April Fool

Buddhistein

Buddhistein is the current human condition

Although change is inevitable but it appears that Nature has some frames that embody all changes. Duality is one of the frames. We hear a lot about ability of humans to mold Nature to their needs by manipulating laws of Nature but just like change, humans manipulations are also bound in these frames. For thousands of years religions had institutionalized human thinking and then the success of scientific methodologies in uncovering Natural Laws and giving  men the ability to change their certain conditions  gave hopes that humans  are now free to choose the conditions they want for themselves; Nietzsche expressed the hope by claiming that, "God is dead" and Sartre expressed the hope by saying, "We are left alone, without excuse. That is what I mean when I say man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment that he is thrown into this world he is responsible for everything he does" ...

But if  we look around and see the modern-men, though they want to be free of any institution but we see duality in their actions and thoughts are evident. For instance, for their physical and psychological well-being, they practice yoga and meditation and for life in general, they follow Science (if not scientific methodologies as Scientists do). Although knowledge frees man from Man-made institutions or human constructed conditions but it also make them realize that there are Natural frames that bound human knowledge and progress (Humans walk from condition to condition and that is how I see human progression).   

Hybrid Philosophy

It is long that I haven't updated my blog. I had a lot to say but I think, I was remained a bit undecided about what I have to say are either news or something new. The easy way to rationalize my undecidedness was to convince myself that I have a "writer's block". I am not easy with passing news but rather have the tendency to express myself or present/describe my observations and I categorize expressing myself as "Armchair Philosophy" and my observations as "Hybrid Philosophy". Don't take me wrong. I am not claiming to be a philosopher by academic definition but I consider, "the process of thinking as doing philosophy and the products of organized thinking as Philosophy". In short, I have an open-ended definition/understanding of philosophy.

You may have heard of "Experimental Philosophy" and it is an effort of contemporary philosophers to save philosophy of becoming a passive/supportive discipline and help it becomes an independent discipline by giving it a new direction with designing experiments to test philosophical questions, particularly in areas of human behavior and understanding. But what if I have observations that raise certain questions and provide me some logical clues about possible answers but I don't have the means and time to do experiments and  test their validity? To solve my this problem, I just categorize them in a separate folder and name it "hybrid philosophy". Not all might like the idea but at least in helps me to not discard my observation and save them for possible future usage.

OK, let me share two of my observations

This Knol is under construction, please visit later to read the rest of the knol... thanks

Thursdays never end

“If we wish to know about a man, we ask 'what is his story--his real, inmost story?'--for each of us is a biography, a story. Each of us is a singular narrative, which is constructed, continually, unconsciously, by, through, and in us--through our perceptions, our feelings, our thoughts, our actions; and, not least, our discourse, our spoken narrations. Biologically, physiologically, we are not so different from each other; historically, as narratives--we are each of us unique.” ― Oliver Sacks

Oliver is right. Biologically and physiologically, we are not different from others, but our narrative is different from people, who live in the "Arc of instability". We want peace and respect for all, in a part of world that people take pride for killings and look at them as a source of honor (and have distorted religion to fit their narratives). That is a mistake that we have refused to learn and hence our Thursdays never end. 

Today is Thursday again. Again? Yes, it is Thursday again and it reminded of Thursdays that I had long forgotten. Every Thursdays were hellish for me as we had to revise our weekdays lessons (Thursday was last day of the week and Friday was weekend holiday) and each mistakes had to be corrected by sticks of the Mullah.  I was weak in learning and each Thursday, I had tears in my eyes and fears in my mind. I hated Thursdays. Today's twin suicide bombings on Alamdar road (the main residential area of Hazaras in Quetta) reportedly killed more than 85 and wounded more than 170 people and it brought me back, my memories of those Thursdays that I had to face a heartless and angry Mullah, who had zero tolerance for weak learners. For last 12 years, Hazaras are regularly targeted on the basis of their ethnicity and religion in Quetta, Pakistan but may be Hazaras are weak at learning and repeat a common mistake (different narrative at wrong place) that Al-Mullahs have zero tolerance for that. 

One of the victims of today's bombing was a young peace activist, Irfan Ali Khudi  who had a different narrative in a wrong place. He founded Human Rights Commission for Social Justice and Peace in 2000 and strongly believed that, "No nation and society can progress without the awareness and values based on Human Rights and Social Justice" and was actively voicing for his different narrative. It was definitely a mistake and this Thursday, Al-Mullahs ... :(

God Knows...

Nawal El Saadawi, in an interview (The Age of Reason) with BBC describes her grandmother's argument (who was an illiterate, peasant woman) with mayor of her village on subject of God and claims to be her first lesson in Philosophy and Religion, 

Mayor, "You don't know God. You didn't read the Quran"

Grandma, "I know God better than you because, God is not a book, God is not a Quran, God is justice and we know Him by our mind."

I may not agree with all of the Saadawi's ideas but I liked her grandma's story as the concept of God is inseparable from concept of "Justice" and that is why, believing in the "Judgment Day" is  the core concept of religions and easy to grasp for all individuals irrespective of their literacy levels. The problem arises when some people start emphasizing the need for certification in understanding and believing in God. Surely, then God becomes an unreachable concept that needs mediation of "specialists in God", a commodity that not everyone can afford.

If we turn to specialists (Philosophers) , we will hear an argument as following,

There can be two scenarios when we look at "what is right" in respect with the concept of God;

 A; "Something is right because God says, it is right"

This concept is against concept of justice as it is based on the concept of "Might is Right" and this concept has been used to justify all sorts of crimes from Genocides, discrimination and suppression of minorities, women, children and authoritarian rules.

 B; "God says, something is right because it is right"

This concept is based on the concept of Justice and we don't need all the times, the specialists to tell us what is right as our reasoning and conscience can guide us to what is right. Reason is the best mediator between the Creator and the subjects. 

Personally, I believe that, there are billions of people who believe in God (and it makes it an important subject  particularly that, it is exploited for political reasons and denials can't do any good) according to their capacities and it is natural that their concepts do not match with each other. Humans err and that is why they need the concept of God to take refuge and if humans had flawless brains, they either  wouldn't need this concept at all or all were perfect faithfuls. Modern societies have solved this problem by giving the people "the rights to be wrong as long as it is not harming others" and that is closer to justice than forcing people to follow particular set of concepts, that a lot of people find them conflicting with their reasoning or conscience.