Wisdom
Experience as wisdom:
Everyone is wise to some extent but degree of wisdom differs among individuals and groups of people. How we determine who is wise? Let’s have a general to special approach to wisdom. It was a tradition in villages and suburban areas where doctors are scarce to consult to an old experience women for troubleshooting in child caring. The same method was used in solving the social problems. For solving disputes the old men were consulted and their decisions were accepted. These old women and men were the source of wisdom for those people. For these people wisdom were equal to experience. These old men and women had experienced these types of problems several times in their lives so their decisions were more practical. They had the knowledge of local vegetations, animals, regions, traditions, cultures and they knew most of the individuals and families and their histories so their solutions and opinions were wiser than others. There is a famous Hazaragi sayings that, “experienced men are more reliable than doctor”.
The same method is practiced in modern days but here despite of the experienced men and women there are experienced professionals. The experienced professionals make firms and provide consultancy to private organizations, businesses and governments. This is also an acceptance of experience as wisdom because the private organizations, businesses and governments have their own professionals but lack the experience of the consultants.
Success as wisdom:
Another aspect of wisdom that is commonly accepted is success. Successful individuals are accepted as wise men. People consult related successful persons for solving their problems. This concept of wisdom is also accepted to most modern people. People take ideals and some approach the successful people in the field they wish to master in order to make their success assured. Here success wipes out the factor of age and experience.
Leadership as wisdom:
Leadership is another factor of wisdom that is commonly accepted. People look to their leaders as wise men. This concept of wisdom is weakened and is going to be more dimming as time is passing. There are several reasons and factors that this concept of wisdom is weakening. The most significant reason is the modern politics. In modern politics the mass media has a vital role in making images of politicians and these politicians rely heavily on their images. Politicians make lies in order to achieve their political objectives. The media helps politicians in their lies both in making image of them and also breaking images of opponents for political benefits. Most of these lies are done under patriotism, nationalism and national security. Even patriotism makes lies more acceptable than truths. Here wisdom means making such lies that overshadow truths in order to achieve a certain objectives. These perceptions of politicians make people rely more on the prejudices and benefits rather than on wisdom.
But these concepts are not equal in all places. The sources of leaderships differ in different cultures and societies. In some cultures and societies still leadership is a source of wisdom. Most of these leaderships come from spiritual and religious leaderships. As religion and knowledge that come from spirituality is considered as absolute knowledge so the representatives of these knowledge is also considered as a source of wisdom. Sometimes, the misuse of the knowledge or due to political participations these leaderships become questionable but the knowledge itself is unshakable and there are always devoted scholars that will provide alternative leaderships. This leadership is believed as a source of wisdom to their followers.
Professionals as wisdom:
Another aspect of the wisdom that is related to modern world is professionalism. Modern men developed beliefs on the professionals and professionalism. The market economy helped it spread to the areas that were expected common to everyone. Though Professionalism is a positive aspect of modern world but it has drawbacks also as modern men specify their wisdom to the specific fields. Personal wisdom is going to be extinct in modern world.
What really is wisdom?
Certainly there are wise men whose wisdom changes the lives of people but these people do not belong to neither of said categories. They are neither experienced old men or women, successful men or women as people consider success and also they are neither professionals nor they are in leadership positions. So keeping this in view, what really is wisdom? I asked the same question from an inspirational lecturer.
He answered me with certainty, “Surely scholars are wise men”
I looked to him in astonishment and again asked, “OK! If the scholars are the wise men so do you think that wisdom is attainable?”
He replied, “Certainly that is true”.
I wasn’t satisfied by his short answers and again asked, “Scholars gain knowledge about facts or created facts. For example a sun rise in east and set down in west is a fact and is attainable. If the wisdom is the knowledge of facts then it is attainable but it is a common experience that the wisdom of people with same status of knowledge is different. Their response and acts in same situations are different and not only different but are of different levels. It seems to me that the wisdom is a matter of personal judgments.”
“I agree with you” He replied while nodding his head in confirmation.
By gaining his approval I added, “Is it not easy to understand the wisdom through accepted historic wise men?”
“That is a good approach” He responded.
“Most historic wise men like, Zarusthra, Gotham Buddha, Socrates, etc were searching for truth so searching for the truth is the criteria for wisdom.” I added more.
“You are on right path” He nodded as sign of approval.
“Though knowledge and experience is the basis of common wisdom that can be acquired and they are also the basis of the personal judgments but more important than all these is attitude and approach that one has. This develops a wisdom that is higher than common wisdom that people are mostly accustomed and that is the real wisdom that we seek and they open new ways for humanity.”
He was still expecting me to continue my opinion as he was listening with full attention so I continued,
“This type of wisdom that comes from search of truth mostly contradicts with established wisdom. The event of the trial of Socrates, the Socrates was blamed of corrupting the youths because he was encouraging the youths to think into facts and their nature to find the truth. So truth was as criteria for wisdom to Socrates”.
“So, do you think that established wisdom is not based on truths, it is why contradictions come out of thinking process?” he asked.
“Though the main reason for contradictions are prejudices and our profits that influence our thought processes in making established wisdoms but the thinking methodologies and approaches are also effects” I replied him.
“So you think that a thought process solely purposed to discover truth produce high level of wisdom that is missing in established wisdom rooted in prejudices?”
“Sure” I replied with zeal.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Analyzing Competition
Analyzing nature of biological competition
According to popular theory of natural selection, there are more offsprings that could be survived. Offspring compete with each other over limited resources and only fittest survive and weaks are perished. Does it really a fact or it is a just an interpretation of the observations. Are there is alternative interpretations that could explain these observations or only survival of fittest is the only explanation best fit parsimony? Let's work it out,
War with weak
It seesms that it really fits the survival of fittest theory that weaks have to be perished. But let revisit this observation. Predators prefer to prey on the younger or new born babies as they are less experienced, less energetic and require less efforts/energy to prey on. On the other hand the organisms use different tactics to protect their young and babies. If this is a merciless competition why a group of organims protect the babies in group? They live in group, graze in group and migrate in a group. Though groups protect you from predators but as a group of organisms rely on the same sources of food so there is a competition among groups for limited resources?
In fact contrary to concept of competition, biological systems tends to be energy efficient. They prey on younger and easy preys to conserve energy. Similary in order to conserve energy they tend to live in group. In a group of organisms both weak and strong live togather because they divide their responbilities and specialize in specific functions in order to be more energy efficient. The strongest tend to defend weaks, the experienced tend to lead and weaks tend to search for food or take care of youngs. It is not necessary that all group of organisms have the same pattern of organizations. Their organizations reflects their needs and environments.
Besides predators are selective when prey is frequent but prey is scarce they try on every prey in the reach.
Making Alliance
If there is a competition among the same species over limited resources so why predators tend to hunt in group? Predators and other organisms tend to make alliance against their prey or enemies and share the prey or resources.
Defensive Display
A lot of organims evolved denfensive and sexual displays like like horns in lot of organisms, feathers in cocks, tails in lizards and salamanders, legs in spiders, bright colors in snakes, and so on are to conserve energy by avoiding competitions with competitors or keeping away the predators.
Food for thought:
These all strategies to conserve energy can be observed from prmitive organims to most evolved one like human and superpowers. Sometimes people tend to look at these strategies as great work of wisdom and high intellect but in fact they are part of our instinct and we tend to act in those way irrespective of our intellect levels.
According to popular theory of natural selection, there are more offsprings that could be survived. Offspring compete with each other over limited resources and only fittest survive and weaks are perished. Does it really a fact or it is a just an interpretation of the observations. Are there is alternative interpretations that could explain these observations or only survival of fittest is the only explanation best fit parsimony? Let's work it out,
War with weak
It seesms that it really fits the survival of fittest theory that weaks have to be perished. But let revisit this observation. Predators prefer to prey on the younger or new born babies as they are less experienced, less energetic and require less efforts/energy to prey on. On the other hand the organisms use different tactics to protect their young and babies. If this is a merciless competition why a group of organims protect the babies in group? They live in group, graze in group and migrate in a group. Though groups protect you from predators but as a group of organisms rely on the same sources of food so there is a competition among groups for limited resources?
In fact contrary to concept of competition, biological systems tends to be energy efficient. They prey on younger and easy preys to conserve energy. Similary in order to conserve energy they tend to live in group. In a group of organisms both weak and strong live togather because they divide their responbilities and specialize in specific functions in order to be more energy efficient. The strongest tend to defend weaks, the experienced tend to lead and weaks tend to search for food or take care of youngs. It is not necessary that all group of organisms have the same pattern of organizations. Their organizations reflects their needs and environments.
Besides predators are selective when prey is frequent but prey is scarce they try on every prey in the reach.
Making Alliance
If there is a competition among the same species over limited resources so why predators tend to hunt in group? Predators and other organisms tend to make alliance against their prey or enemies and share the prey or resources.
Defensive Display
A lot of organims evolved denfensive and sexual displays like like horns in lot of organisms, feathers in cocks, tails in lizards and salamanders, legs in spiders, bright colors in snakes, and so on are to conserve energy by avoiding competitions with competitors or keeping away the predators.
Food for thought:
These all strategies to conserve energy can be observed from prmitive organims to most evolved one like human and superpowers. Sometimes people tend to look at these strategies as great work of wisdom and high intellect but in fact they are part of our instinct and we tend to act in those way irrespective of our intellect levels.
Is technology, the new god? (Opinion)
In God we trust. Really? It is the question that have raised new questions. People living with modern world perspective practically believe more in technology than believing in concepts prevailed in traditional world views. Religious beliefs and rituals are now categorized as superstitions. People with modern world views argue that if you pray, you are not sure, whether your prayers are accepted or not but when you use technology, you are certain of solutions. Hence though people may not accpet verbally but they do accept it practically.
However there is another perspective and that is the perspective of nature. Men try to solve its problems through use of technology but then they found the harms that they did. When human realize of the losses due to their actions it is too late to repair them. The ecological loss due to deforestation, over-exploitations, defragmentations, introduciton of invasive species and pollutions have resulted in loss of critical species that were providing essential ecological services. Certainly, technology may solve some of the problems but at costs not even comparable if we had just saved them. The services the ecosystems provide to us is much cheaper and sustainable than services that we want to provide by innovations and technology. Throughout history men were believing in different gods, godesses and in one God. If technology is a new god, then it is a god that has paradise in one hand and hell on other and he use both of his hands.
However there is another perspective and that is the perspective of nature. Men try to solve its problems through use of technology but then they found the harms that they did. When human realize of the losses due to their actions it is too late to repair them. The ecological loss due to deforestation, over-exploitations, defragmentations, introduciton of invasive species and pollutions have resulted in loss of critical species that were providing essential ecological services. Certainly, technology may solve some of the problems but at costs not even comparable if we had just saved them. The services the ecosystems provide to us is much cheaper and sustainable than services that we want to provide by innovations and technology. Throughout history men were believing in different gods, godesses and in one God. If technology is a new god, then it is a god that has paradise in one hand and hell on other and he use both of his hands.
Understanding debt
We frequently hear about economic debt and ecological debt but perhaps one more serious debt that affect greatly both of the previous debts are understanding debt. We are living in a globalized world where you find tons of the articles and books about global thinking and strategies but there is not a serious effort to make the global thinking a part of mind of masses. Specialized articles, books and conferences are feeding only the minds of elites who are supposed to have a good understanding of societies across the nations. However what feed public minds are the news channels, Newspapers, movies, novels, blogs, commonly read magazines and celebrities from politicians, actors to writers. Unfortunately these sources of informations are more interested in creating fascinations out of dramatizing and fantasizing the news and stories and hence increasing misunderstanding and mistrusts.
It is illogical to think of finding a homogenized society in any corner of the world. All socities are heterogenous. Extremists, moderates, seculars and aliens (those who don't care about anything except their personal lives) are solid parts of every society. The proportions of these categories change over time depends who get more projections, supports and benefits. Certainly projecting extremists and treating people of a color, race, nationality or religion with a single stick mean giving more projections and supports to extremists or in other words pushing a society toward extremism.
In this age of information masses are really ignorant about societies that they categorize as "others". In current global scenario, masses in west including college and university students are ignorant about muslim societies and the same is true about the muslim world. Masses in muslim world is ignorant about western societies including college and university students. Poeple claim that they have a thorough understanding of th issues but their main source of knowledge is News channles, internet, newspapers, documentaries, blogs, movies, etc which are all objective in their reports. It is what I call understanding debt.
What of the main reasons that people resist to know about other societies is the anger and prejudice that they have about others. Main cause of prejudice and anger is rooted in ignorance. When people are angry they lose their logic and sense of judgment and react violently or try to humiliate others. These actions create chain reactions which increase the gulf between two parties.
Making your opponent angry is a well known strategy in gambling, sports, politics and of course wars. In 2006 world cup, Materazzi played this strategy very well. He used offensive words to make Zidane angry and with an angry reaction Zidane not only France lost the world cup but it aslo resulted in end of Zidane glorious career.
The same game is played globally by Muslim world and West, the supposed opponents of the conflicts. The extremists in Muslim world use suicide bombings, target killings, abductions, etc to make people in West angry and they are playing well as media is projecting them. The same is true with Western extremists. They use sketches of Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H) and other ways to insult muslims. They are successful in their aims as Muslim world is helping them by becoming angry, protesting against them, burning shops, attacking ambassies and so on. Some failed people, who failed to get recognition in their domains exploit these situations. Artists use sketches to get fame in West and failed people join the ranks of extremists to get populairty in Muslim world.
It is time that masses in both muslim world and west stop helping extremists by being indifferent to these people and all sources which feed public minds try to educate people and hence decrease the understanding deficiet. Every year we see conferences on climate change and also global NGO's and Universities across the globe doing research and conservation work on climate change and related issues as a threat to humanity. However we don't see any knind of efforts to reconcile these conflicts. The whole issue is surrounding Israel-Palestine conflict. It is only one part of conflict that could be solved by creating more understanding among masses of West and Muslim world. The Arab-Israel issue is difficult to solve because people are very sensitive to issue and it is politically very costly. Hence no leader has enough courage to deal with it seriously. All plays it to gain more political weight rather than to solve. It is all the result of misunderstang. As this issue is long so we may look in future about its economic aspect (Bycotting products and also economic sanctions).
It is illogical to think of finding a homogenized society in any corner of the world. All socities are heterogenous. Extremists, moderates, seculars and aliens (those who don't care about anything except their personal lives) are solid parts of every society. The proportions of these categories change over time depends who get more projections, supports and benefits. Certainly projecting extremists and treating people of a color, race, nationality or religion with a single stick mean giving more projections and supports to extremists or in other words pushing a society toward extremism.
In this age of information masses are really ignorant about societies that they categorize as "others". In current global scenario, masses in west including college and university students are ignorant about muslim societies and the same is true about the muslim world. Masses in muslim world is ignorant about western societies including college and university students. Poeple claim that they have a thorough understanding of th issues but their main source of knowledge is News channles, internet, newspapers, documentaries, blogs, movies, etc which are all objective in their reports. It is what I call understanding debt.
What of the main reasons that people resist to know about other societies is the anger and prejudice that they have about others. Main cause of prejudice and anger is rooted in ignorance. When people are angry they lose their logic and sense of judgment and react violently or try to humiliate others. These actions create chain reactions which increase the gulf between two parties.
Making your opponent angry is a well known strategy in gambling, sports, politics and of course wars. In 2006 world cup, Materazzi played this strategy very well. He used offensive words to make Zidane angry and with an angry reaction Zidane not only France lost the world cup but it aslo resulted in end of Zidane glorious career.
The same game is played globally by Muslim world and West, the supposed opponents of the conflicts. The extremists in Muslim world use suicide bombings, target killings, abductions, etc to make people in West angry and they are playing well as media is projecting them. The same is true with Western extremists. They use sketches of Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H) and other ways to insult muslims. They are successful in their aims as Muslim world is helping them by becoming angry, protesting against them, burning shops, attacking ambassies and so on. Some failed people, who failed to get recognition in their domains exploit these situations. Artists use sketches to get fame in West and failed people join the ranks of extremists to get populairty in Muslim world.
It is time that masses in both muslim world and west stop helping extremists by being indifferent to these people and all sources which feed public minds try to educate people and hence decrease the understanding deficiet. Every year we see conferences on climate change and also global NGO's and Universities across the globe doing research and conservation work on climate change and related issues as a threat to humanity. However we don't see any knind of efforts to reconcile these conflicts. The whole issue is surrounding Israel-Palestine conflict. It is only one part of conflict that could be solved by creating more understanding among masses of West and Muslim world. The Arab-Israel issue is difficult to solve because people are very sensitive to issue and it is politically very costly. Hence no leader has enough courage to deal with it seriously. All plays it to gain more political weight rather than to solve. It is all the result of misunderstang. As this issue is long so we may look in future about its economic aspect (Bycotting products and also economic sanctions).
Sophism missing the brain research (Opinion)
Sophism was a big movement in Muslim world that enriched every society that they flourished in. Unfortunately, exteremism caused a drastic decline in the sophism. Current brain research revealed that if we could switch off the left hemisphere then right hemisphere of brain forget self and becomes unite with everything surrounding us. It is exactly the experience and ideas that sophism work, look and preach. Universal brotherhood, sisterhood and being one with universe. It is the left hemisphere of the brain which gives sense of time and our individual distinctness. If sophism adapt the research in behavioral sciences and also researches in Neurology, for sure it will a come back of Sophism in Islamic world which is much needed to stop extermism.
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