Category: General blogs

I take a detour here. Instead of talking about what happened in a session, i talk about the mystery of knowledge, an analysis through a ‘fool’s way’ …

A question we discussed in previous sessions was – If what we ultimately do is believe, then does it matter if we believe in traditions or scientific theories? Since we could not get to any good clarity about it, i thought i will try to make a picture of the way i understand (subject to the ongoing evolution of the thinker) stuff. By the way, this is all ‘leading the witness‘ as the lawyers will complain.

As depicted above, emotional and material needs could probably be said with some confidence to be occupying the human mind’s resources to significant levels. What’s left, could be the curious parts, those which lead to wonder and wander. This curiosity part could be an exploration of what is there, how it is, why is it there, what has been its history, where is it going and so on. Once a question is asked, it often leads to more questioning and becomes difficult to stop. This could drain away resources from the dominant modes – emotional and material insecurities with which we are born with. Hence practical necessities demand that the questioning be stopped for the sake of practical needs. All this conflict between practical needs and our innate curiosity converts a child into an adult when the former wins over the latter. Additionally, holding on to a certain question, or keeping it aside without modulation is not easy.

Imagine a bucket of water as being the human mind’s need of understanding of this complicated world. The rate of true, versatile information could be seen as a tickle of water into the huge bucket. This is true as we have seen earlier or hinted upon that generation of knowledge is a very very slow process. What to do about the remaining empty bucket of hunger? Could imagination have evolved just to fill in this huge void?

As in the above image, a significant portion of human understanding about the world was filled with non-natural concepts, just because getting the natural reasons behind the everyday observations were just too difficult to happen just like that. With this context, the past 1000 years of the growth of science in Europe becomes more astonishing and significant. Coming back to curiosity vs practicality, the sufficing of curiosity of the pre-science years with sufficiently engaging stories was the mainstay of knowledge systems. Science, or its ancestors were just as an aid to the existing march of such knowledge systems as seen in the last session. This is where the current session adds into the stream of thought, more on it from the next session.

Finally could we also explore what do we mean by knowledge itself. Could it begin by facts, or observations that everyone agrees on? If such observations/facts could be draw on a paper as points (above picture), nothing much can be humanly inferred. However, due to the shear “curiosity” pressure in our minds, and in our desperation to fill in the void or understanding isn’t but obvious that we need to add in the red lines in between the facts? This relationship between facts, could be either created artificially, through imagination as a stop gap solution or through actual figuring out the cause-> consequence line of inquiry of the scientific domain. The former probably existed before the sciences came of maturity, and the latter is the current fashion of investigations. What about the blue curves above? Well, if it slightly resembles a pattern, we could as well predict how the unfolding pattern will eventually look. That could be a hypothesis?

In pre-science era, the linking between the facts/observations could be vague and so outliers (the black point in the above depiction) was OK, maybe someone had an extra horn. But not so in the exact sciences, which looks for outliers as indications of a flawed hypothesis.

And finally, what about the relationships between facts? Earlier, since the source of these facts were of non-natural nature, and also because of non-availability of data, the relationships were vague, and made to fit the general dominant narrative as imagined by the authorities. However, now that we cant afford to be so naive or innocent, the chronological linkages between facts as to when the events happened becomes important. Relationships also could be depicted by how much of a cause caused the consequence, linearly or non-linearly. What could be the effect of multiple causes in a single consequence inexplicable by individual causes alone? And so on and so forth.

Truth

What is truth? Why do we want truth? Difference between truth and fact. An event and a pattern. Facts can about a certain event that has occurred, but pattern becomes more relevant because it helps decrease uncertainty in time and space, because then we know if a certain event will happen again. We can estimate and anticipate better. We can get over it, avoid the event, tackle the event and so much more. Such a powerful thing, to be able to anticipate. So here truth becomes directly relevant to security or certainty. Knowledge is clubbing the patterns under names and hierarchies with relationships between, bigger, smaller, more or less powerful, forming from, leading to etc. And variations in patterns, and evolving patterns.

But pattern discovery is not so easy. It takes detailed observations, painstaking work and needless to say expose oneself to sever peer rebuke, all this while overriding practical needs and responsibilities. So obviously not many people would like to do this. So, monks and scientists, sanctioned by culture and traditions of the day are allowed to do this. Earlier however only monks, saints, did that. Probably studied human patterns, and given the limited knowledge, life span of observations, susceptibility to biases, ego, and all human factors, ‘best guesses’ could be generated. Something is better than nothing. And that something was absorbed into the minds and cultures of the remaining people. It may not be complete but its something. But how can those pseudo-patterns last if they were repeatedly proven to not match the reality? Either change it or create exceptions to it (extra horns?). Changing it could be rather costly as one would have to undo then the whole process of getting monks at one place or into remote places, putting them through (called voluntary) long years of penance, etc and then costly dissemination to the layman. But before that doing the most difficult and costly process of unlearning so that the layman’s mind may have some free space for new info! So instead exceptions could be used – if it did not rain as predicted, something was not done right or the right conditions in which the original observation on which the prediction was based were not repeated, the gods were not pleased and so on. But then the right conditions themselves could make it very difficult to follow, or could they be deliberately made difficult to follow so that it could always be blamed on “not well prepared enough”? Quite possibly, keeping the preparations vague could have helped immensely to the ‘knowledge’ authorities as well as to the surprised public, there’s more to do that’s just known, even if they lead to failures…

And fiction, myths and stories, why they?

Carrying forward from MG’s question in a previous session (to which i still wonder) and extending to the common activity we all are concerned now – about why rumors spread? So if truth is all that one ultimately needs, why are we surrounded mostly with epics, drama and fictitious stories?

• Why science conspiracies become popular?
• Why any rumor becomes popular as compared to facts?
• If we look at TV, most of the stuff on it, the sitcoms, movies are all fictional. Could it be 90% of the content? Remaining could be news, but even if we analyze news on TV, there’s a lot of drama. What does it say about us? Interesting article: Reeling the Reality: A study on contemporary Reality Shows and their Influence on other Entertainment Program Genres
• Communicating science through entertainment television: How the sitcom The Big Bang Theory influences audience perceptions of science and scientists – Pei-ying Rashel Li, PhD thesis, ANU, Australia. Excerpts from the abstract:
  • Overall the program made science seem less dry and more interesting to the participants, and made scientists seem less socially isolated, humanising them.
  • Participants felt the scientist characters in The Big Bang Theory both conformed to and contradicted their preconceived images of scientists and their understanding of scientist stereotypes.
  • People had mixed feelings about them being mainly in the biological sciences (rather than being physicists and engineers, like the main male characters), but indicated that on television, good value entertainment was more important than portraying gender balance in science.

Since space is free and this chap has more time (imagined vs real) on hands why not open another door for the fool?

Humor and tragedy – why are they popular ?

Why we laugh? why do we find something funny? Could it be because we have a pleasant mismatch of expectations. Expecting a fall, or failing, or a certain direction to a story and being surprised that it was not so and the outcome was instead more pleasantly surprising! Is there a study on humor and the brain?

How about tragedy? Why tragedy and drama is part of entertainment from times immemorial? Tragedy makes no one happy, and yet its popular. Why? Is it because its relatable? is it kind of a mirror? but is a mirror to our lives always welcome? Is tragedy viewed from a third-person perspective kind of makes it relatable but not too first-hand way, not too close for comfort. Tragedy has a boundary of reality, a play in the imaginations of the viewers, safe and sound but nonetheless profoundly involving. Could it be said that with comfortable distance, tragedy is entertainment – its like expecting a fall by mistakenly stepping on a banana but somehow recovering from it. You can feel, but you will not fall = comfort and surprise. Its all simulation that causes the same stimulation as if it were real.

Could humor be seen as short term twists, fast and with jolts that are better than the bad or boring expectations the viewer simulates the situation to turn out to be? Probably we are always trying to anticipate, what next, what next…. If that were not there then there could be no comedy, as comedy could be all about better than anticipated. 

The above all true for fictitious stuff. What about reality TV and modern news broadcasts? Added degree of freedom, unpredictable-ness?

Understanding stuff vs knowing stuff

Often students recount what they have learnt. For example when asked about lenses they blurted out some terms and terminologies, by a very evident act of recollection. That’s OK if its just a language word that they must ascribe a common meaning. But suppose i ask about “what is humor?” i am sure they will jump to definitions they have learnt in their psychology class or read somewhere. I am also sure a lot of times I myself am doing all that. Matching patterns. However, what if we don’t go the path of recollecting from memory, what if we do not react, but repeat the question to really understand what is being asked. After enough pondering, reflection on our own lives, around us, trying to articulate what probably we kind of understand, we may land-up with a bold understanding of it. It may be narrow and incomplete and does not encompass the breadth and depth and scope of a knowledge body about humor generated by deep study over many years and centuries by focused minds, but what we have just done is walked on the similar short term version of what the experts did. Chinese proverb (read somewhere, heard many times) “Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish you, feed him for a lifetime”. THAT, must be the method. A practice of :

• Pondering hard and long on things that one wishes to know about, even if all about it has already been discovered and written = ‘reinventing the wheel’ as used and abused in technology. But one who can reinvent the wheel has more chance to invent something else as compared to who skipped the whole practice and skill of discovery. There are no shortcuts.
• Then when one takes to reading, or other sources, one is ready to receive. Many questions extending their arms, shouting to be given, yearning to be filled! The grounds are fertile for seeds to grow into magnificent plants. A prepared mind, right for the germination of new information!

In the current era, the amount of time a question remains as a question in the mind is diminishing further and further. Google and forums and the internet give responses as soon as a sentence is half written. There’s no life of wonder here. Or if there is that’s only at the frontiers of knowledge. But then frontiers are difficult and one has never learnt to ponder because convenience was at stake. There go a billion Einsteins down the drain!

So, the way this course is, it could be seen as ponder-based. How bad could it be, the outcomes of pondered directions? Naive and stupid at worst? But the minds, hopefully will carry forward feeling that pondering can also help in self-discovery and learning stuff through observations and so on. The organic way of learning. Inside to outside.

Disclaimer: All the above banter was not discussed with students (thank god or the powers of the unknown) so please don’t jump on me (metaphorically). I know the above is totally unverified, probably has no place in an educational transaction where i must take responsibility of accuracy and depth. The above could as well be fiction of my mind and i wouldn’t be even aware of such. However, in all these thoughts i had invested much time, and it would be sad to loose them, so they are parked here.

We now conclude our inquiries into human nature, need of society and needs of science as a way to navigate through the complexities of both to figure out truth. And begin on some history of science as it begins in Europe. Why Europe? A very interesting question! Hopefully we will get some insight in the following sessions.

Few questions come to one’s mind: What led to science as we know it? What was the situation around, the society, the social dynamics and drama that asked some people to venture as ask peculiar questions? Why was science not developed before, why that range of centuries?

So one must ask what is science or scientific knowledge? Not the textbook definition, which most members easily blurted out, but its a question of the highest quality, question of wonder! However, not enough time or space or readiness for the wonder zone. So, for practical reasons, i must force a rather narrow and incomplete perspective on the helpless souls that populate the class:

Dull, dry and totally killing any wonder one might be wandering towards. But hey, practical requirement i guess. Also I say helpless because they were not given a just time & space to develop their own take on what is science. And there was no revolt, sadly to this mention. Maybe no one saw how bold, or limited or narrow the above viewpoint could be.

Anyhow, since we now ‘know’ what we mean by scientific knowledge, we must also question a little our own authority, participation, stake or presence in the line of inquiry towards a history of science. We, the 10.5 students of this subject (remaining 0.5 is the instructor), must debate and wonder, that isn’t what we do is believe in something, either from a ‘traditional’ source or from scientific sources? Why do we argue that the latter is more reliable, if all we are doing is ultimately believing. Does this not go counter to the scientific spirit of “find first-hand information”? Again a short debate to stir up the already muddy waters… This question never ceases to put everyone in a spot (metaphoric devil’s laugh).

So now that the stage is set, with enough confusion around …

Brief history of modern science

As a preparation, I was searching for a nice essay that could sum up all. Wonderful pages, nice blogs, etc – there are plenty. For example,

• A fantastic resource from a  certain Prof. Robert A. Hatch here . One should definitely read it to understand the background of science. This prof’s website has many pages, a treasure trove of info, among with is a slightly concise chronology of scientific developments – which again is fabulous. A small excerpt: “The learned view of things in 16th-century thought was that the world was composed of Four Qualities (Aristotle’s Earth, Water, Air, Fire). By contrast, Newton’s learned contemporaries believed that the world was made of atoms or corpuscles (small material bodies). By Newton’s day most of learned Europe believed the earth moved, that there was no such thing as demonic possession, that claims to knowledge (so the story goes) should be based on the authority of our individual experience, that is, on argument and sensory evidence. The motto of the Royal Society of London was: Nullius in Verba, roughly, Accept nothing on the basis of words (or someone else’s authority).” Fantastic.
• Medieval science and mathematics – Taylor McCall – A fantastic article that describes the times and needs of the populace and education systems in the middle ages. The story is, that after the 6th century, most of the previous ways of thought and knowledge that had a secular but investigative edge into workings of nature died down with the classical languages like Greek. Then only those pieces of knowledge (origin of word science) were of use that were of utility in architecture, placing of religious dates with astronomical observations, and so on.
• Another article is by one Volker Hoffknecht  here – Science and Technology in the Middle Ages – Although i could not find where this has been published, either as a paper or as a chapter in a book. The content is exactly what i was looking for the class- a longish essay, with good number of details, some analysis and covering the topic of science in the middle ages.

Since i would be a huge cheat if i read a couple of essays a day before and went to the session as an instructor claiming i knew stuff, i proposed a game as an alternative. So i took up the last essay above, tore it up in sections. Then these pieces of paper were mixed up as chits and the students were asked to pick one each, read and put them back in order as a jig-saw puzzle. Talking, and discussing were encouraged. I hoped in this way, they will do the necessary reading, collaborate with each other and make a concise story – effectively doing what i would have done anyways. This did pass on well and the original was recreated. Some contribution to this was also due to the instructor being a novice in such a game formation – cutting the papers in recognizable ways, forgetting to tear off line numbers/page, keeping section headings with the torn pieces and so on – not very intelligent!

So here’s the gist:

• With degradation of the Greko-Roman empire, all important thought literature within Europe is lost as Greek looses its popularity and is replaced by Latin as the language of learning.
• However, early Greek works that were exported out to other lands through Arabian traders and so on survive, outside of Europe.
• After a few centuries gap, these early works find their way back into the main centers of learning in the Europe where they are translated into Latin.
• However, the applications of these works are mostly in architecture and building of Church-related buildings, mathematics is used to compute religious dates and so on – all for religious purposes.

That’s it, of course this is explained and elaborated very well in the essay.

And so, after all the tearing up and joining back story, we discussed and analysed the essay. Due to lack of time, not many questions were asked by either the instructor or the students. I wonder what kind of questions/thoughts one could ask with this limited reading? Here’s some from my lil’ brain:

• Why did Greek drop in popularity and Latin came up? could be an interesting story.
• Its very interesting how just in a couple of centuries significant learnings of previous generations can be lost due to disuse. Was there any intention by the church to do so? Or could it be natural?
• I could as-well be analogous to the lack of science in India? Sanskrit being the language of the learning and that not being popular must have kept so many potential thinkers and wondering souls in dark.
• The way architects used ancient Greek techniques for construction of buildings in Medieval Europe could be akin to the way Indian engineers are trained to think and use knowledge – use these formula to get past the post, the post being an exam or a building, with no pause for thinking why, where, how. Too far-fetched?

This session could have been an advanced session, discussing “Birth of science in Europe”. But i felt that “What is science?” is deserves more pondering than was done in the previous session. Sadly, since i am writing this 3-4 days after the session (procrastination), not all of the wonderful details could be recalled.

Recap

We started by each one (except the instructor) recounting the work submitted as Assignment #1 – Identify 3 controversial issues circulating on WhatsApp/Facebook/Twitter and analyze them. It was very exciting to see the topics they found out and wrote about. More on this in a later post.

A recap followed, and it was further asked, on a scale of 1 to 10, how much does each one agree with whats been going on in the class. One mentioned that individual sessions make more logical sense than the whole thing put together. While another one said the opposite was true. Someone also said that no session was really conclusive over what we are doing, trying to go to, achieve. I too wonder, is this discovery thing going on too long? Is it the right way to approach such a complicated subject with little or no domain knowledge (speaking of the facilitator) and only using this ‘frugal discovery’ technique? I don’t know. I also worry keeping students in this ‘grey area’ too much might make them loose all interest.

As of the original question of 1-10 scale, no answers. Poor souls were so confused they seem to have forgotten the in-between numbers!

What is science?

Again, the elusive question that was asked before but didn’t evolve much. An interesting discussion began. We were lucky that an new student V popped in just then! And in no time joined in the lively discussion (hope the spirit remains for the remaining of the course by someone’s god’s grace). This fresh soul dropped a bomb within the discussion which was bantering around the usual – ‘science is a tool to find truth’, ‘pseudoscience is so because there’s no proof’, ‘asking questions is science’, and so on.

V mentioned that he saw a video by a cult in Gujarat which had ‘proven’ (V’s words) that earth was not round or flat but was a mountain with slopes on either sides. It was so damn interesting but sadly i forget the remaining description. He drew what the cult claimed on the whiteboard. Now how do you handle that – i asked about. It was dumbfounding, but we in some ways needed this – a shake up. What is science if you cant talk logically your way through to the other person, and none of us could in that moment. All it shows is that we are still very naive in that area.

The question, coming back from fantasy, was – how do you know if something is true unless you have done it yourself? MG mentioned Faraday’s experiments proved somethings, but it was countered by asking if she had herself either witnessed it or done it first hand? Aren’t we in the believing business again? The only question remains then that we either believe in things written in scriptures or passed down as non-mistakable concepts or we believe in people who have written books/media/talks/teaching about some remote others (scientists) who claim to have done experiments to ‘prove‘ some concepts. So is it not interesting that all of the current knowledge of science is based on hardly a fraction percentage of human population’s efforts (scientists), same as how scriptures and traditions were made/initiated (by sages, saints, etc) ? What could be the difference then between science and traditional knowledge?

So what is the nature of science? RR mentioned that F=ma is proven to work on earth, but as a counter doesn’t Einstein modify this formula at speeds approaching that of light? SV expressed that the biggest surprise to her was when she came into 11th standard and was told in science that there are no orbits in an atom, but orbitals in 3D space. Everyone somehow thundered with a ‘yes’ to it, as if a universal truth always known but never articulated was mentioned for the first time. I realized i had no memory about the difference between orbits and orbitals (because this was probably from a mugged up chapter designed to be forgotten after exams), so i kept mum, trying to appear wise and all. I thought why not wrestle the discussion to show off my science edge, so i mentioned a little about the confusing Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle which in layman terms says that one can’t get a fixed picturesque description of a subatomic particle because, by due to the wave-particle dual nature of particles it will always be a blur! So all the illustrations of atoms in their textbooks were not true, who knows if they are spheres or cones, they might as well be sticks and knots of strings! It was a great discussion.

So, if everything is updated and previous theories are dropped what are we doing? Can we be 100% certain about anything science says? So are we ‘best-guessing’ our way through the world and life and the universe? Here’s an interesting little clip from a sitcom in the US (and famous world over):

https://youtu.be/cXr2kF0zEgI

Wish we could continue it more, rev up the wonder engine. So we took a break with the lingering question – What to believe in if everything is an evolving belief after all?

Break

Unhappy that my last session’s pin hole image experiment failed, i had decided to do another experiment for the class. Ambitious (and crazy) as i am, i choose to do a Schlieren imaging setup. And needless to say, I had never done this before 😉 Here’s the inspiration:

But i didn’t have a parabolic mirror! So what to do? I figured out (through shear logic and some googling) that one can create an easy setup using 2 magnifying glasses. So just a day before the session, i got 2 magnifying glasses, put in some battery and LED connections as a small light source, arranged a rusted blade from an old pen knife and used my Pentax K-5 with Tamron 100mm Macro lens to make the following setup (bad drawing).

It seemed to work well the first time in my workshop and i was super delighted. I spent the remaining working day and night preparing a better rigid setup. Thought a webcam would be better than a camera, bought that but that didn’t work. Did a lot of prep, lens mounts and so on.

Next day arranged everything in class. Finally when it came to demonstrate in the class i realized that there was no soldering gun to show the streaks (English for the German word ‘Schlieren’). UB was kind enough to get hot coffee for the experiment (science has its costs but luckily it also has its patrons) but the vapors from it weren’t visible on the camera screen. KG tried to warm her hands by friction and placed it the path of light, that didn’t work either. All was total popat (Parrot in Hindi, slang equivalent to a flop show). Although the writing is short here, it took a full 1 hour to get to this stage in the class, while the students waited anxiously to see some science in action. It was a sad day for science education.

Conclusion

I somehow demonstrated that not only the facilitator didn’t have domain knowledge of ‘Society and Science’ (and hence preferred the ridiculous ‘frugal discovery’ method), he also couldn’t science properly. In retrospect, i know from my work at Small Design, whenever something is to be demonstrated, shyness overcomes the setup and it just refuses to work. So, need to better it and try again in some forthcoming session. Hope it wont be another disappointment. Fingers crossed (What a superstitious bugger?).

As of an understanding and appreciation of science, maybe this course falls way away from this essential foundation stone. Unfortunately one must turn towards the syllabus designed, on the interaction of science and society, despite an incomplete experience in basic sciencing.

Homework

Only SV and JP seemed to be serious enough to go through the homework assignment:

Discussion on Assignment 1: Find and analyze 5 rumors floating on social media. 

SV had a nice list of 6 rumors/controversies that were very relevant to the world and class. Rohan added more 5. Others just noted the rumors/controversies that were already taken up. Lets see how it will turn out on 13th when they have to submit.

Science, what is it?

The idea was to introduce science and discuss on it. Some basic questions were asked, starting from what is science? Someone said its a method of thought, of thinking through. Someone said its a filter. I agreed and passed on to next question. In retrospect this is not how it should have been. The answers were partially honest, but majorly ‘learned’ in previous discussions or in school. An honest question was not asked, and so a honest answer could not be heard. What is science could be a very deep question, the thoughts surrounding it, the sub questions to that question, the contemplation and yearning for going into deeper questions – that would have arrived at a honest, truely felt question. A question that would make one profoundly aware of the lack of knowledge. To seek an answer then would imply missing the point. Maybe this could be explored in next class.

Class recollected how they did science in school, titrations, microscopes. It seems almost all are from NCERT schools with one or two from IB. The texts they were describing seemed well intended, but the teaching was rushed and typical. Fantastic explanations, detailing and depth were discussed as contained in the texts. All this while, I realized that i am the only one from Maharashtra board, so i kept mum for good reason. JP mentioned her IB education where they could choose to pursue a question of their choice, using experiments and reading to get an answer. She described she studied the effect of different colors on germination of seeds, and that was very beautiful to hear. We all in the class thought that this kind of science exploration and learning was unheard of. I went more mum.

On further probing how they felt about science, there was a kind of unfathomable silence in the class. Only a voice here or there fought a desperate lull to leave its source and travel to my ears, someone said he liked it. But the rest searched. It seemed clear they didn’t know how to describe. I put in some expression with my hands in the air, shaking behind the head – and they nodded. Sometimes words cant help. Sad to see such a beautiful subject not being conveyed in all the years of education that these bright active minds went through.

A science experiment

I thought why not use the method of ‘frugal discovery’ on the way to understand science. The method is the one that we’v been using all through now which is simple: ask questions and with whatever little knowledge we have as inputs, try to build up a logical structure through arguments and refinements.

I had thought about a pin hole effect in the class room. The students were just conveyed that we’ll do an experiment, nothing more. Now we are ‘blessed’ with room number 310 which has no windows, but some below the ceiling vents. Thankfully the transparent glass on them was covered with opaque chart paper, except one pane. PK was kind enough to led the class his shawl for covering that pane. Next the door has a small glass window. A cardboard with a small hole into it was used to cover it. Now all bright sources of light were taken care off, so we thought. The moment the lights in the room were switched off, it seemed we had only scratched the surface – there were many light entries and given the less time we could not have possibly covered them all. So, i proceeded anyways. A small screen brought in front of the tiny pin hole revealed an inverted image of the corridor on the other side of the classroom door. Unfortunately only a few students could see the image, or even realize that its an image.

We put on the lights and i asked around what had happened. It was sad that this experiment could not be done to its fullest. I have seen a pinhole image and it looks very surrealistic, inverted and all that. So by now they had figured out that it was a pin hole. PK came on board to sketch how a pinhole forms an image, which was very interesting. Everyone got it – light travels in straight lines and so an image is formed through the hole. We talked about light intensity and how hole size could change that and the blurring of image as a consequence. Then, the topic of lens came around – a confusion between convex and concave ensued. It was clear that there was a lot of ‘learned’ terminology going around, but hardly anyone know what a lens does to its full extent.

I now know that the above experiment’s impact could have been far far more had i planned and executed it fully, what a shame. Hope i will learn and do better next time.

That was that for this session.

Extra Notes

What it means to science? I wish to nudge the students through the following path, but given this is not a science course and each of these will take significant time, i only write it here for reference. Just in case there is time…

1. What do you understand by science so far?
   1. What you remember in science?
   2. The fun parts, the boring parts? why not the dull parts?
   3. Why do we learn science anyways? why was it taught to us in school? Of course it didn’t have this tradition and society backing we have developed now (in this course)?
   4. What fascinates you about the universe?
2. The idea that there is a natural reason rather than an extra-natural cause of things around. That through sequential reasoning we can build up the end-effect we see.
3. That questioning does not necessarily mean challenging, it can also mean better foundation of things we need to believe in.
4. How to science, How do we test for truth ourselves? – discover the following –
   1. How to science: Observation → Hypothesis → Experimentation → Eliminations → Encore → Scientific facts
   2. Repeatibility – across time, space and the doer
   3. The pursuit of Outliers – the real gods of science
   4. Documenting Vs oral traditions
   5. How science looks without the math ?
   6. “Hey it works, even if your science can’t get it !!” – science as an evolving human understanding of things around us.

Eventually we must also touch upon the difference between science and technology!

Recap

Quiz on Asch conformity experiments – but only one or two actually did the homework, so i skipped.

We have seen previously:

1. For a human being, survival and insecurity is always on the back of its mind, constantly.
2. Society and groups help comfort the insecurities, hence are essential to its being.
3. Its then obvious that, larger the group size – larger the sense of security. This was discussed.

What could happen as the group size increases? From say 2 people to 5, 10, 200 and so on.

1. Most commonly mentioned was rising differences between the group members as numbers go high, because everyone is an individual ultimately.
2. Rising insecurities due to resource sharing concerns.
3. Unfortunately did not strike then and so could not discuss – the larger a group, more variety of members and hence more chance of matching of needs, desires and interests. This could lead to formation of more friendships, relationships within.

We touched upon last time that traditions could be a binding force within a group, and also that leadership comes in. Here’s my take on it, though it was NOT discussed in class.

1. Small sub-groups based on “grouping” differences between individuals.
2. Sub-groups could have conflicting requirements, and hence clashes.
3. Two ways that could be necessary to define and sustain large groups:
   1. Common Traditions are set, which is the skeleton of the group. Needed to ensure individuals and subgroups obey the overall big group’s objectives and ideas, despite their inner differences. Also could act as unwritten laws to ensure clashes are kept at minimum.
   2. Common Leadership comes into play, charisma plays important role, non-human leadership comes in like belief in higher power, etc. But that’s another story.
4. It seems very interesting – the power and nature of traditions:
   1. Traditions could begin from observations and analysis of cause and effect by our ancestors. Does this happen always? – research required.
   2. Because everyone has many things on their minds, and attention span is limited, so one must believe that traditional practices are good and will remain good in the long run, and just follow them.
   3. Tradition also has an immense glue effect that keeps the social group’s identity and hence ensures its stability in time.
   4. Tradition spreads very easily because:
      1. Limited attention span.
      2. Conformity tendency – Our need to be included as part of group to relieve our insecurities, for assurance from our peers, etc.
      3. Tradition creates commonality – common ground for sub-groups or individuals to agree upon – hence averaging out major differences in groups = cohesiveness of the group.
      4. It feels safe if large number of followers of a tradition, it feels good to socially bond through a tradition, there’s no uncertainty to deal with as everything is laid out plain and simple.
      5. Its non taxing to the brain.
   5. But people are also interested in the basis of a tradition:
      1. Original context could often be too dull and dry.
      2. If it has to be orally repeated, and it would take all that effort to do so to the new-comers into the group, then why not spice it up? Its entertaining and benign right? All the while, the essence of the tradition is maintained with all its benefits (above). Also helps the tradition become more appealing to everyone because its a beautiful story of human beings.
      3. Add up some, kings and queens, some angels and demons with superpowers and all the fascination a kid can imagine but an adult dies and fails to see in its life.
      4. But what does not spread easily is THE ORIGINAL CONTEXT, the dull and dry facts.

We discussed on the issue of communication between members. As number of members of group increase, given the short attention span, one could only speak in minimal details to other. It would then be upto the other to pass on interpreted stuff to another and so on. Also the details of the message not felt relevant would need to be skipped, because time was short.

To test this within the class, we played a little game. I asked everyone to face away so one can not see the other. The idea was to pass around a secret message from one end of the class to the other and see if it changes. Then i conjured up 2 tricks and a statement : A) a pen play between the fingers, B) a trick that makes a coin appear as heads on both the sides and C) A statement “Do this and you will be enlightened”.

This was fun. First i delivered this message to MM who bluntly said “I cant do that”, but nonetheless it was passed around. Finally it came to PK, the last person in the chain, to display to the class what he received. It was very funny, he shook the pen, showed the coin but said correctly that if you do these actions you will be enlightened. We discussed then what were the observations, why was the message modulated? The common answer was that the remaining stuff was not important, important was the enlightenment part, and so that got passed around. KG observed interestingly that this behavior was similar to that of a tradition, where only the relevant stuff is passed around. However, there was one thing i felt was essential, the keyword of the exercise, which is : easy. Only those things that were easy to pass around got passed. Like the statement, the objects pen and coin. The tricks were lost. Why was this?

1. The tricks seemed irrelevant to the beautiful and ‘main’ aspect of “enlightenment”.
2. It would have taken hours of practice for one to learn those tricks.
3. The other way would have been to write it down and describe those tricks accurately, so that the written document atleast could have been passed down.

Could this argument be extended to traditions too? Only those things that can be packaged as a story have come to bear upon us from many generations. Traditional practices are those that are passed on through oral and demonstrated acts. Yes, they are written down to keep them from changing much. Here’s the catch, if things are written down, they are preserved for longer time in the original form.

One observation was that writing of traditions and knowledge in India are scarce as compared to the length and number of people. It was only later that some of the traditional stories were written down. In a very interesting article in FirstPost it was the correct recitation of Vedas by the Brahmins, which helped them keep the authority of knowledge to themselves, and to maintain the topmost position in the Varna system. So reading and writing were discouraged, not only for other casts but as well as within the Brahmins. But its hard to capture the so many nuances written up in the article, i will stop here about it and refer to the reader to read it instead. Conclusion: If things are written down, they can also be propagated easily in the original form.

On Indian writing PK observed that there can be two forms of interpretation – the literal way and the metaphoric way. We had a discussion about it.

Somewhere during above discussions, KG mentioned her study on women not being allowed to enter sacred places during their menstruating cycles. She mentioned that original reason for this could have been so that since in such times the body is weak and requires rest, it could have been advised that such women take rest rather than follow the physically taxing rituals. PK countered that since the discharge of blood was involved, so the priests and men in general would shun such “impure” women out of the way. I didn’t know much about this, so i searched. Here’s an interesting paper :  Menstruation related myths in India: strategies for combating it which details the taboos in India about menstruation.

I cant recollect the context, but SD mentioned “The ethics of authenticity”  – by Charles Taylor and in it the first chapter “Three Malaises“. It was a very interesting read, thanks to SD and PK for bringing it up in class. However this was not discussed much because no one had any reading on it, except PK and SD. Here’s a summary of “Three Malaises“:

1. Individualism: Individualism at the cost of loss of a larger context. Following quotes:
   1. People used to see themselves as part of a larger order.
   2. But at the same time as they restricted us, these orders gave meaning to the world and to the activities of social life.
   3. The discrediting of these orders has been called the “disenchantment” of the world. With it, things lost some of their magic.
   4. People no longer have a sense of a higher purpose, of something worth dying for.
   5. In other words, the dark side of individualism is a centering on the self,
      which both flattens and narrows our lives, makes them poorer in meaning, and less concerned with others or society.
2. Instrumental reason: 
   1. By “instrumental reason” I  mean the kind of rationality we draw on when we
      calculate the most economical application of means to a given end. Maximum efficiency, the best cost-output ratio, is its measure of success.
   2. …once the creatures that surround us lose the significance that accrued to their place in the chain of being, they are open to being treated as raw materials
      or instruments for our projects. 
   3. The fear is that things that ought to be determined by other criteria will be decided in terms of efficiency or “cost-benefit” analysis, that the independent ends that ought to be guiding our lives will be eclipsed by the demand to maximize output.
   4. The primacy of instrumental reason is also evident in the prestige and aura that surround technology, and makes us believe that we should seek technological solutions even when something very different is called for.
   5. Patricia Benner has argued in a number of important works that the
      technological approach in medicine has often sidelined the kind of care that involves treating the patient as a whole person with a life story, and not
      as the locus of a technical problem.
   6. Hannah Arendt … argued that “the reality and reliability of the human world rest
      primarily on the fact that we are surrounded by things more permanent than the activity by which they are produced.” This permanence comes under
      threat in a world of modern commodities.
   7. A manager in spite of her own orientation may be forced by the conditions of the market to adopt a maximizing strategy she feels is destructive. A bureaucrat, in spite of his personal insight, may be forced by the rules under which he operates to make a decision he knows to be against humanity and good sense.
3. Citizen’s political apathy or loss of freedom
   1. … has also been widely discussed, most memorably by Alexis de Tocqueville. A society in which people end up as the kind of individuals who are “enclosed in
      their own hearts” is one where few will want to participate actively In self-government.
   2. This opens the danger of a new, specifically mod­ern form of despotism, which Tocqueville calls “soft” despotism. It will not be a tyranny of terror and oppression as in the old days. The government wil be mild and paternalistic. It may even keep democratic forms, with periodic elections. But in fact, everything will be run by an “immense tutelary power,” over which people will have little control. 
   3. Once participation declines, once the lateral associations that were its vehicles wither away, the individual citizen is left alone in the face of the vast bureaucratic state and feels, correctly, powerless.

Very very interesting. Although i cant recollect, i guess the mention of this “Three Malaises” was a reaction to my undermining traditions as being easy to spread and with intention to be spread rather than having an intent to spread knowledge. Some students, i now remember complained that traditions were also knowledge, which i must agree.

RR asked if one can say that all superstitions could be based on improper observations? Well, interesting question. Rather than building on it, i cut it short saying that on one hand this could be true but on the other this was necessary. Having all knowledge before hand is a tall order. For a body of knowledge to develop it takes huge amount of time, centuries and probably millennia, as we can very well see from our past (modern science is only 500 years old whereas humanity is at least more than 2 million years old). So more discussion on this would have been absolutely great.

So coming back to traditions, and science i think:

• Traditions helped us get this far by saying do this and this and you will be happy and safe and that you are a very important part of this universe. It helped us bond, generate communities and identities. Probably gave us meaning and made us part of bigger social picture dating back to millennia.
• But traditions suffer from lack of verifiable reason, and so science comes in. Scientific argument begins from “why?”. It kind of strikes at its basis saying we are but insecure and insignificant (as compared to the universe) pieces, bound by hearsay and authority of religions (which could be said as composed of traditions?), conformity and so on. But we can challenge all that and that challenging for the sake of truth is good.

Too short and inadequate a summery but that’s probably what it is. I realize i am too negative on traditions, while myself enjoying and made up of many. What a hypocrite!

Recap

Conclusions from the previous session:

• Insecurity as key constituent of human nature.
• Society as a safety net.

It was asked about if anyone had any problems with the above conclusions. It seemed all accepted it. On further investigation important feedback was given by multiple students about the previous session:

There were too many concepts discussed. No clarity was there as to why these were discussed and how they relate to Society and Science. It was confusing and It was vague.

I agree totally. But most of it was not intended and shows the instructor’s amateurishness in the subject as well as in the art of teaching.

Nonetheless, the objective of the previous session, it was explained, was to lay down a basis for formation of societies or groups of individuals who by themselves, alone would generally feel highly insecure and face sever challenges to their existence. This could be one of the significant reasons for formation of a society.

I proposed two more statements and asked about if they further agreed with these:

1. The pursuit of safety is the defining feature of all life.

Here, MJ disagreed saying “The pursuit of happiness” was the defining feature of life. Counter question: Can one be insecure and still be happy? Consensus was YES! which was very interesting to note as i thought otherwise. Although no examples were shared, i can imagine a poor family, insecure in resources and future, but still happy. Another counter question, can a ant pursue happiness? Someone replied it could, who knows. This was going in weird direction where i didnt know what to do, so we decided to focus back. In retrospect, this discussion could have continued as exploration, the main pedagogy of this course. It should not have mattered if one had a priory knowledge and facts about the case, one could still play around the ideas and think and try to be reasonable.

2. Self-perpetuation is another defining feature.

There were no specific responses to this statement. What i intended to keep on the table was the idea of procreation, which later on i wished to apply to “Social Organisms” – the concept that subcultures/traditions could be seen as living beings themselves. Anyways, i think this was a very point which i didn’t research well enough or know about enough, and yet introduced. Hence no discussion or responses. (Poor students must suffer!).

I asked about if the group had any specific disagreements from the statements made in the previous session, that dissent was lacking. However, SD mentioned that enough dissent was expressed, which is great, but could we have more? Dissent was essential to this class, and that brings about discussion and content. Ideally it would be nice if there are 11 people in class holding 11 differing opinions on the same subject, no binaries and certainly no singularities! However, lets see if this tall order will hold true. This was all good, the spirit was good for further journey!

I think JP raised an important question, related to dissent. I will try to paraphrase:

If the need of humans is to form groups and agree with each other to feel secure, then doesn’t science and dissent go against the “group-up to feel secure” idea?

JP mentioned the above with reference to falsification theory by someone name Karl Popper. Then stupidly, I just repeated the same as JP, but not knowing it was originally from Popper who first proposed it. I had probably read it in the wonderful first chapter of Conceptual Physics by Paul Hewitt (recommended by Dr. Priyadarshini Karve). So thanks to JP for enlightening the group!

Various students answered this. Unfortunately I do not remember the responses, but reflecting now on this question, let me put my take on it this way: For making groups, one must compromise on individual opinions and link on common needs (read as counter to insecurities?). However to lead the group to the right direction, much thought and discussion is needed, dissent must come about to keep broad scopes of an aspect.  This, kind of seems contradictory to the ‘agreement pact’? So there’s a conflict, but a necessary one. If done in a healthy way, this could be good for the members individually and the group. This is also why leadership becomes important for the group, someone who all parties agree to follow and trust as being the arbiter of truth and direction. I maybe wrong or naive in what is clearly an ‘opinion’, but i would be happy to update or correct it whenever in future.

Next came the discussion of size of groups. Previously, KG hinted at how as the group size increases, there could be rising insecurities within the group about resources. JP raised the same question here and that was discussed. Unfortunately i am not able to remember the discussion, but it seemed and interesting one.

What humans do to feel safe?

The group was next asked this question. What do we do to make ourselves feel secure, safe and healthy in all possible ways? Maybe i was not very clear, or didn’t give them enough time to reflect, the responses weren’t much. Also i guess the class seemed a bit sleepy and bored. So I am summarizing what i wised would come about in the discussions in response to the above question:

• Look before we leap, check out things from afar.
• Separate known from unknown and keep close to the former – familiarity – seek similarity in strangers
• Foresee tough times and plan for resources. (this we discovered through discussion)
• Go to ones who makes us feel good. (also discovered)
• Is feeling good same as feeling safe? (discussed but fizzled out)
• Handover our protection to stronger members. – the worry and stress of self-protection can be very high. Lookout for members with higher self-confidence and exuberance, associate with them. (some discussion here)
• Extend similar acts and thoughts to others whom we care about.

How groups help members feel secure?

Next i wanted to discussion on how groups form and sustain. Again, either memory is failing me or there discussion was just murmurs here and there, but not much came about. I think this could have been an interesting discussion.

• Formation of groups against a common fear.
• Trust – the glue that builds and bonds a society
• Large number of examples to follow! – traditions

BREAK

The penalty of security

What is the cost of achieving this heightened security – security from whom? – freedom – What is the price we, as social members, must pay in all the bonding and trusting and trying to achieve what at best could be described as a perpetually transient state of security ? Though not put across in such words, following videos were shown and discussed.

• On Attention – how little we have and can spare – the idea here was to emphasize how little conscious we are of everything around us. So less and narrow is our attentionspan, that even if we wish would can only fathom so much. The remaining is all in the subconscious and not accessible to us directly. The video seemed a bit fast and grainy. Also the projector and computer connection seemed occupied with its own self-doubts. End effect, the intended effect was disturbed by the noise.
• Failure of traditions – 5 monkey experiment     – Had a nice discussion on the video and how it related to traditions. While it was mentioned that the original reasons were lost, even new discovery was discouraged in a traditionally bound group. But why worry, why bother to inquire more for the bananas if otherwise the monkey group could be assumed to be regularly fed? A nice discussion ensued on “lost opportunities”. UB asked a very interesting and innocent question: how can we recover the original context if only we have been handed down traditions? Difficult to answer, i could only say that historians and anthropologists are probably also have similar pursuits. [Examples?]
• Conformity even in the face of obvious wrong – Asch exmeriments – this was given as a homework.
• Social organisms – is that a thing? – Can a tradition or subculture be considered as a living thing and if so wont it try its best to survive? – Makmurdo’s  essay , another one but mostly using biological examples – this was discussed only in the last 10 minutes.
• Some very interesting psychology experiments – only for reference here…

Intro

The idea of this lecture was to lay the basis of why society exists. Why is it needed in the first place.

The pretext: We are a fragile being, but unlike other living beings, with an immense power of perception. What this leads us to is this immense sense of anticipation of how things will turn out or how things were. We try to see well in advance of what is apparently visible. In fact we are forced to perceive rather than see because our senses are limited. This always keeps us on our toes, the lack of sensory understanding and comprehension make us insecure. So our very existence is thanks to the heightened sense of danger that we have normalized into our day to day lives. Probably just so much as other species, but we have extended this danger-alertness to a whole other level, thanks to our perceptive abilities. The struggle for survival in a good form is probably what it means to be alive.

Part 1

A situation was presented to the students :-

An unknown large room.Your senses are there but have been dumbed down. You can see, but not so clearly, you can hear but only swishes and whispers, you can smell but only a wiff here and there, you can taste, but only a little. Its cold and humid. Basically physically uncomfortable. You’v got to live there now for sometime.Room’s large enough for many things and its cluttered.It looks as if you are not the only one there, but you cant make out initially. There are many objects protruding out, sharp and blunt, some hurt, some are comfortable to keep nearby. Some are heavy, some light, some rough , some smooth, etc… There are two kinds of sounds. One is a regular one that repeats periodically. The other randomly.

What will go through your mind? – A discussion was encouraged and the students were asked to write their questions in different pieces of post-it. Some example questions:

• Why am I here? Any reason?
• Am I alone?
• I’ll probably search for food.
• I’ll probably fall asleep, because i am stressed and do not know what to do.
• What are my possessions that I need to save?

And many more.

Next, a graph was drawn as shown in the following figure. Students were then asked to place their chits, on discussion and popular vote in appropriate sections of the graph space. A large number were placed in the first quadrant which signifies the students raised most questions with a curious outlook intended to ensure or enhance chance of survival. It showed a rational behavior. However, while designing this thought experiment, I felt that a stressful and uncertain situation like this will throw up most thoughts that will fall in the 4th quadrant – between survival and hopelessness. This curious development was discussed with the students and some agreed that the outcome was too rational to be realistic. Most probably because either the scene was not created well enough to actually feel as intended or because the class is generally more rationalistic than the instructor. I prefer the latter view.

The objective of this exercise was to bring out the acknowledgment that we are not very good with uncertainty. What should have happened after that was to be able to logically drive the discussion and consensus from ‘difficulty in dealing with uncertainty‘ and ‘inherent insecurity’ as starting points leading to how groups of similar/familiar individuals help in overcoming our insecurity, a.k.a. society. The latter was discussed but not to the effect. Also a student raised an important point, that if too many humans are there in the above situation, because food is a concern now, this could lead to conflict. A resources issue. Could not take upon this lead to discuss more, and was a bit pleasantly surprised. This was all going great! So students were OK till this point.

Then, i realized i am loosing track of the mentally prepared lecture. I wanted to drive the group towards articulating human flaws, based on the above discussion, that make us vulnerable to skipping truth and so on. But i could not orient gracefully from a participant in the discussions to taking up the position of driving a group of youngsters to a certain direction. This ordeal lasted about 15 minutes. It was crazy.

Part 2

After a much needed break (encouraged by the instructor himself who was facing existential challenges), the class resumed. We sat together, this time like in a closer circle for further discussions. A bit informal helped me ease up. We began analyzing the previous graph again, more focused on understanding human tendencies in a tough situation. I tried to put through a discussion on the repeatable sound vs random sound aspect in the above scenario. Some wanted to explore the random sound more as it seemed interesting (Why act so rational?) and some seemed to prefer the repeated sound as it seemed safe. I put it as a line:

A known devil vs an unknown angel – which one is better?

A good discussion could have resulted, but i could not drive because i didn’t know how to. Some students seemed convinced that a known devil was better, but that’s about it.

Next the topic of traditions was opened, cant remember how we got to this… Anyways, this was very interesting, albeit out of plan. Many thoughts were exchanged. Summary:

1. Traditions help us know who and where we come from.
2. Because of traditions we do not have to think much, or for every small thing. It tells us what to do in a situation.
3. We could be in trouble if we do not follow traditions.
4. If things have worked so far as traditions say, then they must be good and relevant now and in future!
5. And a few more.

There was also a mention of casteism and social hierarchy, but we didn’t pursue it this time.

On conclusion i summarized as follows:

1. Human beings are always insecure.
2. Society helps in making us feel secure.

But the above seemed enforced by me, rather than discovered by everyone through this class. Surprising no one dissented and that’s bad. Need to take up this issue next – why my opinions were not countered!

Conclusion

Class went OK. ‘Uncertain room’ situation was a good exercise. Hopefully the students got some idea of what i was trying to convey. But i left the group with much confusion probably.

• Need to be prepared with two exercises for each of the 2 hours so that there’s enough content at hand.
• Need to allow students to discover and lead in some areas and come to common conclusion rather than enforce my thoughts onto them.