1) Every truth leads to another one. Otherwise, truth's limit would be a non-truth, in which truth is going to find its beginning and its end. In that case, false propositions would proceed to true ones, and true ones would generate false ones as well.

2) Thus, every truth, whatever it may be, guides us by means of an infinite enchainment to supreme and unattainable Truth, which is God.

3) By stating a single true proposition, being really true, we are denying the limit that will denaturalize it (vid. 1); we are declaring an infinite progression of truths and, consequently, recognizing God's existence (vid. 2).

4) So, even if that hypothetical true proposition was "God doesn't exist", as far as it is asserted as a truth (vid. 3), it follows that God (i.e. the Truth, vid. 2) exists.

5) However, if God exists, the previous proposition (vid. 4) is false; and, if God doesn't exist, it is false too, because in that case the Truth (i.e. God, vid. 2) wouldn't exist and, then, single truths wouldn't exist either (vid. 3). So, in any case, God exists.

Greetings.

Daniel.


Theological Miscellany (in Spanish):

http://www.gratisweb.com/irichc/MT.htm

got any room for half-truths? What about things that are true from one perspective but not another? Clearly, your dichotomizing of all things into "truth" vs. "non-truth" is a bit simplistic since you're choosing to see things just in terms of black vs. white without acknowledging the many shades of gray.

IMHO, logic cannot legitimately be used to prove the existence of God. Logic is just a tool to placate our intellect and let us get what we want, and so any attempt to prove God's existence using logic amounts to sophistry. There's not necessarily anything wrong with sophistry so long as we recognize it for the fantasy that it is and do not get too carried away with it.

Sophistry - what is it? What do the Sophists do and who are they today?

Hume was a Sophist - if you mean to suggest he was a grandstanding whore-monger of the paradigm propagandists. That is something I can provide ample proof of.

But were Sophists always only that and what makes Kant any different?

Is Francis Fukayama a Sophist? Social Engineer and paladin of the Think Tank genre he is - and far better teller of facts warped to make it appear all things are proceding with free access to I might add.

Did Socrates mean to include Plato among the Sophists?

Just because Socrates was a champion of intellectual and soulful freedom does not mean he would not have seen the real and present social conditions or needs for power among people. Plato and he would certainly have agreed that the average person is only able to ingest so much knowledge before they say - screw it - there is better 'fun' to be had.

And make no mistake about it - 'fun' is important as their Alexander-protected campadre-in-arms called Aristotle certainly knew as he said the only real purpose for us is the enhancement of happiness.

But of course one can only go so far in being happy if one is a mere Epicure or hedonist.

From a book I have edited which is written by Dr. Adbul Lathief of Kerala, India.

Empiricism is the doctrine that sensory experience is the primary source of knowledge. The well known empiricists are Locke, Berkeley and David Hume.

a. John Locke:

Locke believed that there is nothing in the mind, which is not first in the senses, and the mind is blank at birth. Experience is the primary source of knowledge. Simple ideas are produced by sensations and complex ideas by reflections. Reflections are thought produced by the mind using sensations.
Locke identified two types of qualities in things. Primary qualities are physical or quantitative properties like weight, height, size etc. The ideas of primary qualities resemble their cause so they belong to the object.
The secondary qualities like sensory qualities of colour, taste, smell etc. are the effect of the object on our senses. They do not resemble their cause. There can be difference concerning secondary qualities because they are subjective and do not belongs to the object.

b. Berkeley:

Berkeley believed that all our knowledge is our sensations and idea derived from sensations. We have no knowledge of external matter but only experience sensations. So matter and objects really do not exist. Matter is a mental condition or imagination. The objective world is our imagination of it. To be is to be perceived by us or by God. According to him as there was no object both primary and secondary qualities belonged to the subject. According to some of his writings this does not mean world exists in individual mind but in the mind of God. His views were both of subjective and objective idealisms.

c. David Hume:

Like Berkeley David Hume also believed that we cannot have objective knowledge of an external world from our sense experience. We experience sense impression, which he called primary impressions. We form ideas derived from this sense impressions and memories. In this way simple and complex ideas are formed. These he called secondary ideas. We can have only these primary impressions and secondary ideas. From sensory experience we cannot derive cause and effect. By association of ideas we make law of cause and effect and then project it into the external world.
Not only we have no knowledge of substance or matter but only sense impressions there is also no experience of a perceiving self or mind. As matter is only external perception so mind is also only a set of ideas and internal perception. So there is neither substance nor mind. So events are without cause, effect and necessity.
According to Hume moral value has no objectivity. It is not a result of reason but feelings. Feelings are really behind all moral judgments.

Analysis:

Both primary and secondary qualities really belong to the object. All qualities are inherent in the essential nature of the object. The only difference is some qualities are derived from mental essences while others from astral essences. The primary qualities or those derived from mental essences are not entirely depends on the senses so they can be judged independent of senses. Secondary qualities are derived from astral essences so they entirely depend on the senses. As human essence contain all the essences but differs in the degree or quantity of the essences so the secondary qualities differs due to the difference in the senses of the subject. In this sense mental essence are more objective than astral essence because they are rational knowledge. Still astral essences are also objective in the sense that sweet never becomes sour or red becomes blue. Only the intensity varies from person to person.
Locke was also unable to explain the existence of substance. Sensation never informs us about substance. The thing in which quality subsists and which is independent of our senses.
Berkeley’s theory saying matter does not exist but only sensation of the subject is almost similar to our theory of world as active imagination. It is true that we cannot have the true nature of an external world independent of our senses and mind. But the notion of substances and essences in our mind itself mean there is an objective external reality. The world does not depend on our spirit for their existence. Similarly the world is not in the mind of God in the sense God is something external to it. The world only depends on their own spirits. They are the active imagination of their own spirits. What we call mind is the mental existence of the human spirit. Mind or spirit is the active thought directed towards the spirit itself. So mind and body are different aspect of the human spirit, which is a real entity. Mind is also a real aspect of this spirit like body. What Hume says is ideas and internal perceptions are spiritual and mental existence of the spirit, which are real aspects of the spirit.
There are two causes. One is the primary cause, which is inherent in the essential nature of the thing itself. The secondary cause is other beings, which are responsible for initiation of change in the primary being. But this secondary cause is relevant only if the essential nature of the primary being yield to its influence. In this sense the real cause is the being itself. Hume is right that we cannot predict cause from sense impression. This is mainly because cause and effect are mental essences or primary qualities. As human spirit contains all essences cause has also an a priori element independent of sense impressions.

d. Rousseau:

Rousseau advocated deism and immortality of soul. According to deism God is impersonal and the prime cause of the world. But after existence the world is operating on its own natural law. He was also a dualist. He believed sensations are the only source of knowledge but considered moral idea as innate.
Rousseau believed instincts and feelings are more trustworthy than reason. He advocated training of heart and feeling instead of improving intellect. He believed thinking man is a depraved animal. According to him the savage is noble because only he has real virtue. Civilisation and culture is bad and spoil man while primitive nature is good. He advocated returning to natural condition where there is no war but all are equal, friends and in harmony. {And this ‘naturel ordre’ served ‘laissez-faire’ elitists like the Physiocrats of Dupont de Nemours well.}

Analysis:

We have seen that it is not environment but one’s own nature, which is primary in making one good or bad. It is a myth that savage life is a life of equality and harmony. Savage life was one of cannibalism and all type of exploitation started from savage life. The so called civilisation was made by the savage himself.
Feelings are in between rational and passionate nature and reason always arises from rational nature. Feelings are always coloured by sensory experience hence more subjective than reason. Reason depends on concepts and essences so more objective than feelings. So in most cases reason is higher and more reliable than feelings.

e. Rationalism and empiricism:

Rationalists says reason is the primary source of know ledge or general and necessary character of knowledge cannot derive from experience because they are only present in the mind as innate ideas. According to others concept exists as predisposition of the mind and experience stimulate this knowledge.
According to empiricists sensation and experience is the primary source of knowledge. Universal and necessary character of knowledge is derived from experience.
We said earlier that human spirit contains all the essences means spiritual, mental, astral and material essences.
Spiritual essence manifest as spirit or mind, which is active thought directed towards the human essence as a separate individual being. This mind contains mental essence as faculty of thought, astral essence as faculty of imagination and desire and material essence as essences of all material beings. Now these essences are in a potential or dormant state. Only sensory experience will revive or recollect this essential knowledge. Ideas and concepts are the faculty of thought and imagination acting on the material essences stimulated by sense experience. So the cause of knowledge is sense experience but the source and content of knowledge is the mind, which contain the essences. True knowledge is always the contemplation of essences. Mind is not empty or “tabula rasa” as Locke believes but contain all the essences.

Chapter 6: Immanuel Kant

Kant believed that all our knowledge comes from or begins with experience but they arise not out of experience. This is because some components of knowledge are not from experience but from reason, which contribute factors producing perception and conception. According to him mind is an active organ coordinating sensations into perceptions and perceptions into conceptions.
He identified two sources of knowledge. One he called a priori knowledge, which is knowledge through understanding, knowledge independent of experience and senses and inherent in the mind as innate ideas. The second is a posteriori knowledge which is the knowledge derived from experience and senses.
Kant called his philosophy transcendental philosophy, as it is a study of the structure of mind and laws of thought, which transcend sense experience.
In transcendental aesthetics dealing with sensations and feelings he argued that space and time are not sensory experience or components of objective reality but forms or modes of perception, which organise the sensations. Space and time are a priori and their laws are also a priori, which means the concept of space, and time is inherent in the mind before sense experience.
In transcendental analytic which deals with knowledge of forms of thought he contended that categories and causes are modes or forms of conception and so they are also a priori knowledge. In transcendental deduction he argued that sense experience couldn’t be taken as primary data because such knowledge itself assumes a priori knowledge of objective world. Our inner experience is possible only on the assumption of an outer experience or in other words conscious of self existence assumes existence of an external world. According to Kant the law of thought and the law of things are same because things can be only known by thought.
In transcendental dialectic he contended that the real object or the thing in itself. (Dingansich) is unknowable. It is called noumenon as an object inferred by reason and phenomena as it appear to us through sensory knowledge.
Kant also believed that moral sense is a sense of duty because they are a priori knowledge. As a priori they are categorical imperative means authoritative and can be applied to all situations.
Our body follows natural and causal law but our mind has free will. A priori moral sense and action according to moral choice means we have free will.

Analysis

The human mind contains space, time, cause and categories as essences. This is what Kant means by a priori knowledge. But according to us not only these but the essences of all material beings exist in the human mind. But as we said earlier the revival of this a priori knowledge is only after stimulated by experience. This means the idea of space, time, cause and categories only possible if we experience similar corresponding things in the objective world. As we said earlier even though the source of knowledge is innate ideas the cause is experience. The concept of space is possible because spatial property is present in the world and inherent in objects. What we call space is present as extension, roominess or dimension in beings. In other words besides a priori space is also an objective reality. Time is also present in things as duration. Without the reality of time change and motion in nonliving things and life and growth and death in conscious being are in conceivable. So time is also an objective reality. As we said earlier causation is inherent in the essential nature of the being itself. One of the capacities of mind is the ability to make concepts and naming things. This is due to the faculty of thought and imaginations. Categories are made by grouping the attributes of objects and naming them. So categories are also the property of beings so is an objective reality. So time, space, cause and categories are not only a priori knowledge or mere forms of conception but also objective realities.
What Kant means by moral sense, as a priori is real moral sense is from rational and spiritual nature. When moral sense is from rational nature it manifests as rational morality. Even though this is not depending on sense experience and have objectivity this only produce partial will due to egoistic considerations. But moral sense out of spiritual nature act independent of personal consideration hence produces absolute or free will.

The ''Dingansich'' are the multiple spirits in ideal or spiritual existence, noumenon are man’s rational knowledge about those spirits and phenomenon is sensory experience of these spirits.
It is true that one can only know his own spirit absolutely but other spirits always remain unknowable as itself.

think about it people. it is not simply a matter of proving one person right or the other wrong. to the first dude, if you say everything is truth then say that by saying god isn't real is a lie according to you, but cause all is true, it isn't and therefore all that god is are lies wraped in a blanket you're choosing to call truth, thus making it a whole lot of BS. things like god cannot be defined by us mere mortals, cannot like the second guy said be used with logic. it aint that simple, it's life and if god created life then only god can actually know god. and if god didn't create life then this is just a meaningless debate. but everything i'm saying is the truth. isn't it?

Aug 16, 09:42 PM, Unknown asks:

Proving 1).

Arithmetic is a kind of language formed by numbers and operations. Every number is also a truth, and we express them as a tautology: "1 = 1"; "2 = 2"; "3 = 3", etc.

We know that "1" links to "2", and the same for the remaining infinite figures, from the fact that they are all related to each other. For instance: "2" is "1 + 1"; "3" is "2 + 1" or "1 + 1 + 1", etc.

So, if we change the meaning of a single number (let's say, "1 = 2"), all of them and their infinite possible operations would be affected. Thus, by limiting the enchainment of truths with a non-truth, no arithmetical operation would be true. And that happens in our natural language too, since every word gets its meaning by opposing the other ones.


Proving 2).

I.

In an infinite succession of eternal truths (since the nature of the truth as not contradiction is immutable), the last truth, that at the same time is the first one, guarantees the coherence between all of them.

If there were infinite truths and, nevertheless, we were lack of last truth, we could not affirm that “the truth is the truth”, since every truth links to another one, none that is not over all of them is capable of embrace them at the same level.

Any truth that one affirms presupposes, then, this deep truth: “the truth is the truth”. And that, far from being a tautology, indicates us that the truth can exist by itself, that is to say, without real concern, or ideal.

NB: By "first and last truth" I mean a primordial truth that presupposes every single one, and that is itself presupposed by all of them. I'm not thinking in a circle, but in a common trunk with infinite ramifications.

II.

1. The set of true statements is finite or infinite.

1.1. If it is finite, it is limited by a truth or by a non-truth.

1.1.1. If it is limited by a truth, that truth is an unlimited one, that is, God.

1.1.2. If it is limited by a non-truth, we are speaking of pseudo-truths which cover an unavoidable contradiction. In that case, the proposition "An infinite set of true statements limited by a non-truth exists" is false too, being nonsensical to claim such a thing.

1.2. If it is infinite, it has or it has not a first Truth.

1.2.1. If it has a first Truth at the beginning of the whole succession, then this Truth is self-referent, it is its own cause and, therefore, it is God. Its truth value doesn't need neither logic demonstration nor empirical verification, as far as it is self-depending.

1.2.2. If it has not a frist Truth, then the proposition "the truth is the truth" is false, which would abolish every single truth, sending us back to point 1.1.2.


The reasoning in 3), 4) and 5) follows from 1) and 2) as indicated in the first message. It doesn't need a further explanation.

Greetings.

Daniel.


Theological Miscallany (in Spanish):

http://www.gratisweb.com/irichc/MT.htm

One result from theory of computation is that there are an infinite number of unprovable but true theorems. That result is a provably true theorem.

Kurt Godel's incompleteness theorem suggests that any attempt to prove the existence of a monotheistic creator god is futile.

Rick writes:

Pantheism may well have divinity as a concept but PanENtheism is less so - and when the elite adepts like the Chaos scientists of the Druids (peryllats) spoke to people they needed to convey that these deities (Divine intent) were mere 'representations' and a label. Thus the average person knew the Keltic Creed of NO FEAR which is today seen on many Goths along with the symbology and a few gargoyles.

The issue of Divine Providence or Divinity does not require that elementals rise to the level of being Divine and indeed elementals (Including what can be called angels) need not be either Divine or more adept than an adept still in body material.

LGK and indeed all adepts know the ONENESS that you will find in every pantheistic or panentheistic systems.

If you wish to delineate how the label or anthropomorphed God is a reality that is hard to do - because it is only the ONENESS and thus 'All that IS' (Buddhism completes this with 'the UNIverse' - thus the UNItarian are arians emphasizing the UNITY or UNION [Yoga]).

Breaking it down into comp[onents such as INTENT and RIGHT THOUGHT = RIGHT ACTION will take a life of personal discipline. It allows tap-ins to the oneness and lesser levels thereof.

Confucius says,
2:2 Think no evil.

Marcus Arelius (philosopher king) - Meditations
No evil is according to nature.

To fully say that one has comprehended a topic, one has to contradict onself at least three times.

John Ruskin, "Never be satisfied that you've handled a subject properly until you've contadicted yourself at least three times."

Cyclations. Birth - death - re-birth (reincarnation). Expansion-contraction (the big bang). Childhood cognition - seniorhood cognition. Dilation - constriction. Ohhh (or is it argggg), the dichotomies of life and the endless back and forth of intellectual debate. When will we know?

Rick, caling himself a pantheist, comments that panENtheism

Yesterday, I wrote about "INTRODUCING SYMBIOSIC"

After sleeping on it, I have come with what I hope, though rather long, is a better word, 'sympsycho-soma-pneumic'--a combination of the Greek for 'with+mind+body+spirit'. Therefore, if I say that human beings are sympsycho-soma-pneumic beings, I mean that we have the power to relate to the universe physically, mentally and spiritually, for good or ill.

And thus you are right to see the similarity between pantheism and panentheism which is apparent in the very word. Divinity can be Harmonic Convergence of the conscious collective or Divine Providence.

Rick asks:

Rick comments,

Rick,

I've got this crazy idea that consciousness is in some sort of cyclical time-division-multiplexing process. This allows 'multiple beings' insofar as there is a single being repeatedly experiencing multiple perspectives sequentially. the trick is that any one perspective (like you or I) feel that we are 'always on' when in fact we are blinking in and out like frames of a movie. In between any two frames of my (Dan's) movie/perspective, one frame of every other movie/perspective is experienced.

Dear Dan

Is it only one blinking back and forth between dimensions or is it millions in each multiple-dimensional persona and only a few real personas?

it's the universe that is perceiving, so by definition of one universe, there is only one perceiver. the universe is in a constant cycling flux, with this flux resulting in 'perception' cycling through various 'virtually disjoint' states. While experiencing any one of these perceptual states, the universe 'is' a particular 'being' and chooses (or 'creates') based in the unique qualia of this state. Also, the structure of a particular perception-state may be affected significantly by decisions made in other perception-states (hence the states are 'virtually disjoint'; this would constitute a real 'collective consciousness')

But there is more than one universe and some that may not even be material or physical according to Astrophysics. The 11 or 13 dimensions also have layers of energy or consciousness it would seem too. Have you read Seth Speaks?

that's not what I mean by 'universe'. when I say 'universe', I mean EVERYTHING

all the 'other universes' that you are referring to would simply be 'realms of particular interactivity' in my all-encompassing 'universe'

Particles?

It would appear that may not be necessary for a universe and there is possibly an anti-matter universe too.

I'll rewrite and embellish the last one just in case we are not understanding each other

when I say 'Universe', I mean EVERYTHING

all the 'other universes' that you are referring to would simply be 'realms of specific interactions' in my all-encompassing 'Universe'. For example, the space which we scientists commonly refer to as the 'physical universe' is defined by those elements which energetically interact via the so-called forces (interactions) of {electromagnetism, strong 'force', weak 'force', gravity}. Other 'universes' (spaces) to which you seem to allude to could be similarly real or 'physical', but would be defined by other interactions. If the elements of our ordinarily recognized 'physical universe' that are connected via the so-called 4-forces can also interact in other ways, then we can say that there are 'hidden dimensions' and thus real physical avenues for interacting with what might be termed 'other universes'. Keep in mind that, in my terminology, the 'Universe' is the totality of all elements whose interactions effectively define all contained 'universes'.

Hyper-spatial, multi-dimensional cognition = the mind of God.

But then you are simply saying 'All is Within' - 'the universe' as the Buddhists say.

I suppose that is merely common sense. What specific personality or collective hierarchy and causal or other planes do you see?

I just changed it again, hopefully you aren't getting dizzy.

Yes, 'all is within' so to speak although there is no 'without' so to say 'within' might be misleading. It might just be simpler to say 'all is one'.

I'm not sure what you mean by specific personality. As for collective heirarchies, that's just a matter of the structure of physicality (the 'total' physicality, which may be more than the ordinarily observed physicality) which I am not particularly cognizant of. I see no proof that other such 'planes' do not exist, only a lack of hard evidence.

For the next ten days the family--7 of us--will be visiting Tofino, BC. There is no PC on my daughters floating house.

Check out http://www.wildretreat.com/

It is about the floating hotel and the area not far from my daughter's place. Tourists kayak over from it to visit Cathy's house and floating gardens. We will be visiting there. She and her husband, Wayne Adams are artists--over 60 pieces in Thompson's Gallery in Toronto. A wonderful place to think about what we write about here.

Keep the coversation warm while I am away.

Hmm. So are you saying that space itself is a substrate for qualia? I have considered that possibility before. In that a substrate ties consciousness explicitly to the physical world it helps to cement the non-dualist approach. However, I don't think we have enough knowledge of the relevant neuroscience to make any conclusion at this time.

what is important to me is the notion of how perception may be divvied up into the various apparent 'beings' that roam with each other. It makes no sense to imagine perception to be other than a property of the universe (as opposed to being an object in the universe). Due to the apparent multiplicity of 'perceivers' in the universe, we must understand how this multiplicity can arise from a fundamentally indivisible phenomenon. It makes no sense to say that the fundamental 'perceiver' is simultaneously divided, but the 'temporal' division is surely quite plausible so long as we accep that what seems as a single, unbroken perception may well not be so. I believe neuroscience has already indicated that the perception of our individual streams of consciousness as temporally unbroken is an illusion. What thrills me about neuroscience is that when we identify those nodes in the brain which are directly involved in the flow of information in and out of a particular intelligent perceptual thread we can quite possibly free them from their present biological constraints and offer an entirely novel and potentially powerful avenue for the evolution of mind and the Universe (although this may not be anything new in the Universe).

The time versus space idea seems to make some sense. There is an interesting dualism between physics and consciousness:

1. Physical events are public and consciousness is private.

2. Physical events occur in space and consciousness does not.

When we understand the mechanism of how consciousness arises in the brain, we may be able to create machines to support consciousness, but I don't see how it can be generated without physical constraint. Wouldn't that be like having a candle flame without a candle?

of course there will be physical constraint, just not biological. We can trade in the 'wetware' for a (presumably) more user-friendly hardware

Ah, then we agree. Cool.

I think we are indeed ALL pretty much in agreement but then we are agreeing that it is largely unknown or unknowable too.

A top physicist (C is the first letter in his name and it is a long one) from the sub-continent did a lot of work showing the Indian physics or metaphysics had a great insight going back a long time. There is another such person with the letter A That I think I have in my Encyclopedia and I will check.

ARYABHATA:
“USA, Aug 8 (VNN) — By Shashi Tharoor, United Nations Under-Secretary General for Communications and Public Information.
IN an earlier column I wrote of how the roots of Indian science and technology go far deeper than Nehru. I cited a remarkable new book, Lost Discoveries, by the American writer Dick Teresi, which studies the ancient non-Western foundations of modern science. While Teresi ranges from the Babylonians and Mayans to Egyptians and other Africans, it is his references to India that won me. Where my previous piece focused on ancient India's remarkable breakthroughs in mathematics, in this column I'd like to cover the other sciences in which our ancestors excelled.
For a nation still obsessed by astrology, it is ironic that Indians established the field of planetary astronomy, identifying the relative distance of the known planets from the sun, and figured out that the moon was nearer to the earth than the sun. A hymn of the Rig- Veda extols "nakshatra-vidya"; the Vedas' awareness of the importance of the sun and the stars is manifest in several places. The Siddhantas are amongst the world's earliest texts on astronomy and mathematics; the Surya Siddhanta, written about 400 A.D., includes a method for finding the times of planetary ascensions and eclipses. The notion of gravitation, or gurutvakarshan, is found in these early texts. ‘Two hundred years before Pythagoras,’ writes Teresi, ‘philosophers in northern India had understood that gravitation held the solar system together, and that therefore the sun, the most massive object, had to be at its centre.’
The Kerala-born genius Aryabhata was the first human being to explain, in 499 A.D., that the daily rotation of the earth on its axis is what accounted for the daily rising and setting of the sun. (His ideas were so far in advance of his time that many later editors of his awe-inspiring "Aryabhatiya" altered the text to save his reputation from what they thought were serious errors.) Aryabhata conceived of the elliptical orbits of the planets a thousand years before Kepler, in the West, came to the same conclusion (having assumed, like all Europeans, that planetary orbits were circular rather than elliptical). He even estimated the value of the year at 365 days, six hours, 12 minutes and 30 seconds; in this he was only a few minutes off (the correct figure is just under 365 days and six hours). The translation of the Aryabhatiya into Latin in the 13th Century taught Europeans a great deal; it also revealed to them that an Indian had known things that Europe would only learn of a millennium later.
If Aryabhata was a giant of world science, his successors as the great Indian astronomers, Varamahira and Brahmagupta, have left behind vitally important texts that space does not allow me to summarise here. The mathematical excellence of Indian science, which I described in a recent column, sparkles through their work; Indian astronomers advanced their field by calculations rather than deductions from nature. Teresi says that ‘Indian astronomy, perhaps more than any other, has served as the crossroads and catalyst between the past and the future of the science.’ Inevitably, Indian cosmology was also in advance of the rest of the world. By the Fifth Century A.D. Indians became the first to estimate the age of the earth at more than four billion years. Teresi's book has a fascinating section relating Hindu creation myths to modern cosmology; he discusses the notion of great intermeshing cycles of creation and destruction and draws stimulating parallels with the "big bang" theory that currently commands the field.
The ancient Indians were no slouches in chemistry, which emerges in several verses of the Atharva Veda, composed around 1000 B.C. Two thousand years later, Indian practical chemistry was still more advanced than Europe's. The historian Will Durant wrote that the Vedic Indians were ‘ahead of Europe in industrial chemistry; they were masters of calcination, distillation, sublimation, steaming, fixation, the production of light without heat, the mixing of anaesthetic and soporific powders, and the preparation of metallic salts, compounds and alloys.’ An Indian researcher, Udayana, studied gases by filling bladders and balloons with smoke, air and assorted gases. The ancient Jain thinkers predicted the notion of opposite electrical charges and advanced a notion of the "spin" of particles which would not be discovered by the West till the 20th Century.
So what about physics? Indian metaphysicists came upon the idea of atoms centuries before the Greek Democritus, known in the West as the father of particle physics. In 600 B.C. Kanada established a theory of atoms in his Vaisesika-sutra; the Jains went further in later years, expounding a concept of elementary particles. Indians also came closer to quantum physics and other current theories than anyone else in the ancient world.
The Upanishadic concepts of svabhava the inherent nature of material objects and yadrchha (the randomness of causality) are startlingly modern. The Upanishads developed the first classifications of matter, evolving into an awareness of the five elements and later of the five senses. When the Samkhya philosophers explained, in the Sixth Century B.C., that "the material universe emanates out of prakriti, the rootless root of the universe," they anticipate Aristotle. And when Indian philosophers spoke of maya, or that which gives illusory weight to the universe, they did so in terms that evoke the 20th Century idea of the Higgs field, the all-pervasive invisible field so beloved of particle physicists, which gives substance to illusion.
Which brings us back to technology. Did India have any technology of its own before the IITs? The answer is an emphatic yes. I have already mentioned last time the extraordinary achievements of the Harappan civilization, which included terra cotta ceramics fired at high temperatures, a sophisticated system of weights and measures, and sanitary engineering skills in advance of the West of the 19th Century. Our skill at digging up, cutting and polishing diamonds goes back millennia. In the Sixth Century A.D. India made the highest-quality sword steel in the world. Iron suspension bridges came from Kashmir; printing and papermaking were known in India before anywhere in the West; Europeans sought Indian shipbuilding expertise; our textiles were rated the best in the world till well into the colonial era. But we were never very good with machinery; we made our greatest products with skilled labour. That was, in the end, how the British defeated us.
Shashi Tharoor is the United Nations Under-Secretary General for Communications and Public Information.” (9)

Have a great time - and hug a big tree for me too - or catch a salmon.

Illuminaughty!

I recall that nic!

nic = nickname

I was referring to Illuminaughty and wondering if this is a person I might know from another site.