Amar Anagoto, Amar Anahoto...

“A thousand desires such as these...

Pause me, hold me, reach me,
Where no man has gone
Crossing the seven seas
With the wings of fire
I fly towards nowhere
And you ‒
Rivers, mountains, rain !
Rain against a scorched landscape of pain ” (Soundtrack of Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi)

I look at my tragedies, the pains I had no options to, the moments I cannot undo, personal failures, my mistakes and shame. It sends a tremble through my nerves. It is a feel of sudden collapse of a person I am. But do I collapse forever, do I never resurrect from my own ashes? May be I wouldn't have if I was a story of only dark chapters. And I'm not the only person with mistakes and disasters in life. I haven't met a single person without tragedies and sadness. I remember this passage from the Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller-

“Everywhere I go people are making a mess of their lives. Everyone has his private tragedy. It's in the blood now – misfortune, ennui, grief, suicide. The atmosphere is saturated with disaster, frustration, futility. Scratch and scratch – until there's no skin left.”

There is something that always keeps me afloat- a desire to stay happy. Among a thousand desires, the root one is to be happy. Life has made me to learn my responsibility for it. It is a right to me that I must protect against all forces. There is a poem that gives me philosophical guard against losses, failures and hurt. This poem defines my general take on life-

“Jibone jaha kichhu holo na sara
Jani he jani tao hoyni hara.
Je phul na futite jhorechhe dhoronite
Je nodi morupothe haralo dhara
Jani he tao hoy ni hara.
Jibone ajo jaha royechhe pichhe
Jani he jani tao hoyni michhe.
Amar anagoto, amar anahoto
Tomar binatare bajechhe tara.”

Is philosophy dead?

Dr. Dave Ward's MOOC class on "Introduction of Philosophy" generated a stirring discussion on a statement made by Stephen Hawking about philosophy. The statement was taken from his book The Grand Design, which goes as follow:

" ... philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge."

I have always admired Hawking for his science writings and promoting scientific ideas to the common people. But this one was certainly a careless and poorly thought-out statement from a prominent scientist. And it forms an example of his mediocre understanding of philosophy and advances in philosophical studies. One definition of philosophy suggests that philosophy is about asking the right question, figuring out the right way to answer it and reasoning the answer with explanation. As far as a person is on the quest for knowledge, it falls in the domain of Philosophy. In this respect, even the people like Hawking and Richard Dawkins are philosophers themselves, until they don't turn into firm believer of only one way of looking at knowledge and stop their quest without considering other angles. Philosophy is not only as progressive as other fields of study, but also it often provides foundation for progress. If philosophy is dead, how and why the new branch of science (or philosophy) has emerged out- philosophy of science.

'Hawking is so evangelical about the notion of progress is he that it might as well be a religion'. Photograph: Murdo Macleod (Source here)

Physics is not a necessarily anti-philosophy and anti-religion stream. Another famous physicist, Fritjof Capra, is known for investigating parallels between philosophy and physics. How the duality of properties of sub-atomic entities as wave or particle is tackled in science... what does it even mean by saying "probability" or "likelihood" in statistical world... what is the whole mathematics of Bayesian and Information theory based upon- Information and perfect truth... and how do we understand these concepts... answers to these questions lead us to conjunction of science and philosophy. I've discussed the unity of science and philosophy in my earlier post as well. Referring to Kurt Gödel's incompleteness theorem, every self-enclosed logical system, the Principles of mathematics included, contains the seeds of its own incompleteness; and modern physics stands on the shoulders of mathematics.

Nicholas Blincoe from The Guardian, criticized Hawking's restricted view to see the 'progress'. Read his article also, titled 'Why does Stephen Hawking think science has overtaken philosophy?'.

Identity crisis | Down To Earth

I recently shared the scientific article on problems of taxonomy and identification of Himalayan wolf- Wolves in Trans-Himalayas: 165 years of taxonomic confusion. A popular magazine on environment and conservation issues of India, Down to Earth, has covered this article for the general audience in their December 15, 2012 issue.

With the title "Identity crisis" the article has collected and shared the views of scientists and experts on different related subjects.

Wolves in Trans-Himalayas: 165 years of taxonomic confusion

Shivam Shrotriya, Salvador Lyngdoh and Bilal Habib

Summary:

Recognition of different species and taxonomy of canids (wolf, fox and dog family) has always been a subject of contention among the experts. For example, scientists argue about the species number of canids to be 34 to 38. Approximately 13 sub-species of Grey wolf are recognized worldwide. However, discovery of Himalayan wolf from India as a new species has been in news in recent time. Several studies, based on molecular techniques, looked into the evolutionary history of wolves and dogs of the world and provided new insights. The major outcomes of these studies showed that the Indian populations of wolves- Trans-Himalayan wolf and Peninsular wolf- are two distinct and the oldest lineages of the wolf-dog clan. Trans-Himalayan wolf is the oldest and has diverged from others about 800,000 years ago, corresponding to the major geologic and climatic upheaval of the Himalayan region. These studies suggested the recognition of the lineages as a different species or sub-species.



Wolves from (a) Kashmir valley, North-west Himalayan region of India (courtesy: Mir M. Mansoor); (b) Sikkim Zoo - Captive-bred individuals, wild individuals were captured from Spiti, Himachal Pradesh, Trans-Himalayan Landscape (courtesy: Pankaj Kumar); (c) Leh- Ladakh, Trans-Himalayan Landscape (courtesy: Y. V. Bhatnagar); (d) Peninsular India, central Indian Landscape (courtesy: A. Patil).



Identification of wolves from the Himalayas has remained an issues since their first description by Hodgson in 1847, which was based on morphological dissimilarities. Even the latest techniques of molecular identification have not solved the issue entirely, leaving one or other aspect unaddressed. Conservation importance of the wolves of Himalayas has already been underlined for their uniqueness as the most ancient lineage of the world. Moreover, their population in the wild is supposed to be around only 350 individuals and very limited information on their status, distribution, ecology and behavior is available. Nothing could be worse than extinction of an species without proper recognition. Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun has taken the task not only to study the basic aspects of status, distribution, conflict and ecology and help in formulating the conservation strategy, but also to address the issue regarding their proper identification.

Read full article in Current Science.

Citation: Shrotriya, S., Lyngdoh, S. & Habib, B. Wolves in Trans-Himalayas: 165 years of taxonomic confusion. Currect Science, vol. 103, no. 8, pp. 885-887 (25 October, 2012).

जिन्हें नाज़ है हिन्द पर वो कहाँ हैं?

Recently read this article in HT about whistle blowers "Unafraid to spill the beans"

Infuriated me! couldn't do anything so i wrote down a few lines

"ये कैसी घुटन है क्यूँ सांस नही आती?

क्यूँ चुप हैं सब , कुछ आवाज़ नही आती!

कैसी हैवानियत है, इस मुल्क में दो नन्हे बच्चों का, गला घोट देने में

एक पूरी कौम को ज़रा सी शर्म नही आती "

[V. Shreedharan (Jan 24, 2011, Palakkad) and his sons Vivek (10) and Vyas(8) were found hanging inside their house in Palakkad. As secretary of Malabar Cement Ltd. Company, he had written to the Kerala CM about corruption in the company only to withdrew the allegations and quit the job in a month]

"मैं  चुप हूँ क्यूंकि, ज़मीर मर गया 

आत्मा सो रही

मेरे खुदा मुझे दोज़ख  दे

आज फिर कोई इंसान चीखा! हाँ के वो मरा मेरी खातिर!

और मैं चुप रहा"

"जिबह हो जाऊं , तो मेरी कुर्बानी मकबूल हो,

और कुछ ख़ुबाब  का दरिया बहे,

जो बहा ले चले मेरे मुल्क को,

जवाल से उरूज़ की ओर"

"मेरे खुदा बस अब खौफ की असीरी से छुड़ा दे!

मैं बेख़ौफ़ आँखें खोल के देखूं उसको 

उस तौकीब की नज़रों से मिला दे!"

Follow the case at- http://sonuram.blogspot.in/2011/02/v-sreedharan-case-to-follow.html

Dear Communist !

(I found this old letter, I wrote to my communist friends when I discovered the clash of my own feelings and ideology of Communism)

I don't believe those who claim to be a true communist. Because until you remain a human being, you can never be a good communist or even a good Gandhian. It is because of being a human makes you feel. When you go to demolish the capitalism, the bloodshed makes you feel your cruelty against humanity. Don't you feel any pity! When you are asked to hold the supreme position of a nation, the first thing you ask is to spend a million rupees for your bedroom decoration (referred to expenditure details of Prachand when he became Prime Minister of Nepal). What a display of your concerns for class-struggle !! Doesn't it show the greed and weakness of a simple person? You feel attachment to your position and status. You feel love for the daughter of your bloody capitalist landlord (referred to the character of Tanya in the writings of Nikolai Ostrovsky). You feel-feel-feel… How can you be a true communist !! If you cannot forget yourself for your commune, How are you going to make everyone a communist !!

Some of my so called communist friends say to me that I've been turning into an individualist from a socialist. Is not the society comprised of individuals and is not socialism for individuals? I am not interested to make here any argument on individualism or socialism. I am talking here about the feelings and thought-systems found in an ordinary person like me. And it must had been a 'Feeling' giving birth to the thought of Socialism. Thoughts can be great but feelings are always heavy... heavy upon all your ideologies.

Science and Philosophy

Science is in my mind and heart, but philosophy is in my blood. I come from a family where ignorance to philosophy is considered as illiteracy. When I think on science and philosophy, I find both of them are similar in their objectivity and nature. Science is the philosophy of physical and temporal world and Philosophy is the science of spiritual and meta-physical world. The objective and the methodology (the tools of investigation) are same for both of them. The objective is to find out the Truth. In the words of Stephen Hawking, it is the Great Integration Theory (a theory which defines all the processes and situations from a single rule) what is called the final truth (or God) in religion based philosophies.

And the tool is thinking and discussions. The scientists reach on any conclusion only after a satisfactory discussion and demonstration of the facts and experimentation. And so do the philosophers, though experimentation is not possible for most of the topics being covered by them. In fact, all of us know that the modern science has developed from philosophy. All of the earlier scientists were basically philosophers.

But some may have the question about the conflicts of religious philosophies with science. His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama has given the most satisfactory answer in his book “The Universe in a Single Atom”. Here he describes that how the religion (philosophy) and the science are supplementary for each other and how one can help other. Religions are primitive science and science is the new religion. One who has read his philosophy can find the resonance of his ideas and parallel discussions on science and philosophy in a couple of introductory chapters of “A Brief History of Time” by Stephen Hawking and “In Search of the Truth” by Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan.

I am a scholar of Biology and I am equally interested in the science as well as philosophy of the life. Science takes us to "what we are" and philosophy is discussion on "why we are".