Why the ontological argument does not prove God's existence.

The ontological argument :A critique

The ontological argument is designed to logically prove God's existence; hence it is possible to disagree with the argument, even if you do believe in God. I think this argument does NOT prove God's existence because the first premise is not strong enough and the second is just wrong. It cannot be applied in this case as it contradicts Anslem's very definition of God.

The ontological argument: A summary

Anslem's argument is based on his definition of god as "something than which nothing greater can be thought" and his three premises, such that:

Premise 1: God exists at least in our understanding

Premise 2: Existing in reality is better than existing in understanding

Premise 3: it is possible to think of God existing in reality

Then the argument might be paraphrased as :

1. God does NOT exist in reality (Assumption for an indirect derivation)

2. God exists at least in our understanding  (Premise 1)

3. Therefore God exists only in our understanding (from 1 and 2)

4. Existing in reality is better than existing only in understanding (Premise 2)

5. It is possible to think of God existing in reality (Premise 3)

(That is there is no logical contradiction in thinking that god exists in reality.)

6. Therefore, it is possible to think of God to be better than God is. (From 4, and 5)

(Because if something exists only in our understanding but it is possible for something to exist in reality,

then it is possible for that thing to be better than it is. )

7. God is the greatest being that can be thought of. (by definition)

8. Since 6 and 7 contradict each other, it means that the assumption in 1 must be wrong, therefore the

opposite must be true, hence god does exist in reality.

My Critique:

The way it stands, this argument can be proven invalid by:

1) Showing that the premises are false or

2) Constructing another invalid argument that has the exact same form as this argument, or

The second attack; that of constructing a counter example has already been stated by Gaunilo, in his

reply on behalf of the fool, where Gaunilo applies the same set of steps to prove the existence of a lost island greater than which cannot be thought of.

My objection to the argument stems from the fact that the first two premises are less than certain, and that they do not apply to the present case in particular.

Problems with Premise 1 (God exists at least in our understanding):

To Anselm something exists in our understanding if we are able to think of it, to have a concept of it. He draws the distinction between something existing in thought and existing in real by using the example of a painting existing in the painter's [imagination] understanding even before he paints it, and once he is done paining it, it exists in reality too.

He says that even the fool can understand the definition of god as that than which a greater cannot be thought, just by hearing these words. (page 1) Thus Anselm gets his first premise that god exists at least in our understanding.

But later, Anselm draws a distinction; he says that there must be more than one way in which something is thought; to think a thing is to think the word that signifies that thing. But in another sense, it is to understand what exactly the thing is. (pages 2 and 3) That to merely hear the name of something and thus it existing in your understanding, for example hearing of Santa Claus; is different from actually knowing and understanding what Santa Claus is.

He says No one who understands what God is can think that god does not exist (page 3). 

To me at least, it is not clear which kind of understanding he is using as the premise in his argument. Is he talking about a) god's existence in the understanding of the fool or b) god's existence in the understanding of the NOT fool

a) god's existence in the understanding of the fool: 

If I am a representative sample of the fools then I can say that God can only exist as a name in the fool's understanding, but not as the concept per definition.

For as soon as I think of something as great as I can make it, I right away can think of something better,

so I can think of things than which greater things CAN be thought of, but I can never think of this one

thing that is maximum and complete perfection to which I cannot add anything to make it better. Thus I

cannot think of God and thus God does not exist at least in my understanding.

OR

b) god's existence in the understanding of the NOT fool:

Then Anselm must be talking of God existing at least in the understanding of the not fool the one who

'understand[s] what exactly the thing is'. But this makes his argument for proving his premise circular and thus weaker. For someone to understand exactly what the thing is, it presupposes that, that thing already exists in their understanding. It does not prove the existence, of that thing in their understanding. Instead, it follows from the said existence. For e.g. to actually understand what santa claus is, santa claus must first exist in your understanding, and then you would understand what he is.

So I think that the first premise is not the strongest, but even if I were to accept it, the second one breaks his argument anyways.

Problems with Premise 2 (Existing in reality is better than existing in understanding):

At a first glance it looks almost reasonable, but then, I canΓÇÖt answer the question why? Why would existence make something better? May be it is a valid claim as applied to some things, like cupcakes, but definitely not valid when applied to ideas that are already complete in themselves, like perfection or infinity.

For example, the infinity on the number line, only exists in our understanding, there is no real number that is infinite, however there exists an implicit infinity in the fraction 1/3 which can be written as a non-terminating decimal 0.3333…. 

Now saying that if infinity exists in real it is a better infinity than the infinity that exists in our understanding would be wrong. There is no question of infinity becoming qualitatively better merely by existing in real. It is as good or as bad as it is, whether in real or in our understanding. Another example would be the idea of wanting to add something to infinity to make it even more infinite. By definition, infinity is endless. You cannot add something to infinity to make it even more endless. It is already endless.

Similarly if we accept the definition that god is complete perfection then, how would his existence add to his perfection? He IS already perfect, it is done, mission accomplished, if his existence can make him 'more prefect' then it means he was not perfect to begin with, thus contradicting the definition.

Therefore, it is wrong to use this premise for God. It should only be used for things that CAN be made better. By using it for the already 'best' things we will always arrive at a contradiction and thus can prove anything.

Conclusion:

Based on the above objections to the premises, I think the ontological argument, however well intended, does not prove god's existence.

Love is a verb not a noun....

अगर सुख पाना आपके नसीब में नही तो क्या सुख देना भी आपके भाग में नही? Asks vaijanthimala of Rajender Kumar in Saathi. I loved that thought, it is beautiful, isn't it? I am so completely inspired with it, In fact the whole movie is quite inspiring. There is of course the issue of why women in Hindi movies can be good only as long as they are giving up for others. the minute a woman wants something for herself (simi garewal in the movie ) she falls from her 'heroine' status, and the only way for her to regain the lost goodwill is by making some extreme sacrifice. It's okay for men to want things but not okay for women, Hindi film heroines never want anything. It is a different matter that the only reason they don't want things is because at least in the film everything is given to them on a platter, Everything is theirs - without asking, no wonder they can play the martyr and pretend to not even want these things, you can only want things that you dont have!! But I digress, back to the thought....

It is very nice , it gets us to focus on the things that we control and helps us let go of stuff that is beyond us. Now where did I read, that love is a verb, not a noun, and hence statements like ' I dont love him anymore' are self defeating. Why don't you? Why don't you love him anymore? Love is not a spectator sport, you need to put yourself out there, do things for him that make him happy, be of service to him, make his life easier, love him, in action, in deeds, a real living love, instead of waiting for some Hindi film style 'electric shock' moments. In my experience the said 'electric shock' moments are random events and it would be highly imprudent for you to chart the course of your life based on or for random events.

Yes, there is the whole argument about how all order might just be a random co-incidence and stuff, but right now I am not getting into that, this above is just pragmatic good sense and hence worth following, until a more sound theory can be formed.

on the nature of morality

So Nietzsche says no moral facts exist. He thinks morality is a social construct, the idea of good and bad comes in to play only in society, it is a point of view, the oppressor calls himself good, while the victim calls the oppressor bad and so on. But no objective morality exists. There are other aspects to his analysis of the origin of morality and there is merit to it, but for the time being I only want to concentrate on the idea that "no moral facts exist".

Do I agree? well, I do and I do not. The question I would like to ask is does fire exist? You cannot have a flame in the absence of a combustible substance reaching its ignition temperature and a supporter of combustion, if you take any one thing out of the equation fire no longer exists. There are conditions to the existence of fire. So does that mean no objective fire exists?

Similarly does motion exist? If you had an isolated single object in a vast unbounded universe, does it move? you need at least two objects to be reasonably be able to say that one is moving wrt to the other or they are both stationery wrt to each other and so on, so can you say that no objective motion exists? oh wait actually we do say that... hmm...

if yes, then fine, it is safe to say that no objective moral facts exist.

But if we agree that the existence of every observable phenomenon has its own conditions then, that would apply to morality also. then the question becoems, what are the conditions necessary for the existence of morality?

To me morality comes into existence not just with a large organized society, but any time there are more than one living things in the system, that system has acquired morality, there is now a point of view by which certain actions look good or bad and by corollary another point of view in which those very same actions look the opposite. They don't have to be human, two animals, one human being with another animal or plant, how does one behave or act towards the other, does it treat it with respect, does it value the other organism's right to live with dignity or does it not. Does one of them thrive at the cost of the other, does it make the other pay for its own survival.

so there, that is my answer. i think morality exists, just as much as other physical facts exist, like them it has its own set of conditions necessary for its existence namely the presence of more than one life form and their mutual interaction.

Now the question i am working on in my head is if you had two independent universes with the same kinds of life forms on each, would the morality in each have to be the same. Are there laws that govern the evolution of morality, laws that would govern the behavior of living things towards each other. Is there any real 'should' that actions ought to conform to? Or is might always right, at least to the group that has the might, as Nietzsche seems to point. hmm...

What would you rather have...

know that you are right and have everyone (almost everyone) think you are wrong
or
know that you are wrong, and have every one think you are right?

Yes I know you would want to be right, know you are right, AND have everyone think you are right too. Why not? But life just does not comply with your wishes that often now does it? So... back to the two options....How do you choose the right answer? Is the right answer the easier one or the harder one? Do you follow the path of least resistance or do you go against the grain of who you are to reinvent yourself?

Admittedly the biggest advantage of having everyone think you are right is a huge ego boost. People praise you, say you are so good or smart or something and treat you better that they would have otherwise and that should make life easier. Or would it? Would it not then give you the guilt of knowing you are not as good or as correct as they think you are? It ruined Lady Macbeth.

Of course, in my experience that is not a downer for some people who have absolutely no concept of self-analysis, and since they never look at themselves or their actions in an honest critical light, it does not affect them, so for such people perhaps it is better to be thought good of than being good on the inside.

I know that that would never work for me, I would have to set the record straight so then for me the easier choice is to actually do the right thing and if other people do not get it or choose to think ill of me then, teach myself to deal with it.

But the trouble is that even that is easier said than done. I realize that it is all fine and dandy to say my family doesn't get me, but what would you do if the law was after you and if you and the powers that be did not see eye to eye? What if you could not prove your innocence, and were sentenced because you said, hey I know I am right, the hell with what the judge thinks. Well, doesn't work does it. We know that history is full of incidences when innocent people were condemned and sentenced because the law did not accept their defense, or people who when faced with a hostile biased jury, just gave up, and did not even bother putting up a defense - why give create an illusion of legitimacy when it was all a sham. I get that. And yet, I know that it hurts like hell, to hear people say bad things about you.

Only I don't know what you can do different? I don't know whether it is so much of a choice after all. People will think what they want to, there is not much that you can do to make them think different. If they like someone they will go ahead and like every thing that person does and if they don't then they will find a fault with everything that person does. For example if someone is hosting a dinner party and specifically tells you to not bring anything, and lets say you still cook something and bring it. What happens, if they like you they will be all grateful and think ' oh how sweet, she still brought me something.' and if they don't like you, they will think ' oh what a show off, i told her to not bring anything, but she just has to do whatever she wants.' You see there is no way to win these things.

All my life I thought the answer was obvious to me, I thought I would much rather know that I am right and then the hell with what anyone else thinks. And I know I have lived that way for the most of my life. Only lately the choice came on a very huge scale, where a lot and I mean a lot of people think I am wrong and I am forced to live with that.

And it is just not easy, in fact, it is so hard that there are days when i genuinely think life would have been so much easier if everyone thought i was right and then the hell with being actually right or wrong. हाँ, हाँ, मैं फिर एक नए पतन कि कगार पर हूँ...

Anyways, it has gotten me to think about the old dilemma gain, and i have been trying to list out why the choice was obvious to me in the first place.

last day

i just survived a major car crash. I could have died but i did not. and then came this question am i living like tomorrow could be my last day?

and i think, yes i am. mostly i am.

barring this lil day to day stuff that is never going to be done, i think i am okay. i am at peace with myself and my life. when i was in the car and if i had died the only thing that i think i should have done was to make sure my daughter had a list of emergency numbers on her person, so that if i was dead they could have gotten her home. because that was my biggest worry, if i had died, how would she have gotten home, what if some stranger walked away with her. how would they have found her? but then i tell myself, you can't help none of that once you are dead.

hmm..
oh and i have to make my will.

besides that i guess i am okay. and that thought gives me peace.

does that mean i am ready to die? i don't know. I don't want to die. i want to live. i want to see my kids grow up,a dn go to university. i want to go back to school myself. I want to read books and write them. i want to sit down with my friends and tell them how much i like them. but this is the kind of stuff that never gets done, you can do it over and over and over again and still want to do it.

but i did realize that if given a choice i would much rather die of an illness, that of course does not financially drain out my family, but that still gives me the time to say my good byes, because when i think about it, that is the only thing i wanted to do. i don't want to leave without saying my byes.

there are not even any major apologies left, coz i have made most of them. there is just one person, that i don't think i owe an apology to really, but i want to talk to her, so i already called her, and there is this other person, i really want to tell them something, but i am not sure if they want to hear it and i don't know if it is right to burden someone with information that they are not interested in carrying, that is an active act of himsa, so i am not sure if i want to do that, apart from that... hmmm....

sorry i am just writing as i am thinking and i am not thinking straight so...

you know what the worst thing is? the day of my accident, i left home right after writing this part in my story, where the protagonist dies. she dies in a road accident. i killed her. and then i had an accident. that was what was bothering me all the time. i killed my character and then i had an accident. how crazy is that? some karmic payback? shoot! seriously! can't get over that. should i let her live? i don't know? she was always supposed to die. from the beginning, since i started that story.

yes. i know that is coincidence. it is the human brain, looking for connections making up reasons, i was not wearing my lucky ring, i woke up from this side of the bed, i did not pray to such and such god. the poor helpless brain, always trying to make sense. hmm...

and the one thing that i am glad that i have already been doing again for sometime, ( i had stopped in the middle) is to not give a damn about what other people think. just do what i want to do, coz if i die tomorrow i cannot go around blaming you for not doing what i wanted to do. so if you have a problem with what i want to do, then well, sorry, but that is your problem, you deal with it.

i am as much a child of this universe as the sun and the stars, and i have as much a right to be here as you do, my thought is as valid as yours and i am not going to make myself smaller just to fit your ideas of my place in life.

and i am very glad for this blog, once i die, my kids can read this and know what their mom was like. i wish my parents had kept a log, i would have liked to get to know them better.

oh and for the record, yes, i am glad to be alive. very very glad.

besides it was not my fault, the other person ran the red light. no that would not be a consolation if i had died, but ... you know what, i am sorry that is a big consolation. even in death - we keep scores. :)

What is the purpose of life? - part 2.

This is in response to the earlier post. About what follows next, as you read it, don't take offense to it. I am merely stating a position, I am not trying to be smart.

Back to the question: What is the purpose of Life? Here is the trouble with the question.

It is the wrong question to ask.

It automatically assumes that there is a purpose, and sends you on an entirely unnecessary wild goose chase. You would be much better off asking the question : Is there a purpose to life?

At which point I would ask you two things, a) define life, b) define purpose. Let me share my definitions.

Life as is generally accepted, is the sum total of all processes that distinguish the inanimate from the animate, the living from the dead, including but not limited to, an ability to reproduce, to metabolize food and make energy to do work, to adapt to the environment, and so on.

I agree that this is an over simplified definition of life and perhaps many biologists will not be too happy about it, but for the purposes of our discussion I am assuming that this will work and you will accept it, and will not insist on bogging me down with stuff like; is a mountain living? It is changing all the time, eroding, responding to its environment. Is an interstellar nebula living? It is taking material from its surroundings and going to give birth to a star now. umm... I don't know. Go ask the biologists. But I think even they don't know. So lets just stick to the commonsense view of life as the difference between me and the chair I am sitting on right now. I am alive and the chair is not. Okay?

Moving on. Purpose. To me purpose is the end goal in mind for which something is done, or created, or used etc.

For example a knife serves the purpose of cutting up something, depending on what the manufacturer wanted it to cut; a tomato knife, a bread knife, or the three thousand other types of knives they would like you to believe you need. You would assume that at some point in the manufacturing process, someone sat down and decided what the purpose of a particular knife would / should be, and then figured out the attributes it would need in order to better fulfill that said purpose - serrated or plain, small or big, fixed or a folding blade? Once all the details have been mapped in theory, someone goes about the actual process of taking the right kind of metal and forging the desired blade and attaches it to an appropriate handle and the knife is ready.

Not that the police knocks your door down if you cut a tomato with the bread knife. But they will, if you butcher someone with a combat knife and it won't help telling them that that was the purpose of the bloody knife, it was made to be a weapon. You as an intelligent 'living' thing can decide what you will use something for. You can take any sharp edged object and use it to cut something, if it does a good job then that can be its new purpose irrespective of whatever else it is supposed to be doing.

The above discussion yields two conclusions. a) in order for something to have a purpose it must have been created or used with a particular intention and the two do not have to coincide - the intention can change between the making and the using, and b) there has to be someone who is making the intention. A sharp stone in the wilderness will just lie there. It does not acquire the purpose of being a knife (a cutting tool) until someone picks it up and uses it to that end.

Now in order for you to think that all life has a purpose, you must believe that life was created with an end goal in mind, which will take you to believe there must be a creator, an intelligent being with not just the intent but also the ability to bring forth a certain kind of live being and make him/her do a particular task.

As much as the religions around the world would like you to believe that that is the case, come to think of it, there is no rational proof for the existence of such a being. Fact is, there is not much proof about any theory of the beginning of life. To the best of my knowledge all science can claim so far is that life originated on earth around 3.8 billion years ago. How? We have no real idea. We do not know for sure exactly what the conditions on earth were that long back, the stimuli, the starting materials, the phenomena that might have lead to spontaneous generation of 'life'. None of the experiments we have dreamt of so far have succeeded in reproducing life from scratch. In such murky waters I can understand the charm of the 'G'- word. The only trouble is that if you are going to start giving in to your imagination, its hard to stop. One delusion is as good as another, and then you can make up just about any purpose for life that suits you. That is exactly what the clergy has been doing for centuries.

Personally, I would much rather admit that we do not know exactly how life originated on earth. It is an unsolved problem, we are working on it, but just because we do not know for a fact how something is being done, does not mean we will accept any crackpot theory / claims of how it was done.

Now the thing is, if you cannot answer the how, how can you answer the why? How can we claim to know the ultimate purpose, goal, task of such life?

My take is this: Fine I do not know how life began on earth, but since there is no particular reason to buy the intelligent design theory, I do not. When I look at the world around me I find it probable and not causal. From the quantum to the cosmic levels, there is a probability of an event occurring, not a certainty. I do not think that life was put here for a purpose. Life just is. It exists. That is the long and the short of it. There is nothing grand about it. No plan, no goal, no thought behind it. There is no intended purpose. Not in the traditional sense. Not to the best of my knowledge.

However it came to be, life has been evolving to survive a hostile environment forever trying to snuff it out. So if you insist on giving it a purpose then that is what it is - survival. Life strives to exist. The deer must learn to run faster than the fastest lion, and the lion must learn to run faster than the slowest deer. Trees, birds, insects, human beings must live long enough to pass their genes on, so the species can survive. What the species does with that survival is a different matter, as long as it lives; that is important.

And I guess that is where all that mumbo jumbo about being good, and helpful, and altruistic as the purpose of life comes from. You must live, that is the most important thing. However, while doing that, if you can help other members of your species live longer, become stronger, pass on more genes for natural selection to look at, more power to you. On the other hand if some cunning people can frighten or guilt you into doing more and more for the species, and giving up on, and sacrificing the heart of that which makes you you, then more power to them and really shame on you.

You did not ask to be here, you have no control on how long you stay, and how / when you leave. No one gave you an instruction manual when you got here, the rules of this game are not written anywhere. It is entirely up to you whether you choose to play along or not, and they are both equally acceptable responses. If it makes you while away your time here better, go ahead, pick a project, label that your purpose in life and spend the rest of your time doing it. To me it really does not matter. There is no purpose and I have made my peace with that.

No, it was not an easy peace to make. It gnawed at me for a long time. Why bother living in a purposeless universe? That used to be the first question I asked myself every time I concluded there was no purpose to life. It is another one of those things that I have made my peace with, let me try to explain my reasons without digressing too much.

You have two choices, you can choose to live or you can choose to die, there is no third option. I mean there are those people who choose to live and keep thinking about dying, but that is a very inefficient way of doing business if you ask me, unless of course you are still trying to decide which side you want to be. Just be sure to not get too comfortable sitting on the fence, you will have a very sore behind.

I must admit that for a while there, I very seriously considered the 'choose to die' option, but it did not add up in the end, because I figured there really was no reason to work so hard to reach an inevitability. You are going to die. Eventually, one day, some how, some time, some where. Its going to happen with or without your help. (It is like those game shows where you get to pick door 1 or door 2, only in this case door 2 is yours for sure, and the only question is weather or not you take 1 also.) Then it only makes sense to pick the 'choose to live' option, coz that way you get them both. you choose to live and then one fine day you die. Win - win, isn't it? Unless of course the door 1 ends up being a completely horrible place and then you are well within your rights to want to walk out. It is totally your decision, no one else -religion, law, society- should have any say in it.

Once you have decided to live in spite of the purposelessness of the world you live in, the next question is what do you do with this life. Now, at this stage of my life, my goal is to only do things that fall in these two categories a) things I want to do and b) things that allow me to do the things I want to do. Anything else just does not make sense. There is the third category, honoring prior commitments that I have already made as my younger more foolish self. But I guess that also falls in category a) because that is what I want to do - keep my promises, coz the day I decide to break them, there is really nothing anyone can do to stop me.

So that is how I want to live my life now. Yes, there are times when I lose my head and let other people guilt me into doing things that they want me to do, to the extent when for a while I actually start believing that that is what I should be doing too. But as I grow older the shackles seem to be coming apart. Even when I fall for it, I begin to see the fallacy sooner and can bring myself to rise out it. I have come to learn to be patient with myself, that logic is a slippery slope, and hence to forgive myself for my lapses in judgement and errors and for all the times I let other people make up my mind. I figure as long as I choose to live, I might as well do it myself. That is all I want from my life anymore.

And now I do not know how far I have digressed from the topic and if I have made anysense at all.

What is the purpose of life?

I have had that discussion with a variety of people over the years. Way back in high school, in grad school, and now in playgrounds watching over our kids. Frankly, I am sometimes tired of the discussion. No, it is not the discussion per say or idea itself that tires me, it is an interesting enough question and yes, I know the answer to it, it is a problem I dealt with with when I was younger, I have solved it and as far as I am concerned I do have the right answer. I doubt there is much that anyone can say now that can radically alter my world view. I am not denying that there is a possibility of something like that happening, just saying that it is a very remote one at best.

All the same, it does not irritate me one bit when someone asks that question. May be they were too busy doing other stuff when they were younger and are only now getting around to dealing with the big stuff or perhaps they just are just curious to hear what I have to say or more likely they want to impress me with their own personal brand of zen wisdom or whatever else their excuse is it does not bother me in the slightest. Remember I am the kind of person who can watch the same movie twenty times and still laugh or cry.

So why do I get tired of the discussion sometimes you ask? Good question. What tires me is when someone does not understand their own question.

What is the purpose of life? Life in general or your own life in particular? What are you asking? With all due respect, I am not interested in figuring out what your life purpose is, if one exists that is. It is none of my business, it is your purpose, you figure it out and you don't need to tell me. Do not disguise your personal existential angst in to a grand philosophical inquiry. If that is what you want to talk about, say that. Say 'hey I am so confused, I don't know what I am supposed to do in life. I am fed up with my life, it is rotten and shitty and I hate everything that is around me.' Say that and as your friend I will listen to you, i will try my best to comfort you, to show you the silver lining (even if none exists), I will do my best to make all the right noises. No, I will not be able to answer you because like I said it is your purpose and only you can determine what it is, but I will be there with you while you struggle.

However, when you ask me the grand purpose of life in general question, then please in the name of all that is good and holy do not muddy it up by bringing your own emotions in to the argument.

And no do not even try to bring up the lame excuse of how you figured it out when you were younger and now things have changed. Nothing has changed in the last thirty years of your being here. More than likely you were on the wrong track, and hence by definition, had never really figured it out. If you had the right answer back then, then trust me it has not changed.

Life has existed on this planet for waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay long before you ever showed up. The purpose of life (all life, not just yours) has nothing to do with you. It has not changed in the last 3.8 billion years with the first appearance of life on earth. To actually, truly answer that question you have to get off your high horse, and stop being so emotional about it. That's all I ask.

If you are going to ask a question, understand what you are asking first. Is this an emotional or an intellectual query? That is the question I ask someone when they bring this or any topic to me. Tell me how you want me to respond, and I will comply.

So, coming back to what tires me, is when people on the outset vehemently profess how they merely want to have a logical intellectual discussion and then in the end when the arguments start falling apart they begin resorting to 'Oh but I feel like there has to be a plan.' Or 'I feel like there is a god so there must be one.' 'It is intuitive.'

That is the time when I FEEL like swearing.

You loon!! Your trivial, puny, insignificant , unstable, irrational 'feelings' have nothing to do with anything. They have no bearing on the case. The universe does not care. The universe has got bigger fish to fry. No seriously, with all due respect, and at the risk of repeating myself, get off your high horse, and come walk with the rest of us.

And if you still want to feel then fine just let me in on the secret from the beginning so I can turn my feeling gene on too and stop looking for rationality. Don't make me sweat this out. Don't fool me into 'thinking' when you yourself have no intention of doing so. Is that really too much to ask?

right and wrong

I have been thinking about how do you know what is right and wrong, because I have been... well, its a long story, no it really is, because I have been thinking about this for a very very long time, for as long as I can remember.

How do you know what actions are right and what are not so right? What is the test? What makes some people so sure and others so doubtful? Any theory that claims to explain the difference must account for everything, every action big and small, no matter how inconvenient it is to do so. Only scientists can afford to overlook hard evidence staring them in the face and say let us assume that this part does not affect our observations, or sometimes not even bother to do that, we will add a correction later. Most of us, however, do not have that luxury, we must reconcile whatever little we know to everything else that we know to be sure that we know anything at all.

Is right different for different people? Can I say, this is what is right for me even though this might be wrong in your opinion? That is the premise the notion of modern tolerance is based upon. It is your life, you get to decide what you need to do, I do not dictate the terms and vice - versa.

On the face of it, it looks like a very civilized evolved way of thinking. Most of us go through life, trying not to get into other people business and think those who do so are merely meddlesome busybodies, trying to stick their fingers where they do not belong. It is almost like being in denial. I don't want to think about it, I do not want to fight this fight, so i will pretend like this is not important enough to discuss. We ignore the issues as long as they do not directly influence our lives - Abortion, Gay Marriages, The war in Afghanistan - they are too much to think about and we say fine, let the people who are involved make the final decisions. Women should have the right to choose - why should I have to think if abortion is the same as murder or not? If the mother is ready to kill her own child, more power to her. Really? that is the civilized way of thinking? Who advocates for the little fifteen week old human being who cannot speak for himself? Who is looking after this kid's best interest? The mother is for some reason or another not, and the society does not want to get involved. We do not want to think about it, so we hide behind tolerance, that's what we do, because the alternative is harsh - a fanatic who tells others what to do.

But is it? Why do we think as a society that murder is wrong, why do we openly have laws against it and why do we penalize people for committing the act? Why is it wrong to kill a 15 year old, but not a 15 week old? Does age matter? If it does, is it more acceptable to kill a 15 year old as opposed to a 50 year old? Does it matter that you know that the child is going to be born with genetic defects? Does that give you some moral high ground to kill them? Would you be standing on the same high ground if you went about shooting mentally retarded people? Why not? Why is one more acceptable than the other?

You see, it is a moral quicksand. You start sinking before you know it.

Right is absolute, it does not come with qualifiers. So every time you go around qualifying, defining, defending your actions, you know something is not quite right with it. Or so it seems... it is very tempting to say that, and there are days when I really do feel that way.

But they are not all the days, there are days when I feel there are no absolutes. There are too many variables, too many factors that affect the outcome, too much happening behind the scenes. Too little information to make a hasty decision.

Unfortunately too little information to make even a well considered, deliberate decision.

I don't know.

There is a reason I have been thinking about this for such a long time.

teeli mecha

there is a term in punjabi teeli mecha. it means taking the width of a match stick to compare how what you did for me matches up to what I did for you. Are we even? I gave a gift of 50 dollars and you gave me 49 uh oh no good types. That's an analogy, it does not have to be just monetary, we compare love, do you love me as much as I love you? Why not? You have to love me back the same. The question is why? Why do I have to do it the same. I love you my way, you love me your way.

I did not do this at all when I was younger, then in the middle I started doing it. i don't know why. But now, as I am growing older, I do not do teeli mecha, most of the times, once in a while I get angry, I called her three times, she did not call me back, I will not call her again, but most of the times I have grown up.

If I want to call someone, I will call them, if I want to go meet some one, I will call them and ask if I can come over, I don't wait to be invited. Mera man kar raha to main baat karungi, tumhara man jab kare to tum kar lena, nahin jabardasti nahi hai, man nahi kare to saaf bol do ki nahin ji aapse baat nahi karni, I am fine with that. I am fine with anything upfront and straight forward. Ghuma fira ke bolo to mere ko samjh hi nahi aata, apna time waste karoge.

I find this very liberating. This is my mom's theory, she kept telling this to me all my life, there is a difference between knowing something and then really actually understanding it. I am free now. In all my relationships, family, friends, acquaintances, I do no record keeping. jo tera man kare vo tu kar, jo mera man kare vo main karoon.

Okay fir se, disclaimer, this is my ideal every now and then I slip, every now and then I get mad ki hudd hai mere phone ke jawab me phone nahi kiya. But those are my moments of weakness, that is not my ground state, I am getting excited and getting ahead of myself. But as long as I keep trying to come back to the normal, then I know where I am going in life. When I slip, atleast I know I need to get back on course and also, I am not mad at others then, I am only mad at myself, for letting something like that get to me. And i think it is infinitely better to mad at yourself than someone else.

resisting temptation

There is this theory - i have no idea who proposed it for the first time, but I heard it from Gandhiji, so in my head this is his theory - that if you cannot control your mind then you control your body.

Let me try explaining it, and I will give you an analogy that I understand, for example if there is a piece of cake in front of me, I know I should not eat it, its only going to fill my blood with useless sugar, and no good has ever come of sugar floating around in the blood, so in theory I should not even want to eat that cake, I know its only going to hurt me, but does that work out in practice? Does knowledge really protect me? Does it give me any power over my weaknesses?

It doesn't matter what your particular drug of choice is - a cigarette, that one drink, or it could be a person to some people ;) its your personal temptation, you cannot help it. And don't let anybody else convince you that their temptation is still fine, yours is wrong. Bah! stuff and nonsense! A temptation is a temptation is a temptation there are no moral degrees to it, you fell for one or you fell for the other, you fell, period, now focus on getting up and moving on.

That is one thing I am very clear about in life, I do not judge people for what makes them lose their balance, I am just interested in seeing how they react to this loss, and how do they propose to regain control or may be they don't. They say, I am going to drink myself to death, jo rok sake vo rok le. And that is fine too. You have to admit there is a romance to Devdaas's self destruction, so really, I won't stop you, if you tell me you plan to do that too.


Getting back to the topic, assuming you do want to get back on track, then lets see how Gandhiji's idea works - this is from this book the story of my experiments with truth which was my bible when I was growing up, so i am writing from memory, and my own personal interpretation of it, so no body go around suing me for misquoting him, grr... the society we live in, you cannot say one sentence without a disclaimer! So anyways, - he says that if you cannot control your mind then you control your body. That is, let that piece of cake be in front of you, fine, you cannot stop wanting it right? Okay go ahead tell your mind to keep wanting it, but just tell him, we ain't gonna co-operate! The hands are not going to pick it, the mouth is not going to eat it -- that much I control. Then as you get more control, you move your head away from it, hell if you can, you get up and throw that lousy cake in the garbage, your mind can hanker all it wants, but you see, you control your body, and eventually, through the body you control your mind, un till it gives up. Classic non co-operation :D hai na fundu!!

It works!! I am telling you it does. I have used it to great success as a young girl. Only as you grow older you sometimes throw away even the tools that worked, or you put them in storage and forget that you had them.

Nope. Please. Next time you see me eating cake, don't you dare come up to me and say, why what happened to Gandhiji's theory, damn, I hate people like that, and may be I will not say anything to your face but I promise you I will hate you inside. Theory is theory and cake is cake .... अब ठीक है न , वो मूर्ख ही क्या, जिसको बात समझ आ जाए?

chal ri sajni

I love this song for it stands for a philosophy of life.

चल री सजनी अब क्या सोचे?
कजरा न बह जाये रोते रोते.

The way I look at it, it says, there is a time to think and a time to NOT think. You see, जब डोली जा रही है, अब वो तो सोचने का टाइम नही है न । टाइम तो तब था न, जब घरवाले पूछ रहे थे कि बेटे शादी करनी है कि नहीं। तब सोचने का टाइम था । अब इस वक़्त सोचने से किसी का भला नहीं होने वाला, अब तो जो होना था वो हो गया। तो भाया राम नाम जपो और जितनी हो सके उतनी अच्छे से निभाओ। बस।

so, I think it is very important in life to learn when not to think. When not to unnecessarily complicate your life.

self esteem

What is self esteem? Why do we like ourselves some day and not so much the other days?

When i look back, i like myself more on days when i am productive, whatever productivity is in my opinion, when I was younger it meant studying, as a teacher it means teaching a really well delivered lesson, at home it can mean a day I cleaned up the house cooked good food and generally took care of every thing I think I should.

We dislike ourselves on days we deviate from our ideas of what we should be.

Of course the word should troubles me too. Who defines what I should or should not do? On the surface it is tempting to say I do. But do I ?

Aren't my ideas of what I should do based on other people's expectations of me? I want everyone to like me so i want to do things that they want, so that they can like me and I can in turn feel better about my self? Most of the times I suspect that to be the case. Most of our actions are need based, my need to prove something - to you to myself.

We are taught to take pride in our achievements. I make a truckload of money, I look pretty, I got an A+ on my test. No body praises me when I flunk a class, when I make a mess, lose my job. infact I might just get yelled at. Over time I begin to learn what desirable and undesirable behaviours are and to the extent that i desire approval I begin to align myself with the so called right actions, till I reach the point where I chastise myself when I deviate from them. I kick myself, I condemn myself, I hate myself. As life gets busier I never really sit down to question the validity of my own beliefs. I accept them as true and just and keep striving to live up to them. I am not trying to say that nothing is right or wrong, ofcourse it is, it has to be. But how can I ever know, what is and what isn't, apart from what was told to me? How can i begin to love myself outside of my public image?

In order to love myself, I must do two things.

1. Figure out who I am? What my deepest desires / motivations are. Why do I do the things I do? What is my MO in life? What are the patterns? How have I reacted - repeatedly - to external life challenges and situations? What does that say about the kind of person I am? What are my core strengths and weaknesses?

and along side that, I must ask myself

2. What are my values in life? What do I think qualifies as right action? Yes, it stands to argument that there is no such thing as original thought, still, to whatever extent I can reasonably be sure of having thought for myself, I must think, and come to my own understanding of right and wrong. Most people would want to do the right thing - right in their own paradigm.

Having done that, I might sit down and compare the two pictures. To the extent that the person I am aligns with the person I think I should be I will find I like myself and to the extent that I do not I will loathe my self. Which is fine in the beginning.

But then I must take up the harder task. I must look more closely at the person I am and begin to change my ideas of the 'person I think I should be'. You see, even though the term self - analysis implies it is an analysis for the self, I find that most of us are unable to be completely honest, or to be completely with the self. Its almost as if someone is always watching. We are always playing for an audience. So may be I find that I have been too harsh in my expectations, may be it is time to modify them, that may be life can still go on if I am not a meek submissive obedient wife so to speak. That I can love myself for speaking up and giving my husband a hard time for buying those stocks that I told him not to. After all he never said he wanted to marry a fifties hindi film heroine. The sooner I can take that off my should list the better it is.

Personally, over years, I came to realize that all this while I had been defining myself with what I do, that I had limited my self to my actions. I have now begun to see that if the source of my self esteem is my job, my clothes, my hair, then it is a precarious source. I am asking for trouble now aren't I? I am not saying that my actions should not be a source of my self esteem, if I can do something well, then I should be proud of my abilities, but that cannot be the only source. What can be? I don't know.

All I know is that the more I can focus on who I am past and present, and begin to understand my self, the better I feel about myself. Then I worry less about what others see when they look at me, I don't care much, because I know who I am and I have made my peace with that. That the more I can disassociate my self worth with my current situation, the better I like myself.

In this moment my hair is disheveled and unkempt, but if I wash and dry them right they have the potential to look quite presentable, however, right now, it is more important for me to cook food and clean up my house, hence it is perfectly acceptable for me to not spend time on my hair. Which means not thinking about them, not fretting about them, not feeling bad about them. Because I do not define my SELF with my hair, a 'bad hair day' does not become a 'feeling bad about me' day. Okay wait, some days it does, because on those days I do define my self with my hair, but don't you go around telling any body :P

is happiness the goal of life? - 2

Here is the biggest reason why happiness cannot be the goal of life...

Happiness is a mental construct, its a state of the mind, it does not exist outside me. I can decide to be happy and actually be happy, no matter what my external realities are. I actually believe and practice that. I have lived through situations that to an outside observer would have looked blissful, but I can testify that I was miserable back then, and I have had to live through not so comfortable times but I assure you, I was perfectly happy.

I can wake up in the morning and decide the kind of day I am going to have, and nine out of ten times, I fulfill my own prophecies. Then to the extent that I control my happiness, it is useless as a goal, because I can have it whenever I choose to. And any goal achieved without much effort can hardly be an object of desire, leave alone the work of a life time. In my head, happiness is the same as that pessimism optimism nonsense, I prefer realism, thank you very much.

Am I saying I am not happy? No. Only a fool would admit that ;) which I am on some days :)

As I said in part 1, being happy makes life easy. People don't ask too many questions, don't give you useless advice, and generally don't get in your way too much. So being happy is ergonomic. It is an efficient tool you use to coast through life in order to pursue your real goal(s) whatever that might be.

is happiness the goal of life? - 1

So, we were having this discussion S and I, and the question was if happiness was the goal of life. I have my dad's voice booming in my ears saying - A pig is happy in the gutter! how could that be the goal of life? Yes sir! it cannot be. For that matter i am not sure if any one thing in itself could said to be the goal of life per se, it has to be more complicated than that. doesn't it? ;)


Whatever the goal of life is or should be, I am convinced that being happy has to be a part of life. I cannot imagine any balanced / truly wise person being morbidly unhappy.

No matter what you do, how grand or important it is, you have to do it with a certain good will. However great you think you are and how much ever better than everyone else around you, still, in all seriousness, being constantly irritated and angry does not serve any real purpose. You should - within reasonable means - strive to be happy. I am not talking about a chirpy giddy squealing happiness, a more of, you know what, we are doing the best we can and that is that. No point stressing about it kind of happiness.

Though i cannot see any major harm come from the above mentioned chirpy-school-girl-giddy-happiness either. Apart from being labeled scatterbrained and frivolous, i do not see it being villainous in any way. Whereas a constantly morose disposition might be injurious to your health, along with being people repellent that is.

hunh.

So, moral of the story, whatever blank life is throwing your way, you might as well be cheerful cleaning up the mess, it might not make it less work but it definitely makes it easier. And if you are actually happy doing dishes then..... hey! more power to you sister!

aa soneya ve jag

i love this song, because i accept the philosophy behind it.
aa soneya ve jag jyundeyan de mele,
that life is for the living, you can do what ever you want while you are alive, for no one knows what happens after death. even the things you think are final are not final as long as you are alive. you can change the situation, death is the only last word, after that you cannot do much. So if there is someone you are upset with, some one you love, some one you want to forgive, you must do it now, tell them while you are both alive, because even if one of you dies, that's it, that is the end of that relationship. I get that. Not to say there are not some unfinished businesses i have not left hanging around, well there are, i just keep telling myself i will make that phone call tomorrow, or write that email tomorrow.

It's not writing the email that is hard, it is the part of- maybe they don't even care that i forgive them or seek their forgiveness, may be what meant so much to me, did not mean anything to them, maybe it is a non-entity, that i have built up in my head. That is the worst of all arguments, very hard to refute.....

i just keep telling myself , there is time to figure this out yet, when inside i know there is not. i am being an idiot. I know.

the silent treatment

I believe somewhere else (Rude people 2) I argued for the reasons to remain silent when faced with a rude person, this particular post is in continuation from the earlier Nietzsche post and that one. I am curious to see if I end up contradicting myself, not that i am averse to the idea :)

Let me state the problem : When someone is arguing with you how polite is it to let them do the talking and just never bother responding, giving them the silent treatment?

it goes without saying that each situation is different and it is hard to make generalizations, but still there must be some basic principles that govern our interactions.

If the other person is arguing about something then it obviously means something to them. you only have two choices you can try to engage them and continue the conversation or you can choose to not respond. When you engage in a conversation there are chances that you might get carried away and say demeaning rude stuff you might live to regret later. There is always that chance. Besides, if you say something, they are more than likely to respond, and you will be faced with the same choice, to respond or not? which can turn into an infinite loop. How are you ever going to get out of it? So on the surface, the silent treatment, seems valuable. It breaks the cycle, without your ever saying a bad word.

When you give them a cold shoulder, you can get them to shut up for sure, though i think you cannot claim to have been very civil even then. because choosing not to say anything is a potent, violent choice, it hurts them. It is a powerful argument, one that is impossible to refute. There is nothing to prove false, nothing to negate, or challenge - nothing has been put on the table. They do not have many choices left at the end of it, they can choose to keep yelling at you, but it would be futile, you are not replying or they can shut up, in which case they still feel bad because come to think of it, the ball was in your court and you walked away. Whatever else you may want to believe, or make this out to be, you must accept that that in itself it is downright insulting.

In my opinion the silent treatment is not polite, it merely gives the illusion of politeness, it safeguards you from the reproach of having uttered anything objectionable, but it is not benign in any respect.

When you say nothing, the thing you say loud and clear is that you do not care about the other person at all, that even though they are so invested in the situation and this discord, you are not. You can just dust off your hands and leave. Its their problem. No, I am not saying that you should never use it. There are times when i use it too, but they are almost always times when i do not care about the person in front of me, i might have never cared about them from the beginning or i might have reached the point that they ceased to matter to me -atleast for the timebeing- i felt pushed, and caved in, for that time, it was more important to save my sanity than bother about them. The point is, you cannot love someone and still give them the silent treatment in the same moment*. The two - atleast to me - seem mutually exclusive.

Then, like all good warriors you must only use the weapon the situation merits. Using excessive force not only reflects poor judgment but also necessitates messy clean ups after. :) And guess who's going to be doing that? Yes, you! if you have a pricking conscience anything like mine, you are going to be waking up in the middle of the night going, oh damn, why do i do these things :D so when you do, just pick up the phone and call me, we will sit and wonder together, why indeed? :D

* with just one very special case, which I doubt if it is a true exception, i kind of think it is, but need to think about it some more. It just might be a rationalization that I have made up in my mind because there are those times when I have treated some people i love way too much shoddily, or some of them have treated me that way and i just refuse to believe they didn't love me for even one second so.... humph.

why i have not read a lot of philosophy so far?

i think it has been one of those conscious - sub conscious decisions, the kind that seem to make sense later on in life.

well, here is the thing, i grew up in a home where philosophy was discussed on the dinner table. the nature of truth, why should we be good?, is there a meaning to life? I have always meant to read philosophy someday, but i have never yet undertaken a rigorous course of study, i never went out to get books and read them. i mean in a way i have heard about kant, spinoza, hegel eavesdropping on my nanaji and kakaji talking about these things, but i did not, in any way, go out of my way to learn anything.

and i think there is a reason to that. or atleast i would like to think there is.

you see, if there was a puzzle, would you go and get other people's solutions or will you want to be left alone and solve it on your own?

me?

i would solve it on my own. what's the fun reading other people's solutions? besides you get stuck on their line of thought and are more likely to make the same mistakes. So i want to solve it on my own first and then, i can see what they think so i can decide to what extent i agree or disagree with them, and what is more, feel good about having done it on my own - to whatever extent i get it done.

and that is how it is with philosophy.
what is the purpose of life?
why should we be good?
what is the nature of morality?
are there absolutes in life?
what is the nature of knowledge?
how can we trust we know something for a fact?
what purpose does religion serve?
does morality have to be general or can we each have a subjective right and wrong?
is the idea of a personal god an impossible construct?
etc etc etc


well, i have had some time to think about these things. i have my answers now, sort of :) so now i think i am ready to take on what others think, because now, i know my own mind and, i will not be swayed by swanky words, or big names, thank you very much.

that is the reason that i am glad i waited thirty one years, and now, i am ready for this...so, i plan to get books now and i am looking forward to some engaging discussions, with some of the best minds.

plan to start with Nietzsche :D i don't know why, but i have a hunch, i am not going to like him.... ahhhh! i would love to be wrong this time. it has to do with something i must have heard about him, that has stayed in my subconscious mind, half remembered sorta, coz i have never read him, those kind of opinions are totally baseless, but are also kinda hard to avoid.

Love

i think love comes in all shapes and sizes, it happens in all sorts of places in all sorts of ways. that each moment of love is complete unto its own. that it needs no explanation, no context, no anchor. it is unattached to the past or the future. that you cannot let the shit that happens after (pardon my french) take away from the beauty of then and there.

the friend who stopped her own experiment to help you finish yours, because you were so stressed and could not think straight, actually loved you in that moment. so what if now she is so busy with her husband and kids that she takes ages to return your calls, emails, or does not share her secrets? you are not a priority to her now, but back then, you were.

the friend who waited with you at the bus stop till you could get your stupid empty bus, when he wanted to tell you to go to hell, and missed five of his own, but still did not get up and leave, because it was getting dark, and he did not think it was right to leave you alone on that bus stop. well, he actually liked you enough, back then to do that. so what if he will not come to see you now, because his wife thinks its weird you want to meet her husband? so what?

you cannot let the fact that your brother of thirty years has not noticed that you did not send him rakhi this year, because you were mad at him, bother you. he is so busy, he has not even missed it. you just need to remember all the times that he knew before your telling that you were sad.

yes, it hurts like hell, when the people we loved have moved on and no longer care about the same things they used to, but it does not diminish the times that they did. all that matters is that when you said that 'I Love You' you meant it, with all your heart and soul and being. so what if the marriage ends in a divorce and you go on to say all those hurtful mean things to each other later. that you hate each others guts, he gives you the creeps, you cannot stand to look at him. yes, that is the truth of this moment, but it still cannot take away the truth of that moment, that moment of love, of complete acceptance, and complete surrender.

why i am an atheist.

i do not believe in a god that interferes in this world. i do not believe in a god that answers your prayers. i do not believe in a god that cares about what happens to you.

when people say they believe in god they go around defining god in their own words. they say god is your inner voice, god is some intangible higher power they feel exists, god is the light that helps them in their darkest hour.

i dislike having to define each word as you speak. i understand it must be done every so often and i do. only when it comes to god, i think that even though people go around defining their own particular ideas of god in private, by publicly siding with the believers, they do condone the collective idea of god as an omnipresent, omnipotent, supernatural being - who meddles in their personal affairs, who can cure them, can find misplaced rings, help them pass exams, find jobs or manifest his wrath in other such mundane ways.

and i do not believe in such a god.

therefore i am an atheist.

i refuse to define my idea of god, because that is an oxymoron. it is like saying, oh what you call iso-propane, well i don't have that, i actually have benzene, but that is my iso-propane. so we can all call it iso-propane, but we all are actually talking about different compounds. seriously. does that make any sense to you? it doesn't to me. if we all do not believe in the same thing then we should not call them all by the same name.

you may think this is trivial, but some people do. some people do believe in that kind of a god, the one who meddles in human affairs, the one who keeps track of their daily activities and the one they go around killing others for. and if you do not believe in their god then you must say so, you can not be silent and laugh at your own private joke on the world.

I cannot let the richard dawkins of the world deter me. you do not have to be an obnoxious, egotistical maniac with delusions of grandeur to be an atheist. there is room for calm, honest, rational objection. so, there, as my most reasonable self - i am an atheist.

what do you care what other people think?

thats the title of a book by Mr. Feynman (there that shows how much i care about him, i actually took the trouble to capitalize the first letters! ), but seriously, what do you care? do you care?

i hear all sorts of people telling each other "oh! i don't care what other people think." aksar vo kehten hain vo bas mere hain, aksar kyon kehte hain, hairat hoti hai. :D

its like they are trying so hard to convince themselves. i know because i was one of those people, i am not, anymore. i aceept that i do care about what other people think. and i feel the accpetance empowers me, not them. by accepting their power, i take away a part of it. i care about what they think, but i am not going to let them dissuade me from my chosen path, i am still going to do what i think i must do, but i will still regret that they do not understand, some more than others, based on how much i care about them, what they mean to me.

some of them, i wish i could make them think differently, but i do not control their thoughts, i cannot even control my own feelings of hurt, but i can control my reactions to that hurt and if i cannot then i will die trying.