The Power of Ideas and the Modern University

prophetboy...OBL has a 46% approval rating in pureland...and Al Queda 43%..Mushy's approval rating is less than 40%..

how're you going to spin this?

okhla writes "Dum hai toh aur photo dikhaa"

So you can send your assassins after me you damn criminal- go to hell

Chaltahai writes "While you stew in your derision of the US elite, the rest of the world is copying its ways and moving ahead."

You can "copy its ways" and become a slave, like the Indian elite, even as the country goes to hell, or you can understand their ways and confront them and be brave and independant even though the system will reject you. I choose the independence way, you and tahmed are welcome to live in your slavish existence.

Regarding my articles being "amateurish", let us see what you have produced and if you can produce even the level of the language used in my articles, leave alone the complexity of thought and concepts. Claims like yours are "amateurish", things that I have produced are certainly not...

Madani sahib once again thank you for your support and your wisdom which is a welcome change on Chowk, keep it up, Long live the HP, ahmedmadani, Masadi friendship for social justice...

tahmed writes "#16 masadi: what is this mumbo-jumbo?? "

It is not "mumbo jumbo", it is an interpretation of factual history, the FACT that Muslims were scapegoated by the MAJ and post ulterior motive of getting his own country the claims for the cause of seperation were not borne out, not with the masses of the West and certainly not with those of the East, democracy was nipped in the bud, the elite of the West and the colonials were helped, and this land, to the detriment of its people was converted into an outpost of the neo-colonials, not to mention the catastrophic effect it hand on the Muslims of India, and fragmented the political power of the Muslims of the Sub-Continent, producing a multitude of "pundit-hates" that unleashed their wrath as a reaction to what MAJ did. One man came along and tried to fix it, the ZAB, and they came up with Ad Hominem arguments against him, value judgments and "Islamic rhetoric" by those that were slaves of the West, and this miserable High Priest of the Church of MAJ, manto is still trying to legitimize those high crimes of the elite.... you are in the same boat though much smarter than Manto, you mask and veil your support in moralistic terms much like the US elite became "Islamized" in order to fight the SU in Afghanistan.

Now if you two don't have brains enough to understand the above summation, try reading it more than once or have GT or HP translate it for you....

read "not to mention the catastrophic effect it hand on the Muslims of India, and fragmented the political power of the Muslims of the Sub-Continent"

as

"not to mention the catastrophic effect it had on the Muslims of India, and fragmented the political power of the Muslims of the Sub-Continent"

Masadi, Unicef just reported that the children of this world are better off at anytime since they started keeping statistics on infant mortality, nutrition, healthcare, education etc. USA USA USA!!!!

Also, Indians are better off now then every before. The chinese are better off than ever before. It is all because they have played the system well. Just being a contrarian for the sake of hearing your drivel doesn't make change happen, Masadi. Showing results does.

And for the last time..who si this US elite you keep refering to?

#37 masadi: you write It is not "mumbo jumbo", it is an interpretation of factual history, the FACT that Muslims were scapegoated by the MAJ and post ulterior motive of getting his own country the claims for the cause of seperation were not borne out, not with the masses of the West and certainly not with those of the East, democracy was nipped in the bud, the elite of the West and the colonials were helped, and this land, to the detriment of its people was converted into an outpost of the neo-colonials, not to mention the catastrophic effect it hand on the Muslims of India, and fragmented the political power of the Muslims of the Sub-Continent, producing a multitude of "pundit-hates" that unleashed their wrath as a reaction to what MAJ did.

And all this is one sentence!! I indeed lack the brains to understand what you are trying to say. And if you have chelas who can explain the words of the great sage, I am all ears. In the meantime, if you dont have the courtesy to write clearly (e.g. no more than one issue per sentence, thank you very much), dont expect me to have the courtesy to call it anything other than what it is, i.e. mumbo-jumbo. The kind of thing you find written on billboards carried around by a homeless man complaining about evil space aliens in cahoots with the World Governemnt kidnapping his grandma.

Tahmed #40
lol...

great humor..
You have out done yourself Bro Tahmed.
May your tribe increase.

If Copernicus died (1543 A.D) before Galileo was born (1562 A.D), and if Copernicus was the first to propose (albeit not publish in his lifetime) a heliocentric model, how could the latter be considered Galileo's brilliant idea?

viqarm: I think copernicus is credited with the idea that the earth revolves around the sun. Galileo bought into that idea (and I assume not indepenedently but by learning about the copernician theory), but as i recall from reading somewhere (i wasnt there myself at the time) Galileo recanted on this too when pushed by the maulvis (i.e. the christian variety).

re: tahmed32 & viqarm

Sorry to interrude into this discussion, but I thought that I would clarify a few points.

Copernicus did, indeed, was the first person to come with the heliocentric theory and he based his ideas on the works of the Greeks. Copernicus, was one of the first to question the medieval concept of a geocentric universe, which was based on the cosmological ideas of Aristole that stated that earth was the center of the universe and the planets revolved around the earth in perfect concentric circles.

It is important to note that Copernicius only had a theoretical argument for a heliocentric theory and since he was timid by nature, he did not publish his ideas. Copernicius was afraid of ridicule and the fact that he simply did not wish to lock horns, with the Roman Catholic Church. The Protestant Reformation had occured in the life time of Copernicus and as he was establishing his theoretical arguments on the heliocentric theory, he was aware that the church had zero-tolerance for heretical ideas.

Hence, he kept his theories to himself and never made them public.

Copernicus' ideas would be taken by a Danish astronomer by the name of Tyco Brahe. Brahe was interested in the heliocentric theory and he would build a private observatory on an island in the North Sea and from there, for the next twenty years, he religiously documented the motion of the planets and the stars. Brahe, basically laid the foundation for Galileo's works, because his documentation allowed for the exact prediction of the planetary motions and in fact, his data/observations/measurements were so accurate that it was easy to predict the location of a planet or a star on a given day and on a given hour!

Brahe, also did not publish his works either, but Brahe had an assistant by the name of Johannes Kepler. Kepler would take the work of Brahe and would construct the first mathematical model of a heliocentric universe. This model was quite similar to the theoretical ideas of Copernicus, but unlike Copernicus; Kepler had mathematical evidence to support his theories.

Kepler was a contempory of Galileo and both were aware of each other's works and in fact, there was a sustained correspondence between them. Consequently, Galioleo was aware of Kepler's work. In this sense, Galileo gets the credit for discovering the heliocentric theory, because he was the first one to point a telescope to the heavens and confirm Kepler's theories based on the astronomical observations of Brahe, which were inspired by the works of Copernicus.

Unlike, Copernicus or Brahe or even Kepler, Galileo published his observations in a book called the Starry Messenger, in which he discredited the concept of the geocentric universe. For his audacity in refuting the Bible and the biblical concept of the geocentric universe, Galileo was dragged before the Inquistion and under torture, was forced to recant. After recanting, Galileo left his home town, and once away, he restated that his ideas were right and the church was wrong literally thumbing his nose at the church!

Galileo's simple claim to fame is that he was the first one to publish the idea; the concept about a heliocentric theory, even though his fame and acclaim was based on the accumulated the works of Kepler, Copernicus and Brahe.

Galileo simply confirmed the Copernican theory of a heliocentric universe and that is why he is generally credited with it; though historicans know that his work was the final culmination of the process that was started by Copernicus and carried on by Brahe and Kepler.

Hope this helps.

Ciao

ferozk #44 That was truly an informative post, so thanks for taking the time to write it up.

The more one thinks about it, the more one realizes this central thesis and antithesis of human history, namely scientific advancement on the one hand (as in case of understanding the true relationship of the earth, sun, and the planets) vs. the vehement resistance of the close-minded (as in case of the catholic church in this case).

I wonder how much damage has been done to humanity as rational thinking and logic and common sense are suppressed in favor of "islamic ideology" or "church ideology" or some other superstition that the close-minded cling to.

Yet another feeble attempt on philosophical issues by this third rate writer who is completely unaware of what he is talking about.

pervez says;

(((The amazing thing about ideas is that we start thinking of them as if they are real when, in fact, they may be purely abstract and live only as mental constructs. In that sense, they are wholly disconnected with reality. Nevertheless, they are extremely important because they become part of, and indistinguishable from, our thinking processes.1. SOME TERRIFIC IDEAS
Numbers make for a wonderful example. We humans have done better than birds and monkeys because we can do math, i.e. deal with numbers, and this is part of our mental machinery. But numbers are abstractions; they are “mere” ideas. They appear to have an existence but only because our minds can conceive of certain objects that, on our insistence, obey certain rules. The numbers 1,2,3,… do not exist in a physical sense. Yes, you can point to one apple, two apples, three apples, .… and they have a manifest physical existence. But the numbers 1,2,3… exist only in your brain. They obey the rule, abstracted from experience with apples, that 1+1=2 and 2+1=1+2=3, etc. Even if there were no apples in the universe – or even a single electron or quark – there would still be an infinite number of numbers provided there was a (hypothetically non-material) mind in which they could live. ))))


Most of you guys might be unaware of the context what he is asserting in this paragraph. For him some ideas are independent of any social (even psychological) process and conditioning. This is a ridiculously feeble attempt to refute the claim of the 'sociology of knowledge' and 'psychogenesis of knowledge'. I can guarantee you all here that he is not aware of even the basics of
the methodology of SOK(sociology of Knowledge) and the context SOK 'reduce' ideas into social factors.

When we apply 'Sociological reduction' or for that matter any kind of 'reduction'(in the technical sense) we cannot pick and choose only because the greatest intellectual of Pakistan pervez hoodlum bhoy does not want to reduce all kind of ideas. The very notion of 'reduction' implies the reduction of all entities.

He(pervez) thinks that mathematical entities are abstract and independent of any social conditioning(fair enough it is a serious view) but the problem is with his pick and choose approach...If at all you want to apply reductionist method there is no way on this earth that you would save mathematical entities in that process.

If ideas require a 'non-material' mind to reside in than how would you justify that ''non-material'' entity with your materialistic approach? He has completely ignored a very important issue as well i.e. the problem of the’ existence' wedded to this issue of numbers. I am sure he is completely unaware of that else he would not have written this piece of BS.

At the sometime he believes in physiological reductionism. Even in the physiological reductionism you have to reduce all entities there. There is an ultimate kind of paradox we have to face here. He has borrowed this distinction
b/w the mathematical entities and other ideas (social etc)by a group of Sok who tried to save the objectivity of science and mathematic as well as the validity of SOK but failed miserably. They wanted to avoid the paradoxes emerging from pan-reductionism which had exploded any physiological reductionism based on theory of evolution and the modern physics. The whole of structure of science as an ultimate form of knowledge becomes meaningless in either way.

It was a pathetic effort by those people like the writer who are strongly anti religion and don’t miss any chance to let it and its followers let down even by producing this kind of shit.

This Man is out to create awareness in people...Gosh.

tahmed writes "And all this is one sentence!! I indeed lack the brains to understand what you are trying to say. "

Not only do you lack the brains to fully understand the thought in that sentence (which has nothing to do with space aliens- so quit that BS distraction), you also lack the morals that would necessitate that you accept the truth and don't respond to it with BS.

Masadi #47

Of course Masadi,
The rest of the world lacks the brains and the intellect to even begin to appreciate your BS about outlandish theories regarding the evil elite.

Tahmed has 100 times more brain and morals than you have.

But then, Tahmed has never been kicked out of any country or university.
Also, Tahmed has never been published on lulu.com.

In your eyes, and yours alone, Tahmed is not as qualified as you are.

Perhaps, the singlemost important fact, that the rest of the world regards you as a pontificating idiot, is lost on you so completely.

Masadi, wake up.....