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Monday, February 22, 2010

On Food and Classical Music

It's interesting how our brain can find parallels between seemingly unrelated concepts. I was reading a couple of books (sample chapters actually, thanks to the new Kindle app for Blackberry) on cooking one after the other and suddenly it struck me how similar some of the concepts in cooking are to music, other than the general classification that both come under arts with an underpinning of science.

The first book I read was Flavor Bible by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. In the book, the authors define great cooking as one having an excellent flavour (which in turn, is a combination of taste, mouth feel, aroma, and an X factor) that gives pleasure - in mind, body, and spirit - to the consumer. They go further and explain that in order to ensure that the food gives the right pleasure, multiple factors need to be taken into account such as the moment at which the food is served and the nature of the ingredients that make the food. The moment is important for the emotional satisfaction and can vary anywhere from the current weather (hot, cold, gloomy, sunny) to the type of mood the person is in (in a hurry, with a party, wants to take it slow, just hungry). The ingredients are of course, important for the physical satisfaction, which include the food pairings that go well (apple with cinnamon, tomato with basil) as well as the plating of the food (color and texture).

The second book I read was Ratio by Michael Ruhlman. It's quite an interesting cookbook in that it does not focus on recipes. Rather, it focuses on the ratio of ingredients that make a recipe and encourages the reader to come up with the final dish. The ratios themselves provide the foundation for the dish, while it is up to the reader to introduce additional flavors as well as to follow the appropriate technique to convert it to the final product. For example, to make bread, it takes 5 parts flour and 3 parts water, along with a pinch of yeast and salt. While this is the basic ratio for bread, there can be different kinds based on the flavors (garlic, herb and cheese, whole wheat, 8-grain) added to the bread as well as the technique adopted (ciabatta, foccaccia, sour dough).

I could very well relate to this concept, as I had been fairly frustrated when I first started cooking seriously. I would ask my Mom to tell me her recipes so that I could reproduce them and I would get vague descriptions such as 3 measures of coriander seeds with 2 measures of cumin and 25 chilis, with no specifics on the 'measure' itself. And of course, salt was always 'to taste'. It took me a while to formalize her recipes so that I could get the right flavour and now that I have graduated somewhat, I can see the sense in her basics.

I see quite a few similarities when I think of music, especially Indian classical music (Carnatic or South-Indian to be specific, although these apply to the Hindustani or North-Indian classical music as well). Unlike the traditional Western classical music which is based on harmony and strict composition, carnatic music is based more on melody and does not typically have strict rules on how a composition should be played.

To me, Western classical is more like a recipe book. It exactly tells you how to create the dish down to the last detail and if you follow it right, then you'll get it more or less right. Of course, the musicians would have to be skilled in their instruments and the conductor must use the right technique to get the most out of his musicians, but the composition itself is fairly well-defined, similar to how you can get a fairly decent dish by following the recipe to the dot, provided you know the basics of cooking and have the right ingredients. Better the ingredients and your cooking expertise, the better the dish will be.

On the other hand, carnatic music is more like cooking by ratio combined with flavor techniques. Most renditions have two components - the lyrics of the song being rendered and the 'raga' of the song. A raga is essentially a sequence of notes (Do Re Mi, etc.) that can be used in a particular pattern. This is similar to the ratios of a dish. After that, it's pretty much left to the singer on how the song should be rendered. The singer may opt to use the default raga (normally) or may even opt to sing the lyrics in a completely different raga, if that makes more sense to him. It is also up to the singer to use his own technique (as taught by his teacher - different teachers have different styles of singing) and to add creative variations to the base rules for singing the song (called 'vakrams' or deviations). So, while the artist has the foundation of the raga and the lyrics, he would combine it with his own embellishments on top of the basic rules along with his own unique techniques and create the final rendition.

Does this mean that one is better than the other? Not really. They are just two different ways to the same final destination, and each has its relevance in a specific setting. I just think that it is interesting to see the similarities, which hopefully can help appreciate both types of music with a different lens of perception.

Coming back to cooking, I think it's important to understand both styles of cooking if one aspires to be a good cook. I see it kind of being cyclical - you would first want to start with recipes that are accurate. Following tried and tested recipes to the dot can help improve one's overall cooking skills as well as to get comfortable with the basics of cooking. The focus here would be more on the skills of cooking since the recipe itself spells out the procedure as well as the ingredients and their combination. Once enough cooking skills have been developed, I think it's important to move on to the ratio-based thinking that is more free form. Such mode of thinking helps improve creativity and innovation while ensuring that the basics are right. This is probably the stage when the cook masters the art. The last part of the cycle involves codifying the skills learned both as recipes as well as rules for future generations. I think this is a part that many tend to forget or ignore. It is not only important for one to learn an art, but one should also pass on that knowledge to the next generation of aspiring cooks.

If this topic aroused your curiosity, you may want to check out the books I mentioned earlier.

Finally, you might also want to read the book that inspired the title of this blog - On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of Kitchen by Harold McGee - a fascinating book that goes into the science of cooking.

Happy Reading, Cooking, and Listening!

Monday, February 15, 2010

Knowing the Unknown: Part 7 - Concluding Thoughts

So, at the end of the day, why do all this? Why try to come up with a framework about things that we kind of know already? A framework is normally useful for two primary reasons - one is to get an understanding of the bigger picture even when all parameters are not fully known, and the other is to identify if there are other aspects that are missing that can be uncovered by analyzing the patterns within, much like a periodic table that helped Mendelev to identify missing elements. For me, it is more of the former than the latter - it helps me understand the cause of various beliefs and tenets that have developed over time, all in a quest for one thing - knowing the unknown.

Based on the framework, I can come to the following conclusions.
  • Religion and Science start with the same fundamental premise - an aim to know the unknown
  • When more parameters become visible regarding an unknown, fear turns into curiosity
  • While more unknowns may get transitioned from fear to curiosity, there are still quite a few unknowns which may remain for long time. For certain mental paradigms (such as What happens after death?) we may not get all the parameters ever
  • Religion encompasses spirituality and rituals, both intended to address the same underlying fear - one being actionable and the other, thought-provoking. Taken in context, both can help one in handling the underlying fear appropriately
  • Religion taken beyond one's own convictions can become dangerous. Expecting others to be convinced of one's own convictions can lead to misery. The same holds true of science as well. Happiness lies in letting others draw their conclusions by themselves
  • Faith left unchecked can transition into 'blind' faith.
  • Science without empathy is flawed. Any attempt in a finding a solution for problems intertwined with human emotions without empathy is bound to fail or be rejected. A more appropriate solution would be to factor in the emotions than just discard them.
  • Faith and Rational thought are both required in order to understand the unknown. Lack of one may result in an incomplete or unsatisfactory solution on the whole.
  • Science can co-exist with religion. Scientists can have faith and theologians can have rational thought.
  • Not all rituals have or need to have a scientific meaning. Many may be symbolisms that must be admired and respected as such.
  • Do not disregard a religion just because you don't accept the current interpretation of the rituals codified in it. For all you know, the original rituals have been transformed over time (mostly by different generations treating the symbolism coded within the rituals literally). Instead, try to analyze and understand the origins.
The last point bears a little more detail. I have seen quite a few e-mail forwards and other similar claims on the Internet, mostly by eager proponents of a religion to provide a 'scientific' meaning to the rituals that they follow. While some of them may be true, others are done to essentially 'validate' the ritual as a science. The fundamental tenet of scientific proof as we saw earlier, lies in theory that is based on experimentation. Any scientific proof must provide extensive facts that can be verified independently without bias. Most claims that are made for rituals however tend to focus more on the pseudo-science or more accurately, hard-to-prove science - such as magnetic force fields, mood frequencies, internal power in elements (such as gems, vibration theory, etc.) and so on.

Such proofs fail scientific rigor in a few ways. First, they do not cite rigorous experimentation, but rather, more of heresy or empirical studies (remember, empirical observations convey only patterns which may be inaccurate). Second, they make statements that cannot be proved immediately (at least not with the current scientific equipment). Finally, they embellish and exacerbate the small kernel of truth on which the theory is based - kind of like a resume where a person claims he is an expert in a software that he may have read about in a magazine!

Some of the conclusions listed here may be obvious or even be something that you are intuitively aware of - the framework helps reinforce the obvious and bring to front the intuitive.

If you have been following this post for the last few days, thanks and I hope it was a good read. I don't expect you to fully agree with my framework or my conclusions, but I am curious to know if you had similar thoughts as well - so feel free to post a comment. You can also download the entire "Knowing the Unknown" series as a single PDF.

As the Upanishads say, "tejasvi nAvadhitamastu": May the light (of knowledge/understanding) shine upon our studies.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Knowing the Unknown: Part 6 - Religion, Science, and Empathy

Over the last few posts, I have attempted my best to provide a framework for a lot of actions that we perform in order to understand the unknown. This fundamental drive in us to do this, probably the result of the development of our frontal lobe in the brain (compared to other animals) has distinguished us from other living creatures in this world. I presented a two-path approach in attempting to solve the unknown. So, are fear and curiosity the only driving forces behind all that follows?

Like many problems, there is more than one angle to the solution. If I were to mention only one quality that differentiates humans from God (or God-like being), I would say that the one quality is 'perception'. A few years back, I heard a story (I believe of South American - Inca or Mayan - origin) that got stuck in my mind. I could not get to the exact source even after hours of searching the Internet (Google cannot search based on metaphors or analogies!), but will try to reproduce the essence.

"When God created man, man had all the qualities of God. He was all powerful. This power got to his head and he wanted to become the Supreme Being. God realized this and cursed the man to have limited vision and limited life."

Silly as it may sound - I find a deeper truth in this. If there is one primary thing that differentiates us from God, it is that of perception. While we are better than other animals, we still have limitations in our perception - be it our senses or our thinking. Maybe it is for this reason that rishis and yogis in ancient India have strived to extend both these limitations (life by means of yoga and perception by means of dhyana or meditation).

Faith and Rationale
Likewise, the problem I have set forth has different layers and can be perceived in different ways. Another way to look at the division of fear and curiosity is the feeling that arises due to address each - faith and rationale. Process of overcoming fear is driven largely by faith and the process of addressing curiosity is driven by rational thought. While most of the actions tend to have a combination of both, the ratio differs in each. The actions on the left are driven more by faith and those on the right are driven more by rational thought.

Interestingly, you can also see that as go up the tree, both of them end at a point and give way to arrogance or 'blind' faith. Maybe this is the reason also why ancient Hindu scriptures constantly reminded one of ahamkara (egotism) and the need to avoid the same, as such an egoism (I am always right) leads to the destruction of one's beliefs.

This begs another question: Does this mean that rational thought always leads to good things while faith-based thoughts always lead to more disastrous consequences? At least, this is one of the arguments posed by pessimists or even atheists to an extent. This thought is also prevalent in adolescents all around the world and particularly teens in the Eastern hemisphere, influenced by the 'modern' culture of the West, much to their parents' anguish.

My emphatic answer to this is "No". As we have seen so far, neither approach taken to address the unknown is correct or incorrect. They are just two different ways in attempting to understand the same issue. Faith and rational thought have their own place in the society - in some sense, like the Democrats and Republicans (not the current crop of politicians, but the more general ideology) having a place in the US Government. Both cater to a different type of audience with an ultimate aim to provide proper governance. One tends to take a more subjective route while the other tends to take a more objective route. And that brings me to the final facet of this diagram.

As the framework gave hints initially, faith-based solutions to unknown in many cases get converted into a more reason-based solution once additional parameters become apparent. Since we don't have enough parameters or perception to know everything in the world yet, there is still a role for the faith-based solution. It is quite possible that not all faith-based concepts will get converted to reason-based solution. But there is no harm in trying (which is what scientists do) and in a similar vein, there is no harm in still keeping the faith (as we still don't know all the answers). The key is in keeping an open mind that would allow for such a transition from faith to reason where applicable.

Empathy
Much like how a solution approach requires both a subjective and objective approach to a problem, understanding the more abstract unknown requires both faith-oriented and rational thought, and this aspect is personified by empathy.

Empathy (or feeling) increases as you move from a rational thought to a faith-based thought, which inherently is emotional. To me, the fundamental mistake that proponents of 'scientific' thought make is when they attempt to focus more on the rational aspects and either knowingly or unknowingly minimize the importance of faith. The prime argument made is that rational thought leads to an unbiased proof, which is what will prevail over time. While this premise is true, it ignores the fact that humans are emotional by nature. Ignoring an important factor in an equation while attempting to provide a solid proof is not true science. This is akin to stating to a grieving person that death is part of life. It's an obvious fact and person will come to terms with that fact, but that still will not negate the emotions he or she will have to deal with in the meanwhile. Failing to include that interim emotion is not only unscientific but will also make the other party more averse to such scientific thought.

As one of my friend's father put it more eloquently, "If you believe in God, no explanation is necessary and if you don't, no explanation is possible."

People who believe in faith don't have to ignore science, just as people who believe in science don't have to ignore faith. Both play an equal role in understanding as well as upholding human thought. Maybe since seers throughout history understood this balance between faith and rational thought, they promoted a healthy dose of both when it came to spirituality. Many Hindu scriptures, especially Upanishads are even structured this way - many of them start with an exploration of the unknown (in this case, the Brahman), but go in a fashion that mimics modern scientific problem solving. It's unfortunate that such balanced attempts have since then been overturned in favor of pure faith or pure rational thought, both of which are not helpful in finding the right answer.

This is why a scientist without empathy or a theologist without reason are both doomed for failure when it comes to understanding the unknown. The truth lies in the balance.

Before I conclude with my final thoughts, I want to mention one more aspect of understanding the unknown that I did not touch so far - and that's revelation. Revelation or Enlightenment is a powerful, albeit very vague concept (except for those who have had the revelation!). The difficulty in understanding enlightenment mainly lies in that enlightenment is experienced and not taught, and like many experiences, it cannot be put in words so that it can be taught to others.

This pure form of faith and reason (reason being known only to the enlightened being) has been the holy grail of many over the years. Those who are enlightened have been the source of religions and some others have more of a following. I personally consider it as part of spirituality, probably a more 'pure' form, although I am not as qualified to define the purity, just to identify it. The difference probably is that enlightenment is an offshoot directly from the unknown (or at most from curiosity) rather than from fear, as we've seen based on the seers of the past that they were not driven by fear but rather by the curiosity to understand the unknown (more by faith-based means than by empirical means).

In the concluding post, I will state what I infer from the framework that I have built so far.

Knowing the Unknown: Part 5 - Forcing others to be convinced

In my last post, I mentioned that providing facts along with the proof and letting others examine the facts and accept the proof is a healthy way expecting others to be convinced. Does that mean that such a path will not lead to a more fanatic attitude? While mostly that is the case, there are definitely instances where it has indeed border-lined on fanaticism.

Take for example the recent issue about the evidence provided on climate change by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The board is formed by eminent scientists and headed by a Nobel laureate. Even then, it was found that they did not analyze the facts properly and jumped to conclusions. Thus, while the path itself is benign, the execution may indeed be imperfect and end badly. It may be true that all of them involved had the utmost human well-being in mind. However, that did not stop them from being over zealous and not analyzing the facts properly.

Coming back to our discussion, is the expectation that others should be convinced the worst thing that can happen? Have we reached the end of the trail? Not quite. There is an even more sinister possibility.



That possibility is that of forcing others to be convinced no matter whether the other person wants to be convinced. That, to me, is the start of terrorism. Now, terrorism being such a sensitive topic nowadays, I am not claiming that this is the only reason for terrorism, but just one of the reasons. There may be a number of other factors for terrorism - economic, political, or societal. Here, I focus more on the religious aspect of it.

Terrorism
Terrorism, in this sense is essentially fundamentalism taken to the extreme. Not content with just expecting others to become convinced, a staunch believer of his opinions may take it a step further and force others to accept his convictions, more by force than by coercion. It is at this point, an ironic thing happens. Not only does the other person forced to accept the belief due to circumstances, but it also inculcates a new fear within him - a fear against the belief being forced upon him tried to address in the first place, just manifested differently!

In a way, we come to a full circle here: we started by trying to understand a fear and in turn, replaced one fear with another. This is why terrorism is fundamentally antithetical to religion. While a belief or faith tries to address a fear, terrorism replaces one fear with another, thus negating the whole process.

You can also notice a few other patterns here. Take for example, the typical fundamentalist or terrorist approaches - be it forcing people to wear a particular garment (such as in the case of the Taliban) or preventing someone to follow their own will (numerous cases of self-proclaimed censorship such as those committed by various parties like Shiv Sena or Sri Ram Sene in India or even in other countries). In either of these cases, they force people to follow certain rituals or beliefs that they hold dear. It is one thing to explain why some actions are preferable and another to force others to perform those actions against their will, and that occurs when someone traverses the leftmost path in the tree.

The omissions
Like before, let us take a closer look at the omissions. While fundamentalism leads to terrorism by means of attempting to force others, I have not portrayed a similar trend on the right-side. Does it mean that the more 'scientific' approaches do not force opinions on others? While there may be rare occurrences where that may have been the case, by and far, the 'curious' path prefers to provide the proof for the belief and let others analyze and accept the proof at their own pace.

Does that always work? If we provide all the proof in the world about what we know, can we hope that others will come to accept them? Of course not, as we shall see next.

Friday, February 12, 2010

Knowing the Unknown: Part 4 - Expecting others to be convinced

Flawed as the human nature is, as social beings we want to live as a community. Probably this primitive need arose due to our physical weakness compared to the wild animals and hence the need to band together to form a more aggressive force against the enemy. In a sense, we are like wolves (start of the Roman empire, ironically) or even like viruses (as the Matrix movie portrays) where there is a need to band together to become more powerful. The age-old sentiment of "United we stand. Divided we fall" is pretty true of human nature. Interestingly, the same behavior is being exhibited currently in the form of 'social networking' and 'crowdsourcing' - history does repeat itself!

Maybe this is the reason why when it comes to matters of belief and conviction, we are not just happy of being convinced or even others echoing our beliefs voluntarily. No, we want more - we want everyone to like what we like and thus rises a need not just to convey things to others, but also expecting them to get convinced. I echo Alexander Pope's (poet, not religious leader) sentiment here - "Blessed one who does not have any expectations, for he shall never be disappointed." He is not alone. The same sentiment has been expressed time and again in ancient Hindu scriptures, most strikingly in Bhagavad Gita which asks one to perform actions without expecting the results of those actions.

karmaNyeva adhikAraste mA phaleshu kadAchana |
mA karma phala heturbhu: mA te sangostvakarmaNi ||


You have the right to action only and not to fruits thereof. Do not try to be instrumental in making your actions bear fruit (which will follow according to laws of nature). Neither let your attachment be to inaction.

(Translation Source: Parag Singla; correctness in splitting the words thanks to Vasu Srinivasan)

Such duties performed without expectations can be much more productive and beneficial. Taken into the context of our model, we can see this need for others to be convinced of our opinions take form as follows.

Let's take this apart now from left to right.

Fundamentalism
Fundamentalism arises when one is not satisfied with others getting convinced in our opinions voluntarily. The belief in one's opinion sometimes becomes so strong that an expectation builds up fairly exponentially that others should be convinced as well and a resulting disappointment arises when they do not. This subtle difference can convert a pious, religious person to cross over to the darker side of fundamentalism.

Social stigmas and political needs taken away, most, if not all religions advocate freedom of expression and speech. When the expectation becomes dominant, this fundamental thought of freedom expounded by religions are often supressed and one starts marching towards a path of destruction personified by anger, bitterness, hate, and jealousy.

Hence it is crucial for anyone who embarks on a path of understanding the unknown be aware of the wrong turns they can take towards finding true meaning. Fundamentalism start benign but can quickly turn malicious. Many of us are fundamentalists to some degree, regardless of the religion we practice. We are inherently flawed with my impure qualities that surface when our emotional nerves are touched. A very quick experiment is to ask someone to criticize something you believe in very vocally - be it your religion, family, or country - you are bound to get angry fairly quickly, right? In different scenarios, the name given for the feeling is different - fundamentalism, loyalty, or patriotism.

All these flavors have a good side, provided the feelings are kept at bay and the respect for others' beliefs are maintained. The issue arises when the feelings are overwhelming and the expectation arises that others feel the same way. It's fine to be faithful to one's religion, but not at the expense of another's faith.

Proof
On the right side, things are not as bad. Over here, the expectation for others to get convinced is more benign. It's really more about providing all the facts surrounding the theory and hence giving solid proof of one's opinion. There is a good chance that those who go through the facts will get convinced of the statement made. However, it is also quite possible that they may not. But when that happens, you don't go forcing the proof down one's throat. Rather, you just let it be and let them be convinced at a later time - mainly because the proof is not going to change. At the same time, you are also open to others providing additional facts that can overturn your proof or alter portions thereof.

This is a healthier version of expecting others to be convinced. Interestingly, this behavior can be seen even in spiritual leaders.

Philosophy
There is an in-between world where the theory or opinion one developed does not have sufficient facts to become a proof but still has some logical underpinning that ensures that the expectation for others to get convinced is kept at bay. I would classify that as philosophy.

Philosophy by nature, deals with more immeasurable aspects and hence cannot be inherently 'proved'. At the same time, it has enough logical reasoning to disqualify it as mere opinion. Philosophy, when taken as a thought process and kept closer to proof, is healthy in nurturing debates and further thought.

However, it is also vulnerable to fundamentalist thought as we have seen in cases of Communism (and times even Democracy). As I mentioned earlier, many religious leaders who expounded their philosophies about what they thought of the unknown have taken the benign path. This is quite apparent especially in the bhakti movement that occurred in India till the 16th century. When religious seers such as Sankara, Ramanuja, and Madhwa provided their take on the unknown, they did not just ask people to accept their philosophy because they were great. Rather, they attempted to provide proof (albeit in the way of quoting scriptures) on why their philosophy is more accurate than the others.

Such attempts to convince others off their belief by taking a more rigorous approach would lead to a healthier environment than what most religious leaders and politicians practice nowadays.

A note on omissions
Before I move on to the next level, did you notice anything interesting in this diagram - especially more on what's not there rather than what's there?

In my 'tree' diagram, I have not expanded "Spirituality" and "Superstition" to the next level. The main reason is because both these aspects, although perceived completely differently, are quite personal in nature. It is really more about us being convinced in something strongly than really going about convincing others.

Superstition is something you may identify this with fairly easily. While you may strongly believe in a certain superstition (number 7 is lucky or black cat crossing your path is bad), you would rarely expect others to follow it. While it is true that some superstitions are prevalent enough that there is a small expectation that it be followed, it is rarely emphasized. In many cases, some may even let go of their superstitions in favor of more rigorous rituals or more scientific theories. In either case, superstition itself remains fairly personal.

The case for Spirituality may sound less convincing at first. After all, we equate religion with spirituality and hence, all religious leaders are spiritual, right? Yes and No. True spirituality preaches personal enlightenment. While others may follow the path of a spiritual person, it is not often that a spiritual person convinces others of his spirituality.

Many rishis (sages) and saints fall in this category. They perform rigorous penance to achieve personal enlightenment. While some go forward (such as Buddha, Jesus or the siddhars in India) to convey what they felt to others, they rarely expected others to follow their path. They mostly provided a guideline on what others can do if they want to achieve what they experienced, but never expected others to do what they did. Hence, the thought stops at that level.

Unfortunately, such non-egoistic, non-promotional spiritual leaders are becoming rarer to find nowadays.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Knowing the Unknown: Part 3 - Convincing Others

Before I continue to the next section, I want to provide an additional scenario that I had not considered, thanks to feedback I received. When talking about rituals, I indicated that there are two ways in which to approach rituals.
  1. Rituals that have a sound theory behind them and are applicable even today
  2. Rituals that were created to satisfy certain social and political constraints over time that may not be applicable once such constraints are removed and hence should be considered as historical.
There is a third possibility and covers actually a fairly major chunk of rituals that are currently being followed - they are the ones that have a sound theory but then were misinterpreted or embellished over time such that the original meaning got lost in the translation. Many rituals nowadays are often condemned blasphemed by various political and religious leaders of modern times by looking at the misinterpretation and not the root cause. As science (or Thiruvalluvar) will tell you, it is crucial to analyze the source of a statement than take it at face value based on who said it.

A true example to this scenario is the one I mentioned for the second scenario - "Sprinkling water around your plate before eating". The current interpretation is that it was done to avoid insects from getting into your banana leaf plate (as was used in older times and even recently in marriages) while eating and to kind of form a moat. As I have been corrected, the real interpretation is apparently different and has a inner symbolism that has since been replaced by the more 'modern' theory. So, take the newer meaning as the truth (even though it may appeal more to a modern reader) is still ignoring or at least failing to analyze the original thought behind the ritual.

That corrected, let me get back to the third part of the series.

Once a person convinces himself that either his observations, spiritual philosophy, or rituals address the fear or curiosity that he has developed towards the unknown, he proceeds to the next natural step as a social being - convince others or at least let others know of his thoughts and opinions. This could either be to reassure himself that his theory or belief is accurate either by checking against someone's thought process or to bring someone on board to his own thoughts, or to just simply share his new-found knowledge.

Now, one can go about convincing others in a few ways.

Conversion


First is a path followed by many new religious zealots. They want to enthusiastically convey their new found knowledge to others. Most times it starts with the joy they found by their own experience and want to convey this to others. If the person is convinced of what they hear from the evangelist, then it becomes willful conversion - a change in their internal faith. On the other hand, if the person is enticed to be convinced - either by way of other social, political, and even ritualistic benefits, then it in a sense becomes a forced conversion.

Christianity is known to follow this path of religious propagation, mostly starting in a benign manner. Most colonial systems started with missionaries trying to preach the way of a new faith - be it the East or the West (USA in particular). However, in many cases, it has unfortunately taken more political tones that resulted in more forceful measures, as we shall see later. Other religions have similar concepts of conversion as well.

Superstition

In the last post I indicated that all empirical study is not necessarily good. In fact, as Sherlock Holmes says, "it is a capital mistake to adjust the facts to suit a theory instead of a theory to suit the facts". Many a times, one may come to believe that a certain theory they built is good, with minimal data points. Such theories based on insufficient data points often result in superstition. An excellent example of this are ones that we perform when we are watching important sports events - be it Cricket or Baseball. When we see a batsman getting out because we sat in a particular position or we drank a particular drink, we try to do it again and again hoping the favorable result will be repeated. Silly as it may sound, many superstitions do begin that way.

Theory

On the other hand, we may realize that the data points that we have so far is insufficient and may go on to get more or try to come up with a theory that would take into consideration, other angles as well. This gives rise to modern scientific theories, which are then put to test rigorously. Sometimes, such theories may even be created without data points, such as in case of Einstein's famous relativity theory, which was proved long after he was dead.

All the three attempts - conversion, superstition, and theories are created in an effort to convince others of what we know or at least give enough information to others so that they will be as convinced as us.

Conducted at a healthy level, such attempts help share and propagate knowledge gained by one person or group to others, thus building the overall wisdom of community. However, not all efforts are benign, as we shall see in the next post.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Knowing the Unknown: Part 2 - Convincing Oneself

In the last post, I started with The Unknown and that the unknown is handled by us either as fear or as curiosity and that the fear sometimes is handled by curiosity. Now, let's go to the next step.

Fears that are thus quantified and even measured by means of constant observation can then helps us to devise a strategy to overcome the fear. This is called an 'empirical' study or in simpler words, study by observation or experimentation. Thus, primitive humans might have observed or studied the movements of a predator and figured out the best time to overcome the predator so that they don't get eaten. Similarly, a child may observe for a while how the toy that it initially fears behaves and may even prod and poke it to test its danger level and eventually overcome the fear and start playing with it.

On the other hand, some fears are not exactly solvable because we do not know a way yet on how the unknown works. Such fears can be more complex to overcome due to a lack of understanding of all the issues that drive the unknown. This was probably the singular moment in history where humans surmised that there must be another entity that they don't know of yet that governs what they don't know and as a result, even what they know. This belief in an entity that governs the unknown, to me, is the birth of religion.

To make things more interesting, there could be two possible ways in which the entity (aka God) can now be addressed - one is not to question the validity of God, but simply perform certain actions (rituals) that by empirical observation, seems to appease certain unpleasant actions from God's side. Going back in history, I would surmise that offerings made to God were probably due to this thought process. The second possibility is to go a more philosophical route and question the existence of God in the first place and if God does exist, then analyze the relationship between God and humans, or for that matter, everything else.

Note that in both cases (rituals and spirituality), the fundamental driver is the fear or lack of understanding of the unknown and the inability to formally explain the unknown. Moreover, all these strategies are essentially to convince oneself that they can understand something that they did not comprehend earlier.

In Hinduism, these two facets were well-defined and were known as Smriti (Ritual) and Shruti (Spiritual). The theory is that a person needs to follow both these aspects of the religion in order to attain moksha (or nirvana). To be more precise, it is my understanding that Smriti is a stepping stone towards Shruti, in a sense, easing the follower from a step-by-step structure to more abstract thought.

Rituals

Rituals have been around pretty much since the start of any religion. Probably it even predates more spiritual thinking. In a sense, rituals could have formed due to the same empirical observation. Our ancestors may have noticed that certain combination of events or actions result in favorable results and some that do not and potentially codified it as a ritual to follow in order to consistently get favorable results. This is neither surprising nor stupid. We do similar actions pretty much all the time. Even if we do not understand the underpinnings of certain objects, we still know that some actions will work and some do not.

What is more interesting is that some rituals have also morphed over time. While the origins of certain rituals were either for practical purposes or at times even symbolic, some of them got lost in translation over time. Such changes mostly happened either due to the whims and fancies of those who were the protectors of the rituals or just due to circumstances. Thus, today's rituals tend to be a mix of the original ones combined with ones that were added over time.

It would make sense to separate them and follow the ones that are still relevant and valid and archive the rest as historical. For example, surya namaskaram or "sun prayer" contains a number of asanas (poses) from Yoga that is now widely popular. Similarly there are a few others that are more societal or historical that do not apply to the modern world anymore (such as sprinkling water around your plate before eating - it was essentially a means to prevent insects from getting to your plate when sitting and eating on a mud floor).

Spirituality

To me, this is the essence of religious thought. This branch explores and ponders about the unknown and tries to personify what we cannot perceive. That's as abstract as one's mind can get to!

Most religions provide a delineation between the ritual and the spiritual as explained earlier. Some religions focus more on the ritual than the spiritual. For example, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam focus more on the ritual - here, I consider the importance and emphasis of day-today actions as rituals as well - the emphasis on "living now". These religions have a spiritual angle as well (nirvana in Buddhism and Sufi form of thinking in Islam) but probably not emphasized as much as the ritual portion.

Unlike rituals, spirituality is not driven by fear alone - it also involves a healthy dose of curiosity about the unknown as well, and probably that's why to me that portion of a religion is far more fascinating than the other aspects.

So, does this mean that rituals and spirituality are fear-driven and hence not to be pursued? Not so, primarily because we still don't know the answers to a lot of questions. As long as unknowns remain, this branch of the unknown will continue to exist.

Also, on the other hand, can we say that anything empirical is good? Not exactly, as we shall see when we expand this to the next step in my next post.

Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Knowing the Unknown: Part 1 - The unknown

This blog is the first part of a six (or maybe seven) part series on a topic that I have been contemplating for a while now. I initially thought I could cover it in a single post, but as I started jotting down my thoughts, it became clear that it may exceed the standard length of a blog post and hence has been split. Hopefully you'll have the time and patience to read this, as I am curious to get your feedback.

Recently while on a trip in India with my dad, we were getting late to get back home and I wanted to skip a shrine that we had intended to stop at originally due to lack of time. Now the trip itself was back from another temple and hence my rationale was that it was probably not a big deal. My dad, the pious man that he is, thought otherwise. He was quite disappointed at the prospect of not making a stop and told me that I would be damned if I don't.

The comment threw me a bit off-guard. I've known him to be quite religious and spiritual, but never to a point of accusing someone of damnation. It got me into thinking what brought the change in him and more importantly, why he considered it to be so severe a crime, especially since we were just back from other temples.

I noticed that the statements he made were consistent with other utterances from many religious leaders over time on what would happen if we don't take time to stop and pray. This made me feel that there must be some pattern that governs this behavior. What I have written below is an analysis and identification of that pattern.

The unknown

I feel that the root of core most of our thought processes is an awareness of the unknown. Right from the moment we humans gained the ability to think, our thought has been devoted to try to know what we don't know yet and attempt to make it known.

Now, you can go about accepting the unknown in one of two ways - fear it or have a curiosity to understand it. In most cases, our instinct is by default to fear and then, potentially to understand. This behavior can be easily observed in children - when you bring a new object to them, they either fear it or take it apart to see what it is.

Typically, we tend to get over the fear over time and convert it into curiosity. The change could be brought over either by time (tired of being afraid) or by collective effort (enough people sharing the fear band together to overcome the common fear).

So, what do we do with either our fears or our curiosity? That's for the next post.