-75500 years ago. And it is impossible to say it erupted exactly 74000 years ago. Even when we consider earlier calderas, they are formed around 700, 000 and 840, 000 years ago. So it makes it highly impossible to predict when it will erupt as it might actually take hundreds of years. And to say it is going to happen in 2012 only is nothing but not just pure surmise but foolishness.

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2012 doomsday - why it gained so much attention? - 2

2010-01-26T10:10:00.000-08:00

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Theories that have no scientific basis

Every few days you will see that a new unscientific theory pops up saying world is going to end in 2012. While there is a limit to predictions that are said to be scientific, we can’t really control predictions that are unscientific isn’t it? Every now and then they just pop up. People start predicting religious scriptures in the way they wish and just come up with a theory. Here are a few:

As per Hopi Indians, who come from a group of Southwestern people called Pueblo, we are living in the 4^th world and will move to 5^th one soon. End of 4^th world will bring spiritual conflict and destruction.

Many belonging to Christianity or Islam believe that the ‘Armageddon’ or the ‘Day of Judgment’ will happen on 21^st Dec 2012. It is the final war between ‘the Satan and his army’ and ‘the Jesus and his army’. The Jesus is going to win the war and final judgment of men on earth will be done.

And in Hindu religion there is a different belief. There are four Yugas: Satya, Treta, Dwapara and Kali Yuga. And we are in Kaliyuga which started from 3102 BCE. It is believed that Lord Krishna mentioned that after first 5000 years in Kaliyuga, Golden age will start to continue for next 10000 years. And it is exactly 2012!! While, the question of how Kaliyuga is going to end will remain open, golden age is considered to be good. So, many say that the catastrophe will wipe out the bad in Kaliyuga and retains the good. So the end is for the sake of good. Even Babas and astrologers are stressing on the same in India.

With theories, the definitions for 2012 doomsday itself changes. Some say everything will just wipe out; some say only the ‘bad’ will be wiped out; some say it is partial catastrophe which kills millions of people but not all are going to see the end; and some say nothing physical will wipe out, it is just the thinking that changes. Wow! Which one is right? Most like, if you decide to believe, you will believe in what a person, whom you respect, supports.

Now, different religions have different sayings. And most of all they haven’t given any specific time when doomsday would strike us. They mention Armageddon, the war between Satan and the Jesus etc etc but show me a proof which indicates it is going to happen in 2012 only? And with Hindu religion, it also has a proof just like Mayan calendar which doesn’t answer how, where, why and what. It doesn’t point to any doomsday. In fact scriptures say Kaliyuga, in total, continues for 4320000 years. They all started saying doomsday is going to occur in 2012 just because Mayan calendar is ending on that particular day? Why Armageddon need to happen on that day itself, why not today? It is much clear that they are predicting these doomsdays because Mayan calendar is ending on 21^st Dec 2012. Otherwise there is no reason, not even a religion based reason, why it should happen on that particular day or year.

Even people gone through pains of finding Nostradamus predictions about doomsday like the below:

After great misery for mankind an even greater one approaches, when the great cycle of the centuries is renewed. It will rain blood, milk, famine, war and disease. In the sky will be seen a fire, dragging a tail of sparks.

Now who is going to tell us it happens only on 21^st December, 2012and why didn’t it happen on Y2K? The sayings by Nostradamus are so generic that you can almost assign any saying to any disaster. But yes, people claim they did proper research on these predictions. But every one of them almost failed every single time. More than that, on what basis Nostradamus would predict anything at all? Only he who lost his rational thinking believes in these predictions. No science can approve it. No religion can approve it because just like astrology this is just a speculation which has no logic to support its predictions. Only in movies you can see such predictions turning into reality and otherwise, in real, it will either fail or the predictor will cheat you. And even if there are predictors who really believe in what they say, it is their false belief and nothing else.

When it comes to Media, seems like every channel has its own program on 2012 that appears periodically. They all show impressive video clips and images which depict doomsday. And continue with details of what all different theories we have and how the world is going to end. Then you will see that there will be no analysis or very little analysis. The program will end with a big question ‘Is it true? Will world really end in 2012?’ And there are different gurus and babas [spiritual leaders] who continue with their own versions every day.

Some spiritual leader was commenting, ‘You don’t want pralaya[holocaust]? Why not? You are creating pralaya for animals so God is creating pralaya for you! Stop creating pralaya for animals and God will stop creating pralaya for you!!’

Some other Guruji was saying, ‘No. The world is not going to end. But the true disciples of God will be saved. You need to be sure you left all bad deeds. And we are arranging for a Pooja [worship of God] and yajna[religious ritual where God worship will be done. In earlier days a sacrifice used to be made to make God happy]. So make sure that you contact us for it and do Pooja and change yourselves before 2012.’

Now, what these people are trying to convince us? They themselves don’t have a unity in what will happen and how it is going to happen. They simply don’t know what they are talking about. They say global warming will cause deaths. This shows they heard that term – Global Warming. But in reality, they don’t even know what it is. It all looks total crap. You just need to become a third person to understand it is all crap. If you admire that spiritual leader then keep it aside and think for a moment. You will understand what he is saying is crap. I can’t believe they can relate doomsday prediction to what man is doing to animals!! And if doomsday is already decided why do you need to go for a special pooja? Or even why you need to care if you are already a good person with values? Why people fall for it – we will look in a later section. But yes, certainly there is no basis for any these predictions.

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2012 doomsday - why it gained so much attention? - 1

2010-01-26T10:00:00.000-08:00

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When I heard that world is going to end in 2012, I wasn’t surprised. I am aware of many doomsday predictions in the past and thought this also is just like them. But I was proved wrong. Breakthrough Science Society had arranged a program where scientists addressed about 2012 doomsday events that are predicted and explained why science does not support them. Then as I went through different media programs, newspapers, and net I found 2012 doomsday prediction is different from others in one significant aspect. This time it is coming up with a tag ‘Scientific’ attached to it. Scientific prediction of 2012 doomsday!! In current society many agree that the belief on doomsday predictions based on numerology, astrology, religious saying, scriptures, and literature is limited. Also most are aware that they can’t create much hype backing up such predictions nowadays because they most likely receive straight comment, ‘ah…leave it. There is no evidence for that. It’s all gimmick.’ I don’t completely disagree that the hype based on unscientific sections still works on large section of the society but it hasn’t reserved the same respect as in the past. Now, it is different. People are saying, ‘Scientists themselves are saying it will happen!! Some large planet called Nibiru is colliding with earth, magnetic pole reversal is happening, blah blah blah. So, now what are you going to say for that?’ The common people who won’t even understand what Nibiru is, what magnetic poles are, and what galactic alignment means cannot possibly counter attack it? And then they see 2012 doomsday Hollywood movie. Many won’t even understand for the catastrophe what reason is given in the movie. They just see the look-real impact of it. It forces us to think, ‘is there not a single possibility of it happening?’ So many sources are predicting it, all pointing at a single day! Is that just a coincidence? So it is more likely that either they ignore it because they can’t help it from happening, they can’t escape from it if it happens, and because they don’t understand what all is happening and what all science is saying about it, or they are going to believe it!!

This thought made me decide to sit and write this article. But before starting I asked myself. What am I trying to write here? Is it just another page with list of doomsday theories and counterarguments? I want to go bit deeper into the subject like dealing with ‘why people believe it’ and ‘why people want to create this fear’. It is not just enough to list the theories and prove them wrong because tomorrow someone comes up with his own theory. There, I hope, this article will help.

I just briefly go through the points that are connected to the doomsday prediction. Later we can take up different questions.

How it started?

When people talk about 2012 doomsday they mention Maya Calendar. The Mayan calendar ended exactly on 21^st Dec 2012. That raised just too many question among people. Why? Why it ended on 21^st Dec 2012? While I appreciate they questioned it, it seems they just couldn’t go and try to find for the answer. Instead they just created the answer!! The world is going to end so no point in continuing the calendar!

The fact is, in Mayan calendar system the 13^th b'ak'tun [1 b'ak'tun=144000 days which is a great cycle like millennium] will be ending on 20^th Dec 2012. As it started in 3114 BC, if you do some basic math calculation you will find this date. Now starting from 21^st Dec 2012 14^th b'ak'tun will start.

And for the question why it ended on exactly that day, why they did not continue with 14^th b'ak'tun calendar, I will give you the answer if you tell me why did you born exactly at the time you are born. That’s it. There is no point in discussing on things that make no sense. I have a year planner with me. As it doesn’t continue with 2011, it doesn’t mean I must die by the end of this year!!

Though this Maya calendar thing doesn’t have any scientific basis for it, it succeeded in being a potential hysteria maker. It started with this and then many innumerable theories started tampering themselves to predict doomsday is going to happen on 21^st December only!

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AYN RAND - Objectivism

2010-01-08T22:51:00.000-08:00

I swear—by my life and my love of it—that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask anotherman to live for mine.

John Galt, the main character in ‘Atlas Shrugged’, ends his speech with these famous words!! It is not just a speech made by a character in the novel; it is also the summary of Ayn Rand’s philosophy of objectivism.

Why ‘John Galt’ does say so? What did he mean by that? What Ayn Rand is trying to convince with this? Yes, her novels force us to think in a much different way than how we think now.

Ayn Rand was a novelist. But her thoughts and her views on life forced her to create her own philosophy. I call her genius. Not because she gave us a new philosophy to study. But it is because she fought with all other existing philosophers’ single handedly!! All philosophies differ from each other I agree. But they generally do not speak of other philosophies in general. They oppose others ‘softly’ (mostly by providing more facts to prove their own philosophy) but not as harshly as Ayn Rand did! She criticized Immanuel Kant, Hegel, Auguste Comte, Nietzsche, Jeremy Bentham, Herbert Spencer and Karl Marx stating Witchdoctory or/and Attila-ism being bases for their philosophies!!

While discussing ‘Language’ I put more stress on the point of using the language that most of the participants in the communication are comfortable with. But I did not discuss in detail of how the words we choose give different meanings to sentences having them. But I did mention that when man saw something for the first time he gave a name to it. And so language developed and in fact different languages emerged in different regions. But sadly even today we experience many feelings which we cannot express through the language. And when we try to do so different people bring out different meanings out of them. Oh…sadly this has lead to many great misconceptions, wars, debates, fights which we can observe throughout the history of mankind!! You must be asking why I am discussing this here. That is because I don’t see a philosopher who himself thought ‘bad’ for the mankind in any way. In Russia, a revolutionary movement which advocated a social arrangement based on rationalism and materialism as the sole source of knowledge and individual freedom as the highest goal. This is identified as Nihilism in which by rejecting man's spiritual essence in favor of a solely materialistic one, nihilists denounced God and religious authority as antithetical to freedom. So the goal of nihilism was indeed good! But here Nihilism had a specific meaning which explained the goals of the movement that was started. But then meaning of nihilism is taken by each different group in its own way. As per Nietzsche (with whom nihilism is generally associated with)

"Every belief, every considering something-true is necessarily false because there is simply no true world"

Well…again why and when Nietzsche did say what he said is a different question which is very much important to understand in order to get correct meaning of his words! Otherwise, as we clearly see, it seems dangerous…dangerous to the hope of all mankind!! Anyway…now the dictionary meaning of Nihilism is ‘A revolutionary doctrine that advocates destruction of the social system for its own sake’.

Even in Ayn Rand’s case objectivism is most debatable. Ayn Rand says selfishness is the greatest virtue and selflessness depraves man. If you go through her arguments you think, ‘it’s perfect! She is so right!!’ But does that mean those, who said selflessness is the greatest virtue, are wrong? I must say you cannot dare say that! Because we have countless examples where men preached the same and practiced the same. Jesus to Gandhi served men and they were happy doing that, weren’t they? Wasn’t that selfless service to mankind? Thanks to Ayn Rand, for she clears the confusion with below (from ‘The Virtue of Selfishness’):

In popular usage, the word “selfishness” is a synonym of evil; the image it conjures is of a murderous brute who tramples over piles of corpses to achieve his own ends, who cares for no living being and pursues nothing but the gratification of the mindless whims of any immediate moment. Yet the exact meaning and dictionary definition of the word “selfishness” is: concern with one’s own interests. This concept does not include a moral evaluation; it does not tell us whether concern with one’s own interests is good or evil; nor does it tell us what constitutes man’s actual interests. It is the task of ethics to answer such questions.

Now the question, what ethics say about selfishness in its meaning being ‘concern with one’s own interests’? Using this meaning Ayn Rand puts her point of selfishness being the greatest virtue. If I am the most selfish man then how can I degrade myself (or in Ayn Rand’s words, how can I lose my - self) by doing anything that is unethical or immoral? It is only those who do not have a self (or selfless), who have lost their self and love for themselves who do unethical and immoral things!!

And when it comes to sacrifice, John Galt says to Dagny (from ‘Atlas Shrugged’)

you’re the one reward I had to have and chose to buy. I wanted you, and if my life is the price, I'll give it, my life - but not my mind.

Even the sacrifice that I make is because it is my choice, my necessity and not the other person’s need.

Some say customer is GOD, because you will not survive if there is no customer to buy your goods. No business can survive without customers. That is exactly why you should treat him like GOD. It is common sense, isn’t it? But some others oppose this view. They say ‘they come to me because I provide them what they wish for. Why would they come to me if they knew there are others out there who can provide a better service than me? They do not care who I am, do they? They do not care whether I am poor or rich, selfish or selfless do they? No. All they want is better service which they know I am better to provide. Hence they come to me. This is exactly why they come to me and not because they want me to survive on their mercy!!’

So we see…if we go by Ayn Rand’s terminology her statements look valid and correct. You will not get shocked when you hear ‘Selfishness is the greatest virtue.’ When everyone agrees that to try to make the society better and to wish for a better world is good and when everyone agrees to the point that the urge to work for that good should come from within and we should be happy to do so and it should not be felt as a burden and it should not be accepted because other men (however great they are) preach it, then, what difference does it make whether you call it selfishness or selflessness? When both think the same and give different shapes to their thoughts it doesn’t make their thoughts different. But yes, others might consider their thoughts to be different and in fact even twist the original meanings of both statements to give birth to a new meaning itself!!

Ok. But is this all about Ayn Rand’s objectivity? No, it is just one part. Let’s start discussing in detail now:

Ayn Rand was much influenced by Aristotle. Aristotle, as we know, was disciple of Plato who in turn was disciple of Socrates. Most of the ideas of Socrates are written by Plato and so we read them to understand Socrates better. In ‘Crito’ (by Plato) Socrates asks Crito,

In questions of just and unjust, fair and foul, good and evil…ought we to follow the opinion of the many and to fear them; or the opinion of the one man who has understanding? Ought we not to fear and reverence him more than all the rest of the world: and if we desert him shall we not destroy and injure that principle in us which may be assumed to be improved by justice and deteriorated by injustice;--there is such a principle?

True, isn’t it? Is it just if we consider the collective decision of all the men where most of them are not even aware of the subject? Isn’t it just to consider the decision of only the specialist/s in the concerned subject? Aristotle said that there is only one reality, the one which man perceives and it exists as an objective absolute that the task of man’s consciousness is to perceive, not to create, reality. That is A is A, and it cannot be B or any other. And Ayn Rand’s objectivity uses the same idea. Objective reality, individualism and capitalism are the important coins of the objectivism.

Objective Reality
Objective reality!! Is our existence real? As real as…what to say?! When our own existence is under question what else can I refer to as real?!! One of the logics goes like this - the things we see and perceive are not real. It is all part of some Maya. It is like a very big sphere inside which we live. So that means we ourselves are also a part of Maya. We think we are different from others (Man/Animal/bird/etc…) because of the subterfuge created by this Maya. We do not have a separate existence from others. Still we think that we all have different existence. But it is not the truth. And to understand this truth (that we are inside Maya and hence we cannot perceive the truth) is the only way to get outside of this Maya and unite in the ultimate. You will get hundreds of different versions with little modification in this logic. Objective reality rejects all this. It says ‘I exist and that is absolute. I breathe and that’s truth. I am different from others and that’s absolute. The earth, sun, universe, myself, living beings, non-living things all these exist. To put it in simple way ‘1+1=2’ and this is absolute.;

What difference does it make if anything is real or not real? Hmmm…it makes a difference. If what we see is not real then what is ‘real’? There must be something which created this ‘maya’ and we must try to realize the truth of being in Maya and then escape from it. So, Maya is created by whom? What exactly it is? You need to answer to all these questions if you believe in the concept of Maya. And to answer these we already have many complex descriptions. But you know what? All these answers, explanations are completely dependent on speculations and nothing else. You won’t find a bit of concrete proof to any of the explanations that one might provide. Again they argue that the reasons, proofs we look for are also inside Maya because of which they hold no value. But I ask one question, ‘If everything we think, analyze and experiment is not real and is just a product of the Maya then how did you realize that all we perceive is Maya? How can possibly realize the truth about Maya while you are inside Maya?’ Whatever reason they provide on their support will always be based on pure speculation only.

Ayn Rand called the men who deny objective reality and preach the things such as Maya are ‘witch doctors’ who try to conquer others. Witch doctors are basically parasites whose only means of survival is to conquer others who produce. So they preach something which does not exist and show that they are the masters of ultimate reality and others are not. Yes I agree that there are more people who take advantage of ‘non-existent’ mystic concepts to fool the others and strengthen their hold on them. But I cannot (or ‘must not’ because I am sure) say all of them are witchdoctors. Because you see many who believe in ‘Maya’ kind of concepts but still are honest, good and self respecting men by nature. It is almost similar to the case where you find people who believe in god and think (totally) that they have god given gifts which they must use to serve people. And there are people who take advantage of the concept of god and make people think they have god given gifts and control all the men!!

Let’s put an end to discussion on ‘Objective reality’ here as I see no point in stretching it when the point is clear (About this we can discuss in a separate topic later).

Individualism
One more interesting topic is ‘individualism’ versus ‘collectivism’. Is it ‘I’ or ‘We’? I need to live for the ‘society’ or just my ‘self’? Is ‘sacrifice’ really a virtuous act? When we take decisions should we consider the all the men or only a few? All these questions arise in the same topic of individualism vs collectivism. When it comes to individualism versus collectivism, I cannot forget the character ‘Ellsworth Toohey’ in the novel ‘The Fountainhead!!’Ah! What a character it is! I enjoyed it the most. The greatest villain I ever saw till now…He collects the souls. Because he learns that to have money does not provide greatest power, but it is the number of the souls you collect which determines the power you have. Because if you have more souls under your control you have the power over everything they have. He uses the collectivism as his weapon to conquer others. He destroys the individuality and integrity in men!!

As I said earlier individualism says ‘selfishness is the greatest virtue’ and collectivism says ‘selflessness is the greatest virtue’. Individualism says ‘use the most sacred word - I’ and collectivism says ‘use the most sacred word - we’. Though earlier we discussed about the way both ideally use the words ‘selfish’ and ‘selflessness’ there are few differences which if not discussed leave the discussion unfinished. And in order to discuss the differences best approach is to list the kind of men she discussed:

One is ‘the producers’ as Ayn Rand calls them. These are only few individuals who produce which all others consume. These are good men which mean, in Ayn Rand’s terminology, selfish people. They do not care what others say. They do what they think is right. Their love for themselves will not allow them to degrade themselves by any wrongdoing. They help others because those other men are capable and not because those other men are not capable. These individuals are ready to provide all the results of all their efforts to society because they will know it is the best to have and everyone should have it and because they cannot see something which is inferior to what they invented/produced being used by anyone. [We should note this point very carefully as many will miss to notice this and miss the Ayn Rand’s track!! Ayn Rand says when you have something which is better than any existing alternate then, if you are the selfish, how can you keep it away from society and see that inferior thing being used? If you know what you have is best you must be willing it to be used everywhere. This is exactly why Howard Roark helps Peter Keating in architectural designs. Because he wanted to see the best being implemented in as many places as possible. If you miss to notice this you are sure going to misunderstand Ayn Rand’s words! ] And they do not expect anything in return for their favor to the world. And yes, these individual producers are the heroes.

The second-handers!! These are self-less people. They do not have a self in them! So they can’t judge. They don’t go by reason. When any question arises they look at others for answers. They don’t ask ‘is this true?’, but they ask ‘Is this what others think true?’ If others say you are good and great they consider themselves to be good and great. A considered to be great man speaks in front of people (and says what he doesn’t understand/believe himself but thinks that is what people believe to be correct and great and ideal!) and when people like it he derives his self respect from that. And similarly the listeners like his speech because it is what they are taught to be the ideal and the speaker is a famous man!! They all derive everything (self respect, self recognition, etc including the reason to live!!) from others and hence are second-handers. They get feared when an individual with his individual thinking comes to them and speaks! Because what he has is what they have lost. What he thinks is not what they are taught to be right. In fact they are taught exactly the opposite. They cannot argue with him because he goes by reason and they are only concerned with other people. So they get feared and the feared men are the most dangerous men in the world!! How many great lives haven’t we lost by feared mobs?!

And the collectors!! These guys are the worst second-handers of all!! Even these are the men with no self. But their survival depends on the destruction of the self in others! They want power. And power means dependency of other men on themselves. They take decisions for others. They decide what is good for others. This power they are after is the only means of their survival. So if one looks only on the surface it seems only they have self and not others and they are the great personalities men can ever find. But the fact is they too do not have any self of their own!! If there is no one to obey them, listen to them then they too will vanish. They find their self in others. They, in reality, are dependent on others. So, in order to survive they realize the need for people who obey them. And In order to achieve that they need to destroy the individuality or self in the others. Toohey and Wynand in ‘The Fountainhead’ are the example of this kind of collectors. Though there were differences between the two, both belonged to the same group.

This is how Ayn Rand categorizes men in general. But when we particularly observe her novels keenly we get the point that all kinds of characters are not discussed. Or at least not all situations are considered. Let’s say in Atlas Shrugged there were no selfish good men like John Galt, Rearden, Frisco, Dagny etc. Then what would happen? Does that mean no innovation? Still, we would be having men like Dr. Robert Stadler for that. As per Ayn Rand that will definitely lead to destruction of the world because of moral and ethical crisis because that would mean giving the world in the hands of those who despise it. But do not you think society is very important for a man? Because if society is not there how a individual can survive? Can a man learn everything in this world and survive without the help of any other person? If there is no doctor then do you expect every individual to learn medicine and help himself? Do you expect every individual to build road for himself to walk? What if there are no farmers, where do you get your food from? What if you, yourself are expected to build a vehicle for yourself? Do not you wonder how much dependency you have on others? When you say working for a better society means helping yourself to get better living condition? Isn’t it common sense that better society means better life of individuals? Isn’t it commonsense that by collective work you can produce more? Isn’t it commonsense that removing poverty from society means reducing criminal activities and securing yourself from any criminal attacks? Isn’t it commonsense that it is better to work for the society rather than only yourself? So, does not this mean society at any given point of time important than a individual? These are the questions that collectivists ask.

Without society individual cannot exist. But if every individual is selfish and regards himself as the best, respects himself most and hence does not degrade himself by any unethical activities doesn’t society still survive? When the society would be better? To answer this question both individualists and collectivists differ greatly. Ayn Rand says, ‘if every person is selfish then naturally society will be better, and in fact it is the only means of making society better. Whereas collectivists say individual is not better than society or all other men. And they say to live for others is the greatest virtue. And they say you should obey to what all decide collectively precisely because that is what is going to be the right [opinion of many versus opinion of an individual]. But by saying that, they destroy individuality in man and make him dependent on the opinions of all where no one will be having his own opinion and looks at others for his opinion!! And this is what precisely destroys man and the society both.’ And the collectivists ask the same questions I mentioned in last paragraph and say, ‘It is common sense that society survives without an individual. But an individual cannot survive without society. So when we take decisions it should be in the favor of the society which itself implies favor of individual. If every individual looks after only himself we will soon find corrupted souls who take advantage of individual freedom and start doing unethical activities.’

It is quite a complex topic to discuss it in here. But the question of whether individual or society is synonymous to whether cell or body. Our body is made up of millions of cells. Who is important between these two, a cell or the body? A cell may not be aware of its position in the body. It may not know how it affects the body. Its only concern is its own survival through the work it is supposed to do. It cannot survive if it stops the work it is supposed to do. Not only that, it causes malfunction of many other cells surrounding it. And this in turn might affect the body in a bad way. Similarly if you take something (consider smoking and drinking), by the mere want of you, then it might impact the cells in your body in some bad way. And if cells get corrupted as so does the body. Basically the body cannot do as it wishes. And even cells cannot go on doing what they wish. Both cannot survive without each other. If one corrupts other too will get corrupted. But some might say how does it affect if a single cell gets corrupted? Let me remind you that it simply cannot happen that only one cell gets corrupted at any given point of time. Always you observe a group of cells getting corrupted and impacting the organ they are part of. [Cells die out naturally and new cells come in their place, that’s different than getting corrupted or malfunctioning. If it dies out naturally it will not affect the organ as new cells will be replaced in its place!] It is always like a corrupted cell impacts all other cells surrounding it and always a group of cells start malfunctioning. The body cannot work perfectly if any cells are not functioning as they were supposed to. Similarly the survival of cell depends on how responsibly the whole body acts. Such is the interdependency between a cell and the body. Yes, it is the interdependency and not the dependency of just any one of them on the other. Also there is one more point here. It is only through the malfunction of body that we get to know that something is wrong. It is only when we feel the pain and cannot digest food that we get to know there is some problem with the digestive system. And we take the medicines accordingly. The point to note here is that it is at the system level we take the actions. We do not catch the cell of subject and try to cure it. We only observe the impact on the system and try to cure it at the complete system level which automatically helps the concerned cell. It is not even possible to check or cure at the cell level. So, when it comes to taking actions it always happens at the system level. But again we cannot ignore that the sole purpose of it is to help all the impacted cells and nothing else! Below is what we can understand from all this:

-- Body and Cell have interdependency on each other.

-- A single cell cannot get corrupted at any point of time. Always it is a group of cells which gets impacted and affects the organ and body in turn.

-- For a body to function correctly all cells should work efficiently.

-- When it comes to taking actions it always happens at the system level and not at the cell level. But sole purpose of the action will be to cure those particular impacted cells and in turn stabilize the system through that.

This is how the relationship between the society and an individual is. When the relationship between the two is so intimate then doesn’t the question of whether society or individual look meaningless and absurd? Whatever point you have, you put it openly but never generalize it and say ‘society, hence is not important than individual’ or vice versa. It always leads to meaningless debates, fights and nothing else. Let’s keep it straight – both are important, let’s take actions to improve the society whose sole purpose would be to help individuals in trouble and to make individuals stronger in terms of integrity. It is the only way we have to lead. Let it be individualists or collectivists they need to work ‘TO improve the society FOR the individual’. Is there any other path to follow?

This is all about individualism vs collectivism here. The next one is capitalism.

Capitalism
As per Ayn Rand capitalism is the right economy to have. Capitalist economy is free economy. And Frisco, Reardan, Dagny Taggart were capitalists.

To understand why Ayn Rand supported capitalism is not very difficult. Capitalist economy is related to individualism in very very close way. I produce, I earn, I get profit, I invest. No one has any right to ask for a share in my profit. There is no other economy which can provide so much freedom. An economy where there is no profit and where production, distribution, investments are regulated so that others can get opportunity to get profited, deprives man of his freedom.

And the characteristics of a true selfish capitalist are: he knows that the best way he can lead his life is by producing what he can and being a selfish person he will keep on producing; he is so selfish that he wants the see the world having the best and for that he can go to any level of struggle like Dagny struggled for ‘John Galt Line’ when the whole world seemed to be opposing it and Howard Roark helped Peter Keating only to see the best thing in place without expecting any reward back; he invests money in the best place he could like his production and research but he will not waste money in having many number of cars, aero planes, etc. About the last point of he wouldn’t spend his money on having more than what would satisfy him; it is exactly because a selfish man looks at his own happiness and satisfaction rather than looking at others for it. One who wants others to praise him, admire him buys what he thinks would make others admire him even if he doesn’t need it!! So do you think with true capitalists of this kind world would ever get less than the best?

But, the question is do we have such capitalists today? Do we really think we have a big capitalist among us who has the qualities of an objectivist? May be we have a few here and there. But what has happened to most of the world? Capitalism is stinking at its best. The whole economy is in the hands of a few. They could destroy the world if they wish to. You don’t need a third world war, nuclear war, aliens, or some doomsday to come and destroy us. Just the wish of a few is enough!! Billions will die of hunger, Billions will go bankrupt, and countless nations will vanish from impacts of poverty-wars-international loans!! Don’t you believe it? Any idea why recession happened in 2008-2009? What was the inequality ratio a hundred years back and now?

Official figures as of 2007 say over 300 million Indians are below national poverty line and 456 million Indians, in the world about 1.4 billion people are living on less than $1.25 a day[extreme poverty] and about 2.5 billion people are living on less than $2 a day[very poor]. Looking at India 300 million people are below national poverty line, 450 million people[42%] are below international line[less than $1.25 a day] and 828 million people[76%] are living on less than $2 a day!! That is “official statistics” of very poor and extreme poverty cases. The exact count is much more than that. And almost all others would be belonging to middle class families. Only a few would be rich. Now, don’t ask me the data of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa regions. It is just terrible!! And at another side Indians have more than 50 billionaires with all their net worth of more than $250 billion.

This is one kind of inequality in a given country that you see. Another inequality is between the nations. How good it is to go for globalization when we have so deep inequality among the nations. It greatly disturbs the economy of poor country. When you have your own resources, national wealth and when you utilize them in a efficient way you will see a stable growth in your economy. But globalization destabilizes this stable economical growth in a nation when allowing a super rich, powerful competitor in its territory. Natives not only lose their market in their own territory, but the nation loses its national wealth, resources at a much cheaper rates.

An economy must follow certain rules as nature follows its own laws in order to be stable and evolve over time. Capitalism in the name of free economy followed a unregulated and uncontrolled path and caused great inequality that we see today. Capitalism started with a good intention, it brought forth much drastic developments that current society is enjoying. And the capitalists in the starting era were great men like the heroes of Ayn Rand. But now capitalism is not what we read in Ayn Rand novels. It has changed. It has changed for the worst of mankind. It happens with any other subject we take such as technology. When there is no law to regulate the development then it ends in a disaster. That happened with technology and so with economy.

There are people who say ‘we never saw true free capitalism that Ayn Rand mentioned. That has caused the disastrous economical issues we see today’. I ask a question: ‘Why?’ Why did not we see that capitalism that Ayn Rand mentioned? Why this transition from pure capitalism to so much stinking capitalism occurred?

Time covers the cloud covering the truth. It has done its part that already. We do not need further futile attempts to show capitalism has failed. The current uncontrolled and unregulated economy, in the name of free capitalism, lead us to so sad a stage where people cannot be happier. It is sad that everyday thousands of people die of hunger and the money that could buy all of them a day’s food is a rich man’s an hour’s time pass money. Who created poverty? Is it the poor responsible for their own poverty or the economical system we live in? People commit mistake and that is innate nature of human beings. But if we don’t learn soon enough and correct ourselves we will be doomed. Now we have reached a stage where capitalism cannot protect us. It cannot take us back to a point where we can correct ourselves.

The question we must be asking at this point is what kind of regulation we should have? What is the right economical system? What lessons we can learn from capitalist economy? How to transit to a new economy so that no one gets hurt but everything would be in right way?

Let us take a look at the economies in greater details at some other point of time.

...

Friends, whatever beliefs we have, whatever emotional attachments we have, we need to accept truth. That’s the lesson we received from ages in the history. When we see a higher truth we must accept it. If we don’t, that’s the end of our life and growth. Let’s forget philosophers. Let’s learn what they taught. Let’s analyze the philosophies they taught us. Anything that enters our mind should first get analyzed and then persisted. That means when we believe in something it is harder to replace it with some other belief. So better we understand, analyze, look out at the possible future consequences and then at the end make it our beliefs...

Truth

2008-11-01T06:27:00.000-07:00

I respect truth. I love truth.

Gandhi said ‘Truth is God’. I have not given a definition for God; I believe I never need that definition, because the level of truth I attained says man does not need the word God. And truth never changes; it is only that we cross the level to realize higher truth.

All great men searched for the Truth. Some of them believed in an ultimate truth or reality and some of them did not. But all of them worshipped truth. They believed that truth is supreme. It gives us the power, not of material but of knowledge.

Let’s consider some basic questions about truth:
-- What is truth?
-- Can truth explain each and every aspect of universe?
-- Is truth always good and moral whereas false is immoral and bad?
-- Is there something beyond truth?
-- How can we say something as truth unless we know it to be true?
-- Is there something called ultimate truth? If yes, how to achieve it? And if no, what is the point in searching for truth?

So many questions!! Now, you can see how tough this subject is.

Check these out: ‘100 years from now, the world ends!’, ‘You are my only true friend!’, ‘Mango tastes better than Pineapple’, ‘please, open the door’ etc. How can we say what is true and what is not in these?! What all these point at? Predictions, requests, feelings, tastes can never be told either true or false. It depends on individual belief or individual taste. It is very much clear that we cannot distinguish all aspects as truth or false.

So, what exactly is truth? Where can we apply it? There are many theories which define truth in different ways. Some theory says truth is nothing but what majority of the society agrees with. But, if that is the case, how society agreed to the fact that Earth is revolving around the Sun when almost everyone accepted and believed in geocentric system? Some theory says anything that is useful is truth. But what about the case where one same thing is useful for one person and not useful for other person? Some other theory says truth is what some leaders of society or influential persons believe in. Scientists and intellectuals will laugh at this. And one more theory says there is a truth which we can realize only when get Moksa or release from the cycle of rebirth. Until then we live inside delusion. Whatever we think, whatever we observe, whatever we perceive is product of that delusion. Nothing is permanent in this world; neither us nor this material world. So what we think and believe to be truth in this world till we get Moksa or ultimate realization is not the truth. I will not waste my time on this here as it itself is a separate topic.

The truth, as per me, is something that can be proved under a given circumstance or condition. This truth is fixed. You simply cannot say it is not true. For that you are supposed to prove it wrong. This is what science says. And I believe in science. You can say ‘If I prove it wrong then truth will change. It will not be a truth anymore. If we follow this how can you ever call anything as truth?’ If you follow what is called scientific method or systematic approach and you do not commit any mistake, I bet, you will never call anything as truth which is not truth. This is the confidence that you get from science. And you take any other approach, and I again bet you can never be as confident as you would be if you follow scientific approach. You may again say this does not answer the question fully. Yes, men make mistakes. Scientists might commit mistakes. But that does not mean that the science has chosen a wrong path starting from that mistake and from then onwards everything will be just false results that we get. Scientific approach is such that if one commits a mistake it will give wrong and unexpected results through which the mistake can be identified easily. And the mistake will be corrected. Hence truth is always on the side of science. False cannot sustain for a long time in scientific world. This is exactly why I believe in science. If science says something is true it has to be true. If it is not I will get to know within short period of time as science has no place for contradictions. I do not find this confidence anywhere else. No one else can find it.

Some people say, ‘why should we bother so much about truth? What good it is to know the truth if it hurts my beliefs? I am good as I am now. ’ This I call escapism. You do not want to know truth just because it is something you do not believe. You do not want to accept that what you believed all these days in is not correct and truth is something else. So you search for something that might help you out and say, ‘You are correct. Your belief is fine. You don’t have to listen to what others say’. If somehow you find something which says so you will be glad. You do not want to think whether it is really the truth or not. This is the most general mentality I see today. Today people who call themselves traditionalistic perform all the rituals. But they do not know why they are doing any of it. At least in the history of religion people started rituals with some purpose (whether religions or rituals are required or not is a different topic). They knew what they are doing and why they are doing. But today we see only blind followers. You ask for the reason and they answer, ‘it is our tradition!’ You again ask why it is included as a part of the tradition they answer, ‘There is a reason for everything. Nothing was started without purpose. It is only that I do not know it now!’ Whether I believe in religion or not is a different question. But I pity for these people who do not know what they are doing. I respect great men like Shankaracharya, Gandhi, Buddha, Radhakrishnan, Karl Marx, and Ayn Rand for they knew every step they were going to put. They had their own answers to every single question they could get. They had no fog in their mind. They had no conflicts within themselves. They did not look at others to confirm if they too are doing what they are doing and hence they are also right, because they knew they are right. But today you can only see equivocalness. People have questions and doubts. But they do not dare to search for answers. So they finally choose to follow. But they do not even care why they are following or what answer they get from whom they are following!! Such is the state of man today. This is pure indication of escapism. But believe me; it will never give you confidence. It will never reveal you the truth. You think you are happy, but somewhere deep inside you know, you are not. You think you are doing better, but deep inside you know that you do not have any idea why it is better or if it is really better.

The next question is, ‘when I speak, should I always need to speak truth? What if I lie which does not harm anyone? Is it immoral to do so? ’ Remember that truth is one of the most important factors in life. But it is not life in itself. As I mentioned earlier there are certain things which we cannot distinguish as true or false. Consider the feelings. You can only feel them. You can write them using words with some difficulty. But to try to point them as either true or false is illogical. But to lie is something you might want to reconsider. Just to create some excitement and then after some time revealing the truth and enjoying the moment might be ok as long as it is not going to hurt anybody’s feelings. But if you really do not know what reaction it might result in or if you think it is going to hurt someone’s feelings then definitely it is not ok. And to lie, to intentionally hurt others feelings, or to make profit out of it, or if to make loss to someone is completely immoral. You do not have any right to do so.

As I said truth is integral part of our life. It impacts our life but it alone does not define our life. Our life has other integral parts also. We search for truth and continue to seek and understand higher truth. Once we attain it our knowledge expands and again we start looking for another higher truth. Doesn’t it look like it is a never ending process?! Is searching and attaining the higher truth itself out goal in life?! If yes, why should we look for it in the first place? Or is there something called ultimate truth?

All those who believe in the concept of ultimate truth say that, to ‘realize it’ is the goal of our life. Once we achieve it we can get Moksa or, our reason to live in this world fulfills, we will escape from the cycle of rebirth, we will become one in supreme. I believe in science. And scientific approach disregards this concept. All this concept of living in delusion, having a supreme power controlling the world, living in finite world contradicts what science says. Either science has to be true or all these concepts. People love to believe that what science says is exactly what these religion beliefs say. But unfortunately that is not true (how and why is again another topic in itself). But let me tell you one thing. I am more fascinated by Vivekananda in my life. He is the one of the great men for whom I have high regards. I do not believe in many things which he did believe. But he understood one great thing for the first time in our history (I could not imagine, anyone, being a sanyasi and swami, could ever even imagined what Vivekananda thought at that period of time!!) that we cannot preach the Vedanta to the homeless poor who do not have cloths to wear, who do not have food to eat; it is of no use to do so; we must work to help the poor to come out of their such a state first. Humanity and creating a better society should be our first priority. The purpose of our lives should be to create a better society. Being a sanyasi Vivekananda travelled to places that no sanyasi could have imagined and tried to get any help that was possible. He said ‘Against the rules of sanyasi I will earn money and help the poor!’ Only when man has food, shelter, cloth he can listen to what the morality is, what philosophy is, what truth is, what life is! What a thought! That thinking, that courage, that determination is what made Vivekananda great. All other great men said the same thing – to help the homeless, hungry poor first. But yes, there are differences among them on the ways to achieve it and then philosophy they believe in and what they believe to be true. The point here is to have an attitude, the way of thinking, the determination that we need today. There is no point in chasing the mirage called ultimate reality and ultimate truth. But still you might ask, ‘then, what is the point in searching for truth at all?!’

Life without purpose is not a life. Life without struggle is not a life. Einstein said, ‘…the man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost disqualified for life.’ Our life should not be meaningless. And when you look for ways to make it meaningful, or when you look for a purpose in life you find several ways. Some people try to earn money and make it their highest purpose in life; some people choose to be followers of a person who is just famous and instructs what they should do (this does not require them to think but to just follow); some people believe the purpose of their lives is to devote themselves completely to their work, let it be science, religious, or any other work; some people seek Moksa and regard it as man’s only highest purpose of life. Which one of these is true? Yes, it is again the truth which alone can help you!

Clear your mind. Get rid of all the conflicts. Then you see it! The meaning of life, the path to follow will be crystal clear. But only truth can help us in resolving conflicts of ideas and to clear the fog that occupied our mind.

Not only truth is pure, it also transforms the man from impure to pure. It says ‘I am here. It’s up to you to see and understand me or to ignore and live in darkness!’

This is the reason why I respect truth and love it.

Related Links:
Truth in Wiki
What is Truth?
Truth - Stanford Encyclopedia

Related Videos:

Language

2008-11-01T06:18:00.000-07:00

What language is after all? It is a means of communication we use. It helps us to convey our thoughts/feelings to other persons in an easy way. Is it something more than this? I do not see why it has to be something more. I wonder when I see people so attached to their language. They fight, they hate, and they judge knowledge of a man by the language he uses!

Yes, I understand, language shows the culture/region from where men come from. And cultures are different in different regions. But it cannot be the reason for the fight, right? But yes! It looks to be the reason for all the fights related to language.

People no more tolerate the differences. Tolerate word itself is not correct here. We can use the word ‘Respect’ here. Now there is no respect left for other cultures that are different from our own. Most of the North Indians hate the culture in South India. And similarly most of the South Indians hate the North Indian culture. And in these regions there are sub regions based on state/cities. Most of the natives do not tolerate any language other than their native language.

There are divisions based on Religion. This is one problem (which I do not want to discuss now!). But again there are divisions based on Region. I come first, my family comes next, my locality next, my city next, my state next, my country next. This is how it goes. Again inside each of these there are always groups based on cast/religion something like; in my locality my cast first, my religion next, other religions next! So are people divided!

But aren’t these divisions existed all these days throughout the history of mankind? Yes. To say there were no fights is wrong. As long as there are divisions among us differences exist. And it is the thinking of man that we are discussing here. Differences are there. We should not compare them. If you do, you start asking question ‘which one is better?’ What is ours-is better. What is not-is not. This is what you start to believe and this is what you want others to believe. And that brings intolerance towards any difference we see in others. You criticize others. Others criticize you. So you naturally want to dominate others at least in your own region. When others get into your region and they too think like you do, there comes the fight. You just can’t tolerate it. But what you do not understand is it is the thinking that has a flaw in it. With that thinking you cannot live in other’s territory freely, without any fear and you do not leave others to live freely in your own territory.

This flawed thought is dominating our society today. A North Indian goes to some region in South India and gets into a dispute with a native. You suddenly start observing that all natives come to the rescue of their person. They do not even care why the dispute started. They think it is their duty to support their own person. It is vice versa. ‘We are ready to behave nice, treat them well. This is what our culture stands for. But they will take advantage of our goodness and dominate us! They kill our culture, our language if we let them do it. And we certainly cannot tolerate this!!’ This is how generally people defend themselves. But what they do not understand is people in every other region think the same way! These divisions among men have incubated insecurity feeling in their hearts.

The divisions, the insecurity feelings are sources of most of the troubles we face today. People want to have more power so as to protect themselves from others. More time and money is being invested to secure this power. Many international disputes on the topics like nuclear power continue because of this very same reason. There is no place left where you feel completely safe. No amount of power can give you that feeling of being safe and free. All this is because we are looking at the wrong direction for the solution. We are trying to achieve peace and freedom by having more power in our hands, by threatening others! History has proved it wrong innumerable times.

When we talk about language we talk about all these things. Not only these, we should understand what language is, and why do we need it.

When man understood he has amazing power to create sound, he thought of using it for the betterment, just as he does always. He found that he can use it for improving his communication among each other. So he named everything he saw or thought. And so he gave birth to different languages based on different regions. Basically language is just an instrument used for communication. There are many feelings, many other complex mysteries which language cannot describe. It is said by many religion leaders that no words can define what God is. It is something that can only be felt. There are some experiences in life which you can put in words. And when you try defining the complete universal whole using language or words it creates great confusion. Ask the philosophers. Philosophers frequently face this confusion and conflicting ideas in their work.

Then why people are so attached to their languages? Probably because it is THEIR’s! But then why do they not like, say, English? Remember that our aim is to communicate better. Let it English or any other else. You understand what I am trying to convey? That’s it. And yes, without any doubt it is English which most of the people understand today. So if you want to communicate with larger group then you should know English. If you want to communicate only within the boundaries of your state you can stick to the prevailing language in your state. And if you want to talk to your own family member you need to stick to the language that you both are most comfortable with.

Basically it is this; use the language that most of the participants in the communication are comfortable with. What is the point in sticking to your own dear language which others do not understand?!

Idea always comes first and language is secondary. Language is not what you want to express. Language is what you use to express what you want to express. How can you judge a person’s knowledge by only considering how strong his language is? You learn English to understand what great men like Einstein, Newton, Shakespeare, Karl Marx said/wrote. But you do not expect them to learn your native language and write or speak using it. Every language has its own beauty. And there are men who became great not by their language use but by their knowledge. No one needs/wants/cares to know what language Mother Theresa or Buddha or Gandhi or Aristotle or Bhagat Singh or Benjamin Franklin or Descartes or Immanuel Kant spoke. It is their great work and profound knowledge and great principles for which society, irrespective of any kind of divisions, respects them.

Related Links:
Language - Wiki
History of Language
The Power of Language

Related Videos:

HERE I AM!!

2008-10-28T07:16:00.000-07:00

HERE I AM!!

I finally decided to start this blog. Probably because I can jot my views here, freely, without having to care about anyone, express the true myself. Because I don’t have someone with whom I can share it, because no one wants to discuss these things, if they discuss they become narrow-minded and stubborn, and they always try to prove that they are ‘right’ no matter what. So, I am left with no other option but to blog. I am happy; I am happy that I don’t have to care who is going to read my blogs. It’s your choice.

What am I going to discuss here? I think mostly it is going to be my life, my philosophy and my point of view about the topics that I am interested in. Philosophy and Psychology are two things which determine everything man does; from his beliefs to his actions. Philosophy determines what is right and what is wrong, explains why he should do what he is doing. And Psychology determines how a man thinks? The way he is brought up, the society he lives in decides the direction in which he thinks.

Yes, these two fields are what I am mostly interested in.

I changed over time. My philosophy has changed. It happens. Change is inevitable. We simply cannot stop it. I think, I question, I search for an answer, I learn and I change. This is how it happens. I am satisfied with the changes I encountered. I am better than what I was yesterday. I have no regrets for my mistakes. Because I never knew they were mistakes when I committed mistakes. There were incidents when I committed mistakes knowingly. But I punished myself for them and decided I will not repeat again. My beliefs changed. I used to firmly believe that there is a GOD who is supreme, and who can do magic as we are told by our parents and grandparents. Now I do not believe in that concept. But I do not regret that I believed so sometime back in the past. Because my conscience told I was right to believe so, then. And similarly my conscience now tells I am right in believing what I believe.

I have many unanswered questions. And I am in search of answers to these. Once I find, I might change again, getting better, strong than what I am today. Realizing the higher truth – that is what our life is. You always get better, you always find something new, you always reform yourself, and you always get more and more questions, answers. I do not think there is a person who can declare, ‘I know the truth! And it is the ultimate truth. There is nothing beyond it. There are no questions I cannot answer.’ If he says so, it merely indicates he stopped thinking. There is no such thing as ultimate truth. It is only the search of higher truth that we always look for. I know I will get thousands of questions related to this. But right now I am not ready to discuss that in this page. All I want to say is, my principles and my philosophy might change in future as and when I realize something new, the higher truth.

I want my life to be a never ending effort to achieve, a quest for truth, a fight against all falsehoods/misconceptions inside me and the society.