Inconclusiveness
INCONCLUSIVE
Man prides himself and has given himself the title homo sapiens. In the absence of a challenge he has placed himself at the crown of creation. That could possibly be justified since man is the only animal in creation that can think and use his thinking power to achieve innumerable and almost impossible things. The list of thinking power and its impact on civilization is impressive, to say the least.
But mind with its power of thought is a peculiar entity. It can be astonishingly accurate and unerring when dealing with and manipulating the outer world of objects- there is no doubt about that. But the peculiarity of thought ,which uses language, words as a tool, is that it can be used to argue about many things endlessly and in opposite directions.
Since this is not a philosophical thesis I will give a couple of illustrations at mundane level.(Come to think of it, professional philosophers use highly machinated jargon which could give a very severe headache to the layperson.)
I had a friend, back in Bombay who had a very high IQ. He could argue about a point from a surprisingly different angle and make it stick.. Once while a certain course of action was being discussed among us, colleagues, I said I was ready for it "Any day any time." Unfortunately I repeated the phrase a couple of times. At the third time my friend shot back ,"That means you are not willing to do it." !! I was horrified at his remark. His explanation horrified me further. "Any day any time could be ANY day- some day. Cleverly, you have not specified a particular day or time. That really means you are not ready."! He could produce many gems like that out of his thinking hat.
Some time back I read a book by Grisham ('The Innocent Man', I believe it was.) A certain person is accused of murder. The defense lawyer and the PP argue the case in the court for days. The jury give a verdict of 'guilty'. The man is sentenced to a long term in jail. Many years later it turns out he was not guilty and he is released, having suffered unjustly. This is an actual story – a real event in a real world. We could unerringly send a spacecraft to the moon: but we could not unerringly conclude if that accused was guilty or not.
And then, take the subject
of god. Thousand scholars with the most cogent arguments that god exists: that it cannot be otherwise. Equally another thousand rationalists will prove beyond doubt that god does not exist. Others in the former category will insist that their view of god only is correct and that other views of god are delusions. The arguments have been going on for the best part of thousands of years.
Even in the scientific field too controversies and paradoxes creep in. In the beginning of the twentieth century when nuclear physics came to full bloom a most disturbing paradox surfaced. Light , they found could be both a particle and a wave! Most scientists hold steadfast to the BigBang theory of the origin of the universe, while there are still a few reputed scientists inclined towards the Steady State theory.
Even, coming to a mundane world, take the case of breast-feeding. You can find a dozen articles that recommend it and another dozen articles not recommending it. Every respectable health magazine screams a warning about the danger of smoking. Later I read an article wherein some 'scientist' concluded that a bit of smoking was good for health! (Something along the lines of autoimmunization.)
This can be stretched further along somewhat a comic line. If you have the time and inclination(like Big Ben and Pisa) you may express your opinion on a random subject in a newspaper. For the next few months the letters to the editor department will be flooded with mail; half of the readers supporting your opinion and the other half discarding it.) Finally the editor has to take recourse to he age-old tactic of declaring, "Further correspondence on this subject is closed." 1
I SUPPOSE , ONE CAN SAFELY SAY THAT EXCEPT IN MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO COME TO A UNANIMOUS CONCLUSION. The problem I guess lies in our use of language – words. In a very broad sense we can say that we are using words to argue about a subject (words again The conclusion, naturally has to be in words, which is a kind of vicious circle.
That is why mathematics avoids descriptive language and uses symbols. But even in mathematics there are still some theorems which have not been solved yet. A few theorems have taken centuries to get proved!
I our day to day lives we cannot help using language formulate conclusions. But he would be a wise man who does not insist that his conclusions only are the final truth.
V.S.SURY
Man prides himself and has given himself the title homo sapiens. In the absence of a challenge he has placed himself at the crown of creation. That could possibly be justified since man is the only animal in creation that can think and use his thinking power to achieve innumerable and almost impossible things. The list of thinking power and its impact on civilization is impressive, to say the least.
But mind with its power of thought is a peculiar entity. It can be astonishingly accurate and unerring when dealing with and manipulating the outer world of objects- there is no doubt about that. But the peculiarity of thought ,which uses language, words as a tool, is that it can be used to argue about many things endlessly and in opposite directions.
Since this is not a philosophical thesis I will give a couple of illustrations at mundane level.(Come to think of it, professional philosophers use highly machinated jargon which could give a very severe headache to the layperson.)
I had a friend, back in Bombay who had a very high IQ. He could argue about a point from a surprisingly different angle and make it stick.. Once while a certain course of action was being discussed among us, colleagues, I said I was ready for it "Any day any time." Unfortunately I repeated the phrase a couple of times. At the third time my friend shot back ,"That means you are not willing to do it." !! I was horrified at his remark. His explanation horrified me further. "Any day any time could be ANY day- some day. Cleverly, you have not specified a particular day or time. That really means you are not ready."! He could produce many gems like that out of his thinking hat.
Some time back I read a book by Grisham ('The Innocent Man', I believe it was.) A certain person is accused of murder. The defense lawyer and the PP argue the case in the court for days. The jury give a verdict of 'guilty'. The man is sentenced to a long term in jail. Many years later it turns out he was not guilty and he is released, having suffered unjustly. This is an actual story – a real event in a real world. We could unerringly send a spacecraft to the moon: but we could not unerringly conclude if that accused was guilty or not.
And then, take the subject
Even in the scientific field too controversies and paradoxes creep in. In the beginning of the twentieth century when nuclear physics came to full bloom a most disturbing paradox surfaced. Light , they found could be both a particle and a wave! Most scientists hold steadfast to the BigBang theory of the origin of the universe, while there are still a few reputed scientists inclined towards the Steady State theory.
Even, coming to a mundane world, take the case of breast-feeding. You can find a dozen articles that recommend it and another dozen articles not recommending it. Every respectable health magazine screams a warning about the danger of smoking. Later I read an article wherein some 'scientist' concluded that a bit of smoking was good for health! (Something along the lines of autoimmunization.)
This can be stretched further along somewhat a comic line. If you have the time and inclination(like Big Ben and Pisa) you may express your opinion on a random subject in a newspaper. For the next few months the letters to the editor department will be flooded with mail; half of the readers supporting your opinion and the other half discarding it.) Finally the editor has to take recourse to he age-old tactic of declaring, "Further correspondence on this subject is closed." 1
I SUPPOSE , ONE CAN SAFELY SAY THAT EXCEPT IN MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO COME TO A UNANIMOUS CONCLUSION. The problem I guess lies in our use of language – words. In a very broad sense we can say that we are using words to argue about a subject (words again The conclusion, naturally has to be in words, which is a kind of vicious circle.
That is why mathematics avoids descriptive language and uses symbols. But even in mathematics there are still some theorems which have not been solved yet. A few theorems have taken centuries to get proved!
I our day to day lives we cannot help using language formulate conclusions. But he would be a wise man who does not insist that his conclusions only are the final truth.
V.S.SURY
Tags & Keywords : mind, words, language, god