My philosophies and rants in general

Western Vs. Eastern philosophy
Western philosophy suffers from a glaring drawback. It does not provide any natural means or ideas one can live by, which is important for any branch of human endeavor that attempts to answer the very basic questions concerning life itself. It quickly loses itself into esotery. Though it provides for wonderful mental exercise, it falls short as an enquiry of existence. Critical thinking cannot match the complexity of the universe. Perhaps someday, in culmination, it will. But I suspect the answers provided then are hinted upon now by its counterpart. In short, to bridge the gap between knowledge and wisdom, increasing knowledge till it crosses the threshold is the tedious way. This critique of Western philosophy being made, it is also indispensable. One of the effects of being brought up in India, one absorbs at an early age some ideas from Hindu philosophy, but one does not realize their full implication till late. A philosophy capable of providing a useful and realistic view of the world would involve realizations deeper than the intellectual, but the intellectual realizations would have to come first. To sum up, Eastern philosophy seems like an answer sheet, one we need for we cannot conceivably reach the answers by ourselves. But if we can formalize them, we may claim to have truly understood them.

My current philosophy of life is Taoism. To learn more about Tao, try reading ‘The Tao of Pooh’ by Benjamin Hoff. To clear a popular misconception, Tao does not promote inaction (much as I would prefer it); rather, it promotes the right action for the right reason in the right manner. Inaction merely is a kind of action.

The computational strength of Tao (an exercise in non-Taoism), or, on bridging the gap between knowledge and wisdom
The original intent of this article was to document how Taoism made sense on a deeper, almost mathematical, level. Since then, I have generalized the subject a bit. Ultimately, all wisdom should be mathematically expressible. The problem with science is that it’s still very young. We have a long way to go till we discover all the fundamental laws (the correct ones this time, please) and extrapolate them to all things. Perhaps it’s not possible. Perhaps it would be meaningless and all we’d do is trivialize the problem (…as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure… to quote Einstein). Perhaps we would look at the equations, marvel at their beauty, and understand. Not that we necessarily have to wait. We can still extrapolate from what we see. The more we know and understand, the better we are at this extrapolation.

The cost of an illusion
Though both ancient and modern cultures have speculated on reality being an illusion, for us deluded it’s almost a question of mere nomenclature, except for one thing. If our world is an illusion then the illusion has to exist in a greater ‘real’ world (If our world is the only one then it is real by definition). The point is, the cost of realizing one illusion may be similar to the cost of realizing another one (after all, truth has value, but lies should be equally cheap), regardless of the worth of each one inside the artificial world. If this is true (of course it might not be, lies are sometimes expensive), performing from the smallest to the biggest feat might require comparable amounts of efforts from us, making us citizens of that real world. P would then equal NP; a molehill would equal a mountain. Phew! Time to wipe my forehead and bring some sense into this rant. Our reality may be (in fact, most likely is) a subset of a greater reality. For example, Newtonian mechanics is subsumed by quantum mechanics. The cost structure is this greater reality may be (and again, most likely is) different from what we understand. This is not very far fetched if one follows where theoretical physics is today.

And now, think softly lest you wake up the Red king.

A model of reality
All reasoning mechanisms are fallible, as they all rely on empirical observations (To delve deeper seems degenerative, see Rationalism Vs Empiricism). So what is my model of reality? I think objective reality does exist. For example, I would be quite distressed if the entire complexity theory (with all its hues) just merged into a mush. However, we operate from a (ahem!) broader knowledge base. We live the illusion at least as much as we live the truth. Also, we see the world through a lens colored by emotional biases. Let’s see what we have so far… we have reality, illusion, and then we have us - looking at them both through our fancy colored shades. Now what? Well, now we try and put this arrangement to use. We can subjectively interpret the objective by only so much (without resorting to insanity, or art). So using reality has to be facilitated by the laws of reality. Illusion proves more amiable. We have a greater degree of control over it. Generally, we can change it by disproportionate amounts with a slight change in our outlook, attitudes, and/or beliefs. Our control diminishes as we move away from our person in both spatial and temporal dimensions (except the past, over which we have no control… at least not without wearing sunglasses at night, but then self-delusion is not really control). The better we understand the world, the better we can control it.

Rationalism Vs Empiricism
The Empiricists believed all knowledge is derived from the senses. The Rationalists on the other hand believed that there are some innate concepts and all others are derived from these basic ones. Descartes is considered the founder of rationalism, and Locke amongst the first proponents of the other. But the issue can be traced all the way back to Aristotle and Plato in the discussion over forms and substances. In fact, this was a source of major disagreement between the student and teacher. The debate as to which one is more reasonable has been raging in scientific circles under one guise or another for a long time now, which is understandable, as there are a few fundamental questions which persist, like the golden number, in a number of disciplines. They hint upon a deeper symmetry. This question is one of them. I would side with the empiricists. Though it is true, especially in computer science or physics, that basic concepts aggregate to form more sophisticated ones (without debating reductionism); the basic concepts themselves are acquired. Even if a baby is born with some concepts, they were discovered by another intelligent (and quite empirical) process, evolution.

Meaning
The meaning of the Universe is not easily apparent (!). In fact, on analysis, all things seem to merge into a featureless mush. There seems to be no inherent meaning, only the illusion of such.

Analogy as a mechanism of reasoning in Eastern thought
Much of the reasoning in early Eastern analyses is in the form of analogies. I’m giving a few examples for illustration.

This is a dialogue between Mencius and Gaozi on human nature. Mencius maintains that human nature is inherently good, while Gaozi argues that it is inclined towards neither good nor evil. “Gaozi said, ‘Human nature is like whirling water When an outlet is opened to the east, it flows east; when an outlet is opened to the west, it flows west Human nature is no more inclined to good or bad than water is inclined to east or west’. Mencius responded, ‘Water, it is true is not inclined to either east or west, but does it have no preference for high or low? Goodness is to human nature like flowing downward to water. There are no people who are not good and no water that does not flow down. Still, water, if splashed can go higher than your head; if forced, it can be brought up a hill. This isn't the nature of water; it is the specific circumstances. Although people can be made to be bad, their natures are not changed’.”

A whole multitude of ‘Shlokas’ in Sanskrit use analogy. Unfortunately the only example I can think of is one from my childhood, “Just as a deer does not enter the mouth of a sleeping lion, toil is required to achieve any task”. This example illustrates the form analogy may take in these 2 or 4 line verses.

A good analogy may actually provide a powerful system for reasoning. There are some common laws of nature that are reflected in all systems. Pick the right analogy and we might be able to make accurate inductions. It is certainly much faster than the formalism of science. If more than one analogy seems reasonable, it gives a direction for observation or experiment.

On the futility of arguing the existence of God using reason
Using the colloquial definition of God, as the creator of all things, he should be beyond all reason (see ‘the cost of an illusion’ for a related idea). The creator of reason itself need not be subject to even its most basic tenets. Thus God is not a scientific theory. We may one day be able to propose an experiment that confirms the presence of God (there may be ‘God shaped hole’ in reason too), but we cannot propose one that can refute God’s existence. The most one can ‘prove’ is that belief in God is ‘unreasonable’. It remains a personal decision if this is enough to persuade or dissuade one from belief.

As a corollary, the idea of either monotheism or polytheism being correct is absurd. There is a tendency around to make God all-powerful and then to impose arbitrary restraints upon him. This leads to contradictions such as, can God make a weight so heavy that he can’t lift it. If he can’t make such a weight, then he is not all-powerful; if he can, then he can’t lift it and is not all-powerful. The correct answer, of course, is that an all-powerful creator would be above the concept of a rational contradiction. He could do both, neither, or precisely ¾. So let us not be so naïve as to say, God is one, or God is many, or God is seven feet tall. In science the restrictions we place upon the initial definitions ultimately restricts the entire system. If we propose an initial definition so lacking in restrictions, then we must accept the lack of restrictions that it ultimately ensues.