Saturday, April 30, 2005

The Mathematics of Numbers and Pseudo-Sciences

It might sound surreal, annoying or intriguing, whichever way you look at it, you might love it or curse it, but you can never run away from it. Thats the magic of numbers.

Numbers rule every bit of our lives and if only we stopped a moment and look back at your life, you might realise some truly amazing coincidences and timely contructs that evade all scientific explanation. Now that leads us to the question, What is science? Wikipedia defines it as "Science is a process for evaluating empirical knowledge (the scientific method), a global community of scholars, and the organized body of knowledge gained by this process and carried by this community (and others)." Now, look at some classic examples...I mean really classic...Numerology, Palmistry, Astrology, Vedic Mathematics....

I can hear you protest and some knowledgeable few will argue that those are psuedo sciences. But look at the definition and it fits in very well. Does the definition make it mandatory for the sciences to be organized in words? The scientific method refers to experimentation, documentation and is some process of getting that knowledge which can be repeated by anyone with the same results. Doesnt it trivialize it to Common Knowledge? Psuedo-sciences as they term it, are also valid sciences because it follows thorough analysis and has its own methodology. I wonder that if people cant understand something, does it mean its not a science? Then chemistry is not a science cos the blind guy playing the piano at the station cannot understand it! Another reason given for classifying pseudo-sciences is that it does not have good documentation. Paper was invented by Chinese in probably the 1100 Century BC or something. Does it mean no life existed before?

A very down-to-home example would be the argument that the Indian civilization exists only from the Indus valley civilization, cos thats the maximum time archeologists can decipher some trace of. Then are the Hindus mad to catalog the time in terms of Kalpas, Yugas and Infact a "scholar" has found the Rig Veda dates to 6.5k BC. Thats extending our known timeline back by 4000 BC. Dudes, wake up. Its all there but the fact that YOU have not found out doesnt mean that its not there. Another interesting phrase in this context will be "Precessional changes are the hallmark of Hindu astronomy. We cannot ignore them in ancient texts just because they give us dates too early for our conventional view of human history" A very good point made, cos the conventional view is not the correct view. Its just a view. Didnt the convention that earth was a centre of the universe hold true for close to 2000 years in the western mind? Check out http://www.vaishnava.com/timelineintro.htm for an interesting read.

Talking a bit on the Hindu catalog of years, they catalog it in terms of yugas and kalpas. 1 kalpa is 1 day for Brahma and equal to 1,000 maha yugas (4.32 billion human years). The lifespan of Brahma is 100 Brahma years, or 72,000 kalpas, or 311.04 trillion human years. See http://baharna.com/karma/yuga.htm for detailed breakdown. We are located in the fifty-first Brahma year of the life of our Brahma. Within that Brahma year, we are in the first Brahma day, called the Varaha kalpa. Within that Brahma day, we are in the seventh manvantara, and in the 28th maha yuga of that manvantara. This would place us at about the 454th maha yuga of the 1,000 maha yugas that comprise this day of Brahma. Within this maha yuga, we are in Kali Yuga. The 5105th year of Kali Yuga will correspond to the year 2,005 A.D. That means that we are fairly early in Kali Yuga and this age will continue more than 426,000 more years. Isnt it a weird correspondence to the "fact" deduced by the "scientists" as the lifetime of our Sun and our very own "Pralayam"?

Although the existence of Brahma might be questioned by many, are the hindus crazy to just act like a random number generator and give some weird calculations if they dint have a point? And every one of the Hindu Brahmins repeat the ages right from the Kalpa to the Yuga to the Varsha to the Ganta to the Thithi during their ancestral rights every month. How much more do the scientific journals need to classify something like this as a science? Vedic phrases are passed down through sounds (in the language Forbes calls the best language for computer), as written knowledge is very much prone to interpretation and miscorrelation and mis-representation as time goes by. Main reason for Nostradamus predictions to go questionable. We will never find out what was the vision behind it sadly. Just because the "scientists" have no means of verifying the things, they call them "assumptions" and "hypothesis". Their science is too rigid in their structure and no wonder they have so many limitations. The science never allows anyone to go beyond its boundaries without it being prefixed with "psuedo". In Ramayana, the epic every Hindu has atleast heard of, Vishwamitra does a Yaga to make sure Rama's mother can conceive. For that maha yaga, he gets the agni kundam from the moon...The description of the rock fits in exactly to the description of the moon rocks by the "Discoverers" (Scientists from NASA). Any takers? On hindsight, Brahma might be just an analogy to make it easier for people to correlate. Just like we say "Figure" to describe a hot chick and probably worship Aish Rai's pic. Imagine people 1000s of years hence arguing about whether "Figure" actually existed lookin at an estranged decipated pic on the archelogist-excavated wall!

Another set of sciences in big debate is Numerology and Palmistry. Statistics is recognised as a valid science, but they dont acknowledge the basic fact that if something is predicted and does not happen, it is not going to be around for long...What about "petrol Ramar", a prodigy in South India in the 21st century spoofing around with some chemicals? BBC and CNN reported it as authentic... So many millions of people believe in something and that itself is proof that atleast some of it is worth the devotion. May not be 100% but what is? Astrology exactly maps the movements of the planets (confirmed 1000s of years later by Astronomers - Shhhh they are scientists) and even depicted "invisible" planets like Uranus and Neptune as Raghu and Kedhu. The Chinese can tell you everything about a person from a thumb! How can they do such things if they dint have a way of doing it?

And who defines what is a science? Western science as is prevalent in today's world is a kid (only a couple of 1000s of years old) and of utmost disconcern to the wealth of knowledge available in the world. The western scholars term themselves as founders of principles and inventors of theories. Alas, if only they look back at the classic studies, they will realise that the real founders and inventors were are just a few thousands of years ahead of them. Japanese and German universities are spending millions to go through the Vedic scriptures and find some stuff from them. Going back in time yeh? Knowledge as is now, is retricted, limited and shabby. Too bad we lost most of what was probably "Common knowledge" a few thousand years ago. Just another coincidence. The pole star actually changes once every 24000 years. The effects of this is still unknown. A hindu knowledge cycle lasts for 24000 years out of which 12000 years will see a rise in knowledge and another 12k years will lead to the destruction of the same. We are in the 2400 year of the waxing phase. Good for us!

I can go on and on about this, but I have diverted away from the topic by miles already. So, just to do justice to the title, let me quote a few things. Just relax, take some time off and look back at all the nice things in your life...Does the date on which it occured related to your birth date (25 equals 2+5 (7) )? Some people can find patterns in these and they have abstracted it to a level where they can predict patterns in other sample sets (other people). I practice it myself and thats not the only reason why I am writing this...Its just as simple statictics as it can get. For any further info on the statistical methods and probabilities, visit my roommate Dinesh @ http://dineshd.blogspot.com

Point Blank: You can never have equality! Acknowledge the difference and Provide for the difference, rather than bawling over equality in everything. CRAP !!! ("Common" Recollections Are Presumptious!)

Random Access
The search has just begun !!! (into the treasure trove called Past)

5 comments:

Dinesh said...

So, Ra is back! Will blogroll you. Keep posting!

Random Access said...

haha, never thot anyone bothers lookin at it...let alone from the next room!

Random Access
The search has just begun !!! (to keep upto ur consistency)

Balakumar said...

Well written RA. Very thought-provoking. And inspires one to dig more into the scriptures.

Random Access said...

Thanks Balakumar, though I dont seem to place you..I think you are one of ranga's friends right? Hope more posts here will keep you interested.

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