Of Gods Ghosts and Galileo
What kind of wife would you like? It all started with this innocuous question and then spiraled into an animated and sometimes passionate discussion about science, philosophy, math, gods, ghosts, religion and well Galileo too...
In the interest of keeping the discussion un-biased and to not give my viewpoint an unfair advantage, I won't link names with viewpoints. Suffices to say it involves me and a couple of my roomies. I will also interweave my views that were not necessarily discussed then, but hopefully you can't differentiate :) The I hereafter corresponds to different persons at different points of time.
So, our discussion about the wives wasn't terribly interesting so lets cut directly to the next one. Do you believe in Ghosts?, asked one. Of course not, said the other two. Why not? Well because there is no proof. Well, there are lot of people who believe that they saw ghosts...are they wrong? But, usually these stories almost always come from villages where there is lot of illiteracy...maybe, it has something to do with people attributing things that they couldn't explain with science to ghosts. Well, I have a story to tell. There was once this woman I met who is supposed to have higher powers. I met her at a friend's place and didn't believe her at first. I asked her if she can tell whether the front gate of my house is open now? My house was in a different city altogether that this woman had no clue about and I never met her before. At that time of the day it was usually open. But, she said it was closed. I called home and found out that it was closed just that day because of some work! I also told her I wanted to write civil services exam and be an IAS (Indian Administrative Service). She said I wouldn't become one and said I would go to foreign shores for higher studies! And here I am...how do you explain that? Well, may be the gate was just a coincidence and you might have been subconsciously influenced by her to not try for civil services and instead came here. Well then, do you believe in God?.....
God is a total farce. There are lot of wars and chaos in the name of God. It has brought more harm than good in this world. True, but may be its because people forgot the essence of why God came into being and are just following some religious zealots' interpretation of religion. I would like to think God as a belief that has been instilled by some of the intelligent few back in time for the masses to do good. Atleast if there is a fear that doing wrong leads to horrible things and doing good deeds gets you to a nice place after death, there is an incentive to be good. But, I hate both theists and atheists who try to wear their beliefs on their sleeves. Respect every one's believes as long as it doesn't hurt you. Atheism is a belief like theism after all. They are not on any high moral ground. So, looks like you believe in God? Well, I believe in the essence. What about you? I still don't because there is no proof about it..I will only believe if science can prove it? What is science?
Anything that has a logical explanation to the effect is what I consider as science? But how do you define logic? What makes you think the logic is correct? Well, anything that has a rigorous mathematical proof behind it, step by step from the smallest possible thing to the effect is science. Everything can be explained by math! What makes you think mathematics is such an indisputable theory? Why do you think whatever math has proof for is correct? Math might be wrong after all. Well there are lot of great scientists who have proved great results that we still believe in...like gravitational force. But, do you agree that it might be proven wrong tomorrow? Till Galileo proved that Sun was the center of the universe, people believed otherwise for eons of time. May be in next hundred years, people will prove that Sun is not the center of the universe after all. I don't believe it! Why not!? Well, he showed it with telescope..it can't be wrong. What makes you think the telescope is right? May be the theory of astronomy is itself wrong. But its based on fundamental properties of light...people have proven it for centuries based on solid math that it is true. But, you agree that there are lot of theorems that have been proven wrong after centuries. What makes you think the fundamentals aren't wrong....Math is after all a theory based on a set of axioms..may be the axioms are wrong! There are other theories like philosophy that are not based on proofs but have different conclusions about things..for eg: God. But, I don't believe in philosophy? Why not? They don't have any proof of what they say? Well, they do but its not based on math..they have their own set of axioms. Well, when there are multiple theories, I tend to believe in one that is based on the least number of axioms because it is the strongest. But, do you know what axioms is philosophy is based on? No! Even so, least number of is a concept of math..you can't use it disprove another theory! Now you are being ridiculous...! You are saying everything we believed in so far is wrong. No, you are being passionate! I just think you need to keep an open mind that what you believe as true might be proven as wrong tomorrow. Science is just a theory like any other. Just because science can't explain God/Ghosts doesn't mean they don't exist. May be they do, science hasn't caught up yet! Looks like atleast one of you now believes in Gods and Ghosts :)
So, what's the take away. Damn women..they are the cause of all the chaos in the world. That's how this discussion started. I think we all agree on that one :))
In the interest of keeping the discussion un-biased and to not give my viewpoint an unfair advantage, I won't link names with viewpoints. Suffices to say it involves me and a couple of my roomies. I will also interweave my views that were not necessarily discussed then, but hopefully you can't differentiate :) The I hereafter corresponds to different persons at different points of time.
So, our discussion about the wives wasn't terribly interesting so lets cut directly to the next one. Do you believe in Ghosts?, asked one. Of course not, said the other two. Why not? Well because there is no proof. Well, there are lot of people who believe that they saw ghosts...are they wrong? But, usually these stories almost always come from villages where there is lot of illiteracy...maybe, it has something to do with people attributing things that they couldn't explain with science to ghosts. Well, I have a story to tell. There was once this woman I met who is supposed to have higher powers. I met her at a friend's place and didn't believe her at first. I asked her if she can tell whether the front gate of my house is open now? My house was in a different city altogether that this woman had no clue about and I never met her before. At that time of the day it was usually open. But, she said it was closed. I called home and found out that it was closed just that day because of some work! I also told her I wanted to write civil services exam and be an IAS (Indian Administrative Service). She said I wouldn't become one and said I would go to foreign shores for higher studies! And here I am...how do you explain that? Well, may be the gate was just a coincidence and you might have been subconsciously influenced by her to not try for civil services and instead came here. Well then, do you believe in God?.....
God is a total farce. There are lot of wars and chaos in the name of God. It has brought more harm than good in this world. True, but may be its because people forgot the essence of why God came into being and are just following some religious zealots' interpretation of religion. I would like to think God as a belief that has been instilled by some of the intelligent few back in time for the masses to do good. Atleast if there is a fear that doing wrong leads to horrible things and doing good deeds gets you to a nice place after death, there is an incentive to be good. But, I hate both theists and atheists who try to wear their beliefs on their sleeves. Respect every one's believes as long as it doesn't hurt you. Atheism is a belief like theism after all. They are not on any high moral ground. So, looks like you believe in God? Well, I believe in the essence. What about you? I still don't because there is no proof about it..I will only believe if science can prove it? What is science?
Anything that has a logical explanation to the effect is what I consider as science? But how do you define logic? What makes you think the logic is correct? Well, anything that has a rigorous mathematical proof behind it, step by step from the smallest possible thing to the effect is science. Everything can be explained by math! What makes you think mathematics is such an indisputable theory? Why do you think whatever math has proof for is correct? Math might be wrong after all. Well there are lot of great scientists who have proved great results that we still believe in...like gravitational force. But, do you agree that it might be proven wrong tomorrow? Till Galileo proved that Sun was the center of the universe, people believed otherwise for eons of time. May be in next hundred years, people will prove that Sun is not the center of the universe after all. I don't believe it! Why not!? Well, he showed it with telescope..it can't be wrong. What makes you think the telescope is right? May be the theory of astronomy is itself wrong. But its based on fundamental properties of light...people have proven it for centuries based on solid math that it is true. But, you agree that there are lot of theorems that have been proven wrong after centuries. What makes you think the fundamentals aren't wrong....Math is after all a theory based on a set of axioms..may be the axioms are wrong! There are other theories like philosophy that are not based on proofs but have different conclusions about things..for eg: God. But, I don't believe in philosophy? Why not? They don't have any proof of what they say? Well, they do but its not based on math..they have their own set of axioms. Well, when there are multiple theories, I tend to believe in one that is based on the least number of axioms because it is the strongest. But, do you know what axioms is philosophy is based on? No! Even so, least number of is a concept of math..you can't use it disprove another theory! Now you are being ridiculous...! You are saying everything we believed in so far is wrong. No, you are being passionate! I just think you need to keep an open mind that what you believe as true might be proven as wrong tomorrow. Science is just a theory like any other. Just because science can't explain God/Ghosts doesn't mean they don't exist. May be they do, science hasn't caught up yet! Looks like atleast one of you now believes in Gods and Ghosts :)
So, what's the take away. Damn women..they are the cause of all the chaos in the world. That's how this discussion started. I think we all agree on that one :))
