Timestoppers
Bina Shah April 16, 2002
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#80 Posted by alphaHussain on May 8, 2002 12:19:31 pm
Shah 80
[Contrary to popular reason why Pakistan could not support its muslim classical musician just like for bollywood,laerger consumer market always favoured india]
Typical irresponsible attitude.
http://www.dawn.com/2002/05/07/letted.htm
Farewell to music
The recent ban on the holding of musical functions in educational institutions by the government must be lauded as a step in the right direction. This follows in the footsteps of the ban on all theatre performances and plays.
I would now suggest that a complete ban on all kinds of merriment must be ordered by the enlightened government. Music is a very bad thing and gives rise to all kinds of non-serious feelings. And we are a very serious nation. For example we are very serious about education, as can be gauged from our rate of literacy and the type of education being imparted in our madressahs.
We are also very serious about cleanliness and public sanitation, examples of which are obvious on all our streets, in the hospitals and in all localities. Everybody knows that we are very serious about widening the roads. And if such inconsequential things as trees and old Mughal hydraulic and drainage systems get in our way what better course than to uproot them?
I am glad that we are going back to the last days of the Mughal era when music was ordered to be buried so deep that it would never re-surface (in spite of the fact that a Muslim, Amir Khusro, was the doyen of Indian music composers earlier). We should invite any remnants of the Taliban to guide us in these weighty matters.
Of course, the religious parties are doing a good job but we need the real thing. The Taliban brought a lot of seriousness to Afghanistan and totally eliminated the scourge of laughter. We need the same. We will not offend anybody except Baba Bulleh Shah. But he is dead, so it will not be a problem.
Many years ago, I was a member of the Government College Musical Society. Now of course I know that all the old Principals of that time were not serious-minded at all and did not realize the inherent dangers of music. Unluckily the IJT was not there to point out the evils of happiness to them and to enforce seriousness.
Laughter and all displays of such frivolity must be made criminal offences and we should only be allowed to laugh with the permission of the religious parties who will definitely not give such permission because it encourages immorality. Dancing? Heaven forbid! We should not even think of such silly behaviour. It gives rise to God knows what kind of thoughts. And we are a pure nation.
A complete ban on TV and cinemas must be imposed. We do not need the food of the soul. We need food for the body only, with which we have no problem since we import it when we need it. Food gives us strength and we can produce many many children. What could be better than that?
And of course, we should pay no heed to the fact that we are the laughing stock of the world. That can be dealt with easily by forbidding the world to laugh at us by apprising it of the dangers of music and laughter. And if the world does not listen to us, we can always avoid the great danger posed by music, plays, laughter and any kind of merriment by locking ourselves up in our `char-divari`, wrapping ourselves in our chadars and staying locked up. Only in this way, can we remain `pure`.
But now this is getting confusing and I would now like the guidance of the ulema, particularly Dr Asrar, who gave such a learned discourse on the moral implications of rubbing the cricket ball by the bowlers a few years back.
SYED SALMAN KHALIQ
Lahore
[Contrary to popular reason why Pakistan could not support its muslim classical musician just like for bollywood,laerger consumer market always favoured india]
Typical irresponsible attitude.
http://www.dawn.com/2002/05/07/letted.htm
Farewell to music
The recent ban on the holding of musical functions in educational institutions by the government must be lauded as a step in the right direction. This follows in the footsteps of the ban on all theatre performances and plays.
I would now suggest that a complete ban on all kinds of merriment must be ordered by the enlightened government. Music is a very bad thing and gives rise to all kinds of non-serious feelings. And we are a very serious nation. For example we are very serious about education, as can be gauged from our rate of literacy and the type of education being imparted in our madressahs.
We are also very serious about cleanliness and public sanitation, examples of which are obvious on all our streets, in the hospitals and in all localities. Everybody knows that we are very serious about widening the roads. And if such inconsequential things as trees and old Mughal hydraulic and drainage systems get in our way what better course than to uproot them?
I am glad that we are going back to the last days of the Mughal era when music was ordered to be buried so deep that it would never re-surface (in spite of the fact that a Muslim, Amir Khusro, was the doyen of Indian music composers earlier). We should invite any remnants of the Taliban to guide us in these weighty matters.
Of course, the religious parties are doing a good job but we need the real thing. The Taliban brought a lot of seriousness to Afghanistan and totally eliminated the scourge of laughter. We need the same. We will not offend anybody except Baba Bulleh Shah. But he is dead, so it will not be a problem.
Many years ago, I was a member of the Government College Musical Society. Now of course I know that all the old Principals of that time were not serious-minded at all and did not realize the inherent dangers of music. Unluckily the IJT was not there to point out the evils of happiness to them and to enforce seriousness.
Laughter and all displays of such frivolity must be made criminal offences and we should only be allowed to laugh with the permission of the religious parties who will definitely not give such permission because it encourages immorality. Dancing? Heaven forbid! We should not even think of such silly behaviour. It gives rise to God knows what kind of thoughts. And we are a pure nation.
A complete ban on TV and cinemas must be imposed. We do not need the food of the soul. We need food for the body only, with which we have no problem since we import it when we need it. Food gives us strength and we can produce many many children. What could be better than that?
And of course, we should pay no heed to the fact that we are the laughing stock of the world. That can be dealt with easily by forbidding the world to laugh at us by apprising it of the dangers of music and laughter. And if the world does not listen to us, we can always avoid the great danger posed by music, plays, laughter and any kind of merriment by locking ourselves up in our `char-divari`, wrapping ourselves in our chadars and staying locked up. Only in this way, can we remain `pure`.
But now this is getting confusing and I would now like the guidance of the ulema, particularly Dr Asrar, who gave such a learned discourse on the moral implications of rubbing the cricket ball by the bowlers a few years back.
SYED SALMAN KHALIQ
Lahore
#79 Posted by Shah on May 7, 2002 1:59:04 am
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#78 Posted by scout on May 6, 2002 1:00:53 pm
jay #78,
i agree with your post, but just thought i`d mention that it`s ``emphasize`` not ``emphesise,`` and it`s ``emphasis`` not ``emphesis.``
don`t mind ok, i just get annoyed at incorrect spellings.
i agree with your post, but just thought i`d mention that it`s ``emphasize`` not ``emphesise,`` and it`s ``emphasis`` not ``emphesis.``
don`t mind ok, i just get annoyed at incorrect spellings.
#77 Posted by jay on May 1, 2002 11:43:04 am
arjun 69,
There are many rich islamic countries, and none of them emphesise education. The notion that every thing is in the book prevents an emphesis on the modern science and technology. Every year there is an islamic science conference in pakistan, allegedly funded by the govt and they talk of jinn energy.
Any of the oil rich countries could have easily created a world renowned centre of education, in the modern sense and none did it. It is well known that since zias islamisation all opf the higher education in pakistan went backwards.
In conclusion, the yearning for education in a society has a lot to do with the world view and as of today there is no evidence that the islamic world view supports that. Spare me the old stories of the universities in damascus and alexandria.
There are many rich islamic countries, and none of them emphesise education. The notion that every thing is in the book prevents an emphesis on the modern science and technology. Every year there is an islamic science conference in pakistan, allegedly funded by the govt and they talk of jinn energy.
Any of the oil rich countries could have easily created a world renowned centre of education, in the modern sense and none did it. It is well known that since zias islamisation all opf the higher education in pakistan went backwards.
In conclusion, the yearning for education in a society has a lot to do with the world view and as of today there is no evidence that the islamic world view supports that. Spare me the old stories of the universities in damascus and alexandria.
#76 Posted by soundmeister on April 29, 2002 2:28:59 pm
Reply Shah:
``I neednt tell you about the fallacy of management & Technology inst. of Indias ,that they EXCLUDE the very potentially sucessfull guys like Bill Gates by demanding such high grades which is possible only by skewed , co *ck eyed ,crooked emphasis on scholastic academic mugging that hardly such walking encyclopedias are talented in entrepreneural,imagination ,intiating leadership & socially sucessfull PERSONALITY ,so much more important than SAT or GMAT scores.``
A case of sour grapes perhaps? :))
BTW, just curious..... what are Pakistan`s equivalents of IITs? I`m sure they must be the PITs....harharguffawguffaw (no seriously)
``I neednt tell you about the fallacy of management & Technology inst. of Indias ,that they EXCLUDE the very potentially sucessfull guys like Bill Gates by demanding such high grades which is possible only by skewed , co *ck eyed ,crooked emphasis on scholastic academic mugging that hardly such walking encyclopedias are talented in entrepreneural,imagination ,intiating leadership & socially sucessfull PERSONALITY ,so much more important than SAT or GMAT scores.``
A case of sour grapes perhaps? :))
BTW, just curious..... what are Pakistan`s equivalents of IITs? I`m sure they must be the PITs....harharguffawguffaw (no seriously)
#75 Posted by semipreciousme on April 28, 2002 1:32:59 pm
arjun_m
“Lame..really.”
….sorry it didn’t read your high standards a la condomland/condomstanis etc, but it wasn’t an attempt at a comeback….just some counsel….
“Lame..really.”
….sorry it didn’t read your high standards a la condomland/condomstanis etc, but it wasn’t an attempt at a comeback….just some counsel….
#74 Posted by rsaxena on April 27, 2002 2:20:00 pm
re: 12-headed retard
...education may not be everything, but it IS important...do try to get one...don`t fear it..it can only help you...
...education may not be everything, but it IS important...do try to get one...don`t fear it..it can only help you...
#73 Posted by Shah on April 26, 2002 10:00:38 pm
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#72 Posted by arjun_m on April 26, 2002 2:50:17 pm
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#71 Posted by arjun_m on April 26, 2002 2:50:17 pm
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#70 Posted by Shah on April 26, 2002 12:08:32 pm
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#69 Posted by ylh on April 26, 2002 12:08:32 pm
Rsaxena,
Unlike you, my posts are not full of `factions` like yours,which you probably heard while flipping channels between Porn and MTV...
When you grow up and get a proper education, you will learn to appreciate my posts.. which you dismiss as delusions...
#68 Posted by arjun_m on April 26, 2002 12:08:32 pm
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#67 Posted by arjun_m on April 26, 2002 12:08:32 pm
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#66 Posted by arjun_m on April 26, 2002 12:08:32 pm
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#65 Posted by semipreciousme on April 25, 2002 2:17:43 pm
arjun_m
jay Reply #: 53
”Its ironic isnt it. Korean students come to India to learn Information Technology(IT)
Johnny Jihad and Richard Reid and a whole bunch of arabs visit pakiland for IT(international terrorism)”
….just remember to keep them away from gujrat….
jay Reply #: 53
”Its ironic isnt it. Korean students come to India to learn Information Technology(IT)
Johnny Jihad and Richard Reid and a whole bunch of arabs visit pakiland for IT(international terrorism)”
….just remember to keep them away from gujrat….
#64 Posted by jay on April 25, 2002 2:17:43 pm
STOPPING IN REAL TIME
YLH/ Bina,
What is shown on the clock is not time, that is only a measure of it, and what people experience as time is the following, from dawn of today. This shows that time stopped in pakistan 17 ceturies ago. YLH, this aspect of time has nothing to do with latutude, longitude, or daylight saving as you understand it. This is called darkness al the time. Dont watse time, live it in your countries measure, static and dark.
Stoning to death
The Additional Session Judge, Kohat, sentenced Zafran Bibi under the Zina (Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinance 1979, to stoning to death at a public place for adultery. The two male accused, were acquitted. It was also held in the same judgment: ``Case property, which also includes the baby, shall remain intact till the expiry of the period of appeal/revision`` (Dawn, April 21).
The learned judge did not say in his judgment as to what would happen to what he called ``the case property``, the baby girl, after the expiry of the period of appeal/revision. Will she also be stoned to death in her mother`s arms?
BARRISTER BAACHAA
Peshawar
YLH/ Bina,
What is shown on the clock is not time, that is only a measure of it, and what people experience as time is the following, from dawn of today. This shows that time stopped in pakistan 17 ceturies ago. YLH, this aspect of time has nothing to do with latutude, longitude, or daylight saving as you understand it. This is called darkness al the time. Dont watse time, live it in your countries measure, static and dark.
Stoning to death
The Additional Session Judge, Kohat, sentenced Zafran Bibi under the Zina (Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinance 1979, to stoning to death at a public place for adultery. The two male accused, were acquitted. It was also held in the same judgment: ``Case property, which also includes the baby, shall remain intact till the expiry of the period of appeal/revision`` (Dawn, April 21).
The learned judge did not say in his judgment as to what would happen to what he called ``the case property``, the baby girl, after the expiry of the period of appeal/revision. Will she also be stoned to death in her mother`s arms?
BARRISTER BAACHAA
Peshawar
#63 Posted by jay on April 25, 2002 2:17:43 pm
arjun,
That is precisely what the pakistanis fail to understand. In fifty years the two countries have taken very different directions. The pak direction is not something random as pakistanis believe, due to zia, due to bhutto etc, but it is the path an islamic country has to take.
I will be happy with a jihadic pakistan, exporting well armed suiciders al through the world. Good part is, despite the whitewash job by the chowk pakis, the majority of the people of pakistan knows what islamic republic is about.
Ofcourse, one man`s one speach, should it make a damn difference. YLH thinks so.
regards
jay
That is precisely what the pakistanis fail to understand. In fifty years the two countries have taken very different directions. The pak direction is not something random as pakistanis believe, due to zia, due to bhutto etc, but it is the path an islamic country has to take.
I will be happy with a jihadic pakistan, exporting well armed suiciders al through the world. Good part is, despite the whitewash job by the chowk pakis, the majority of the people of pakistan knows what islamic republic is about.
Ofcourse, one man`s one speach, should it make a damn difference. YLH thinks so.
regards
jay
#62 Posted by Shah on April 25, 2002 2:17:43 pm
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#61 Posted by rsaxena on April 25, 2002 1:44:33 am
re: chut-insaan ylh
{{1) Bina Writes an article about Pakistan`s decision to implement DST in Pakistan.
2) Jay declares that this idea is stupid because Pakistan is not Thick enough.
3) The YLH calls Jay an idiot because DST has nothing to do with Time Zones.}
...lemme break the news to you...i don`t read 90% of the posts you write...your #1, #2, and #3 points assume that i do...you haven`t said anything new in well over a year now (except informing us of your divine lineage)...simply rattled off the same delusional garbage in fits of fury and delusion, over and over again...
{{1) Bina Writes an article about Pakistan`s decision to implement DST in Pakistan.
2) Jay declares that this idea is stupid because Pakistan is not Thick enough.
3) The YLH calls Jay an idiot because DST has nothing to do with Time Zones.}
...lemme break the news to you...i don`t read 90% of the posts you write...your #1, #2, and #3 points assume that i do...you haven`t said anything new in well over a year now (except informing us of your divine lineage)...simply rattled off the same delusional garbage in fits of fury and delusion, over and over again...
#60 Posted by jzk on April 25, 2002 1:12:38 am
Well dont know what difference it is making, but i have a 9-6 job and takes me an hour on avg for a one way trip, that is form home to office, or on the way back. I really dont mind getting up an hour early, but now i get back when sun is still out there. and morning doesnt make a visible difference to me. before that it was like even before i got home, it would be all dark around, and let me tell you, that really wasnt a pleasent feeling. so i dont have anything against the decision. i kinda liked it when i found out i could still get home in day light and have tea with my family :)
#59 Posted by ylh on April 25, 2002 1:12:38 am
Jahil aur pagal Insaan aka Rsaxena...
First of all I have 6 by 6 vision.. I was selected to fly in the Airforce once. However Perhaps this course of events will make a few things clear to you:
1) Bina Writes an article about Pakistan`s decision to implement DST in Pakistan.
2) Jay declares that this idea is stupid because Pakistan is not Thick enough.
3) The YLH calls Jay an idiot because DST has nothing to do with Time Zones.
4) You inform the YLH that the YLH is stupid and idiotic.
So idiot.. you are the one who started this.. Just admit that you didn`t understand the article and that I was right in calling Jay an idiot and you were wrong in supporting him... ignoramus!
-YLH
#58 Posted by arjun_m on April 25, 2002 1:12:38 am
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#57 Posted by Shah on April 24, 2002 12:40:54 pm
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#56 Posted by rsaxena on April 24, 2002 12:40:54 pm
re: chut-insaan aka ylh
{{So I am guessing that you somehow are confusing time zones with DST}}
don`t guess and speculate like you always do...focus on facts as they stand in front of you...where in my post do you see a reference to DST???..where???...do your glasses need to be made thicker?...
{{So I am guessing that you somehow are confusing time zones with DST}}
don`t guess and speculate like you always do...focus on facts as they stand in front of you...where in my post do you see a reference to DST???..where???...do your glasses need to be made thicker?...
#55 Posted by ylh on April 23, 2002 7:46:02 pm
Pagal aka Rsaxena...
You called me an idiot because I informed Jay that DST had nothing to do with the thickness of the country.
So I am guessing that you somehow are confusing time zones with DST... You have been caught with your pants down once again ... now just admit that in the classic tradition of Gandhiji, you too are an idiot.
I mean I find it really hard to follow how a discussion on DST can be confused with times zones by fools like Jay and rsaxena...
#54 Posted by arjun_m on April 23, 2002 7:46:02 pm
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#53 Posted by tahmed321 on April 23, 2002 12:09:25 pm
Qalander #48 Good one :-) Minor correction, however: the phrase ``jaataa hai`` should be ``jaatee hai``: that is, in order to be grammatically correct in the nwfp, the muzakar/muannas must be confused.
#52 Posted by jay on April 23, 2002 12:09:25 pm
IT training for Korean students
BANGALORE, April 22 (DHNS)
``As many as 41 South-Korean students will undergo a one-year IT training programme at the Bangalore based RV Engineering College commencing from tomorrow. RV College Principal K A Ranganath Shetty said today that these students of Konyang University will be given a one-year IT diploma. The training programme follows a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between R V Engineering College and Konyang University six months ago.``
Pakistan, always copying the indian actions have decided to follow suit. Dawn has reported that 42, they have to be one up, north Koreans will be attending pakistani madrassas on terrorist scienes at a lasker university in pak occupied kashmir. The minster pointed out that unlike the indians, there is no need for an MOU, it is all part of the 1700 year old agreement of islamic brotherhood.
pakisan zindabad, ylh long live.
BANGALORE, April 22 (DHNS)
``As many as 41 South-Korean students will undergo a one-year IT training programme at the Bangalore based RV Engineering College commencing from tomorrow. RV College Principal K A Ranganath Shetty said today that these students of Konyang University will be given a one-year IT diploma. The training programme follows a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between R V Engineering College and Konyang University six months ago.``
Pakistan, always copying the indian actions have decided to follow suit. Dawn has reported that 42, they have to be one up, north Koreans will be attending pakistani madrassas on terrorist scienes at a lasker university in pak occupied kashmir. The minster pointed out that unlike the indians, there is no need for an MOU, it is all part of the 1700 year old agreement of islamic brotherhood.
pakisan zindabad, ylh long live.
#51 Posted by scout on April 23, 2002 12:09:25 pm
progressive,
just a simple request, could you please not post `cut`n`paste` articles here, it`s really annoying scrolling through them
i doubt anyone reads them so save your precious time
just a simple request, could you please not post `cut`n`paste` articles here, it`s really annoying scrolling through them
i doubt anyone reads them so save your precious time
#50 Posted by scout on April 23, 2002 12:09:25 pm
raveena #47, ``been slim pickings, eh, dear?...``
slim pickings? what the heck is that
slim pickings? what the heck is that
#49 Posted by subroto on April 23, 2002 12:09:25 pm
..you idiot..
..idiot chutiy_a..
..pagal insaan...
...chut insaan...
Ah! The level of debating on Chowk - the standards just keep getting better each day. Now who will lower the bar next? Vaise I too feel that I have a lot to contribute......
..idiot chutiy_a..
..pagal insaan...
...chut insaan...
Ah! The level of debating on Chowk - the standards just keep getting better each day. Now who will lower the bar next? Vaise I too feel that I have a lot to contribute......
#48 Posted by rsaxena on April 23, 2002 12:09:25 pm
re: ylh
{{Please explain how for `Day light savings time` thickness of a country is important in terms of latitudes...
-YLH }}
please explain where in my post you see mention of DST...my post says TIME ZONES, not DST...
{{Please explain how for `Day light savings time` thickness of a country is important in terms of latitudes...
-YLH }}
please explain where in my post you see mention of DST...my post says TIME ZONES, not DST...
#47 Posted by rsaxena on April 22, 2002 6:45:05 pm
re: spout
{ahhh,,,i luv it ;) that was too easy}
...chhotay logon ki chhoti khushiyaan...been slim pickings, eh, dear?...
{ahhh,,,i luv it ;) that was too easy}
...chhotay logon ki chhoti khushiyaan...been slim pickings, eh, dear?...
#46 Posted by ylh on April 22, 2002 6:45:05 pm
Rsaxena
Please explain how for `Day light savings time` thickness of a country is important in terms of latitudes...
-YLH
#45 Posted by temporal on April 22, 2002 6:01:29 pm
in today`s the news...
Zia Mohyeddin column
``Ahead of by an hour``
[...`Confusion has started to understand the time to be adjusted` is a phrase that defies description. I am stupefied. I have seen howlers but this piece of writing (which goes on for another 400 words) takes the cake. Please mark that for good measure a comma has been inserted in the passage above. Forget about the adjectival or adverbial clauses. In this story the subject and the predicate have lost all contact with each other while nouns chose adjectives....]
http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/
Zia Mohyeddin column
``Ahead of by an hour``
[...`Confusion has started to understand the time to be adjusted` is a phrase that defies description. I am stupefied. I have seen howlers but this piece of writing (which goes on for another 400 words) takes the cake. Please mark that for good measure a comma has been inserted in the passage above. Forget about the adjectival or adverbial clauses. In this story the subject and the predicate have lost all contact with each other while nouns chose adjectives....]
http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/
#44 Posted by scout on April 22, 2002 2:00:31 pm
Raveena #29, ``..time zones ARE defined across lattitudes, or east-west...YOU idiot..``
you spelled latitudes wrong YOU idiot
ahhh,,,i luv it ;) that was too easy
you spelled latitudes wrong YOU idiot
ahhh,,,i luv it ;) that was too easy
#43 Posted by rsaxena on April 22, 2002 2:00:31 pm
re: divine
{{You idiot.. The article is NOT about TIME ZONES. It is about Daylight savings time.}}
you idiot...where did i say otherwise?...if you`ve got time to ready ylh`s bird-droppings and follow which he is refering to, that`s your problem son...
{{You idiot.. The article is NOT about TIME ZONES. It is about Daylight savings time.}}
you idiot...where did i say otherwise?...if you`ve got time to ready ylh`s bird-droppings and follow which he is refering to, that`s your problem son...
#42 Posted by rsaxena on April 22, 2002 2:00:31 pm
re: ylh
{{Pagal insaan... is Pakistan creating new Time Zones? }}
chut-insaan...did i say it was?
{{Pagal insaan... is Pakistan creating new Time Zones? }}
chut-insaan...did i say it was?
#41 Posted by rsaxena on April 22, 2002 2:00:31 pm
re: stuka
{{YLH was referring to Daylight Savings Time, not the establishment of Time Zones}}
you actually read ylh posts? :)
{{YLH was referring to Daylight Savings Time, not the establishment of Time Zones}}
you actually read ylh posts? :)
#40 Posted by ylh on April 21, 2002 8:29:04 pm
Bina`s Article in the REVIEW:
Which Pakistani personality are you?
By Bina Shah
Ever taken a personality quiz in Cosmo, GQ, or Seventeen, but felt that the choices didn`t really match you? It could be because those quizzes aren`t really geared to the Pakistani mentality. We asked a crack team of psychologists, anthropologists, and sociologists to study the Pakistani psyche and come up with six archetypes that define the Pakistani mindset today. Take our exciting quiz and find out if you`re an aunty, a corrupt politician, an IT professional, a religious extremist, an expatriate, or a feudal.
1. You see a group of girls walking home from school. Your reaction is:
a) Hai, poor things. They will become black in this sun
b) Which school are they from? Who`s in charge of their funds?
c) Education is haraam for girls. Western demons must be running those schools.
d) My kids` school in Bradford is so much better than this.
e) I hope they don`t compete with me for the H-1 visa.
f) I better not run them down with my Pajero.
2. You`ve been invited to a fancy party. What do you wear?
a) Sonya`s latest, dah-ling
b) Achkan or sherwani, Armani shoes, Rolex watch.
c)Parties are for Western demons, but if I went, I`d wear a turban and my oonchi shalwar. It`s segregated, right?
d) Gap, Hilfiger, DKNY. Look, I still have the price tags from the mall!
e) I can`t go, nothing`s washed or ironed. Besides, I have a hot chat date.
f) Eight yard long shalwar, Peshawari chappals, designer sunglasses. Mustache wax is optional.
3. Your favorite TV show is:
a) Kyu Ki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi.
b) Hard Talk - I`d make a fool out of that Tim Sebastian!
c) Fatwa Hour, but TV is for Western demons.
d) AIOU Open University Courses.
e) PTV dramas.
f) Baywatch.
4. If they named a perfume after you, it would be called:
a) ``Diamonds and Emeralds and Rubies and Sapphires``
b) ``Paisa``
c) Perfume is for Western demons. I only wear itar.
d) ``Green Card``
e) ``Windeaus``
f) ``Kissan``
5. If you owned a dog, it would be a:
a) poodle.
b) bloodhound.
c) Haraam, haraam, haraam. Dogs are for Western demons.
d) What are those dogs that Musharraf owns? Those ones.
e) Virtual dog. I haven`t seen any real ones since the Internet came to Pakistan.
f) Rottweiller, German Shepherd or Alsatian. Something fierce.
6. Your opinion on 9/11 and the war against terror?
a) As long as I can go to Dubai, I`m fine.
b) Hopefully they`ll forget all about my court case as soon as they catch Osama.
c) All hail the bombers of the World Trade Center, those dirty Jews.
d) I`m American, I told you already! Run!
e) I hacked the White House Website in protest.
f) Can we hire those pilots to crash into the Kalabagh Dam?
7. What`s your worst nightmare?
a) I can`t wear sleeveless anymore.
b) I have to pay my Income Tax.
c) Burqa and beards get banned in Pakistan.
d) I`m stuck at the Karachi airport and PIA has lost my reservation.
e) Power failure.
f) My four wives all decide to divorce me.
8. Your dream car is a:
a) Mercedes
b) Mercedes
c) Cars are for Western... oh heck, Mercedes
d) Mercedes
e) Mercedes
f) Pajero
9. Your favorite city in the world:
a) London
b) New York
c) Mecca
d) Miami
e) Silicon Valley
f) Lahore
10. What does this drawing look like to you?
a) The Swarovski crystal vase in my drawing room
b) a lota
c) Two Western demons discussing how to destroy Islam
d) Me interviewing for a job at Goldman Sachs
e) Me interviewing for a job at Microsoft
f) A glass of lassi
* * * *
Answers
Mostly A`s: Aunty. You have a heart of gold (and a closet full of it as well). You are a harmless soul, only threatened when your credit cards are taken away from you. Your worst trait is a belief in the power of marriage to solve all problems. Your best trait is your unerring fashion sense and your love of travel. Role models: Sehba Musharraf, Neena Gupta, Nadia Shah.
Mostly B`s: Corrupt Politician. You are a real villain. If you saw a baby with candy, you would steal the candy (and the baby too). You have no morals or character, despite all your exhortations to the contrary. Money sticks to your hands like glue, rumour has it you have your pockets lined with UHU. Role modes: the entire National and Provincial Assemblies.
Mostly C`s: Religious Extremist. You believe this world is only temporary, but you want it to be run your way or not at all. You think Pakistan is full of corruption and decadence and that its greatest achievement is the Islamic bomb. Westerners, women, and dogs are persona non grata in your book. Role models: Osama bin Laden, Mulla Omar, anyone in Bush`s ``Axis of Evil.``
Mostly D`s: Expatriate. Your whole life is geared towards getting out of Pakistan; once you have left, your whole life is geared towards coming back. When at home, you hate Pakistan, but when abroad, you will defend it to your last breath (and then go to the seven o`clock Indian movie at the local Cineplex). Easiest way to make you cry: hide your passport. Role models: Shaukat Aziz, Kemal Attaturk, Emirates Airlines
Mostly E`s: IT professional. You were born with a mouse in your hand. Life feels right only when you are sitting in front of a screen. The lack of sunlight and ultraviolet rays from the monitor give you a pale, ghostly appearance, so you would do best to take lots of Vitamin D supplements which you order through the Internet. Role models: Bill Gates, Safi Qureshy, the MSN Messenger icon.
Mostly F`s: Feudal. You are the bane of Pakistan, and along with the corrupt politician, the real reason behind all of Pakistan`s miseries. It`s a heavy weight to bear on your shoulders but you do it in style. You are identified by your massive shalwar kurtas and your twirled moustaches (even if you are a woman). You want to be buried behind the wheel of your Pajero. Role models: Thomas Jefferson, Catherine the Great, Ashley Wilkes.
None of these Fit me though :( D comes close but even that is `geared towards becoming an expatriate`, which is not me.
Please explain..
#39 Posted by stuka on April 21, 2002 8:29:04 pm
RSaxena:
``...time zones ARE defined across lattitudes, or east-west...YOU idiot..``
YLH was referring to Daylight Savings Time, not the establishment of Time Zones. The former has nothing to do with longitudes. A country can choose to adopt DST or not, and it has no relevence to size.
In the US, the states of Indiana and Arizona do not subscribe to DST, and therefore both exist in different time zones during times of the year.
``...time zones ARE defined across lattitudes, or east-west...YOU idiot..``
YLH was referring to Daylight Savings Time, not the establishment of Time Zones. The former has nothing to do with longitudes. A country can choose to adopt DST or not, and it has no relevence to size.
In the US, the states of Indiana and Arizona do not subscribe to DST, and therefore both exist in different time zones during times of the year.
#38 Posted by divine-comedy on April 21, 2002 8:29:04 pm
Rsaxena,
You idiot.. The article is NOT about TIME ZONES. It is about Daylight savings time.
#37 Posted by ylh on April 21, 2002 8:29:04 pm
For idiot chutyas: DST stands for `DAY LIGHT SAVINGS Time...
and if you didn`t know what that meant... its how your clocks change in Spring and then in fall living in the US... IT has NOTHING to do with GEOGRAPHICAL thickness... Arizona doesn`t do it, California does, and all the rest of the US does..
I don`t expect stupid small minded fools to know all of this
#36 Posted by ylh on April 21, 2002 8:29:04 pm
I wonder what kind of a stupid people (jay, rsaxena) don`t know the difference between Time Zones... and `Daylight savings` time?
ignorant buggers!
#35 Posted by ylh on April 21, 2002 8:29:04 pm
Rsaxena..
``...time zones ARE defined across lattitudes, or east-west...YOU idiot..``
Pagal insaan... is Pakistan creating new Time Zones? Is there going to be NWFP time and Punjab Time? Is that what we are saying... I think I have known about Latitudes since 6th grade... But is that the topic of discussion?
Pakistan is simply implementing `DAYLIGHT` Savings time... which is implemented in thinner countries than Pakistan.
So it shows how both of you are extremely stupid and arrogant (being Indians)..
-YLH
#34 Posted by PM on April 21, 2002 8:29:04 pm
``The concept of DST is already widely in use in the Western countries, which suffer from a lack of daylight during the winter and have used this method to avail of longer daylight hours.``
One hour longer on the `morning` side (which would`ve been spent indoors anyways -- b4 say 8:00 a.m); one hour less in the evenings, which is when more folks I would assume would actually WANT more daylight. This move baffles me-- at least an a reason for `daylight saving`!! Benazir`s govt. had it right in proposing to ad an hour of daylight to the evenings (not mornings) of the winter months!
We indeed are apes!
One hour longer on the `morning` side (which would`ve been spent indoors anyways -- b4 say 8:00 a.m); one hour less in the evenings, which is when more folks I would assume would actually WANT more daylight. This move baffles me-- at least an a reason for `daylight saving`!! Benazir`s govt. had it right in proposing to ad an hour of daylight to the evenings (not mornings) of the winter months!
We indeed are apes!
#33 Posted by progressive on April 21, 2002 8:29:04 pm
WhiteMan sayeth:Djinn Power & Angel science should be looked at.
Cantonement-Critters & ColonyCleaners:``Right On brothers.Amen``
BashirUddin Mehmood says:``Djinn power should be looked at``
CantonementCritters & ColonyCleaners:``What a crazy shudr muslim---fanatic,fundamentalist,Unbeliever in WhiteMangod``
__________________________________________________
Quest Magazine Interview
From Cellular Aging to the Physics of Angels: A Conversation with Rupert Sheldrake
Interviewed by John David Ebert
Can there be a science of metaphysics? The question was posed by Immanuel Kant in 1781 with his monumental cathedral of a book, The Critique of Pure Reason. Deeply embedded within the towering spires and vaulted arches of its frame---with its ornate tracery of axioms and foliated scrollwork of concepts within concepts repeating like Cantor sets to infinity---was to be found, for the patient reader, Kant`s answer: there can never be a science of metaphysics because science, by its very nature, is concerned with a recondite analysis of tangible things within the world of space and time.
Metaphysics, on the contrary, is concerned with transcendent intangibles, such as God, the soul, freedom, and immortality. Theology has never been the province of science, the primary aim of which is a coniunctio of the categories of the mind with the impressions of the senses. Metaphysics, however, confined as it is by the rigid nexus of classical logic, has always looked askance at the earthly plane as a place for confirmation of the validity of its ``truths.``
The question is still relevant today, for some of our most creative scientists have begun trespassing into the territory of metaphysics, which Kant had insisted should remain separate from science in order to preserve the domain of human freedom and religiousness from being absorbed by the machine of the Newtonian cosmos. Kant knew very well what would happen to society if its citizens came to believe that free will was an anachronism and that the events of one`s own life were to be regarded strictly as functions of the impersonal laws of a secularized environment.
Indeed, with the publication of the works of Darwin, Marx, Freud, and Skinner during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, precisely what Kant had feared came into cultural manifestation with the unfolding of these various materialisms. T. S. Eliot`s poems ``The Waste Land`` and ``The Hollow Men`` have become emblematic of the spiritual climate of the twentieth century, particularly since every one of the classical domains of the humanities has been colonized by the expanding empire of mechanistic science. But now, as the twentieth century spirals to its finale, it would seem that science is very much in need of a blast of wind from the pneumatic spirit to set its stagnant waters in motion once again.
Rupert Sheldrake is one of the few scientists with no reservations whatsoever about discoursing on those metaphysical topics which engaged the famous banqueters of Plato`s tables, such as the existence of the soul, reincarnation, or the soul of the world. He is the biologist who made himself famous with the concept of morphogenetic fields, which he articulated in his first book, A New Science of Life (1981), as a creative response to the challenge set by nineteenth-century debates between mechanists and vitalists over the development of organisms.
In the 1990`s, the ``organicists`` first proposed the idea of morphogenetic fields as a kind of golden mean between the extremes of mechanism and vitalism. The models proposed by these thinkers, however, tended towards Platonism, with their vision of morphogenetic fields as transcendent ``laws`` of organization. But Sheldrake`s innovation was to see these fields as themselves evolving along with the forms which they produce.
And indeed for Sheldrake, the ``laws`` of the universe may not in fact be laws at all, but rather deeply ingrained habits of action which have been built up over the many eons in which the universe has spun itself out. Like the ancient riverbeds on the surface of Mars left behind by the pressures of flowing water over billions of years, so too, the ``laws`` of the universe may be thought of as runnels engraved in the texture of space-time by endless, unchanging repetition. And the longer particular patterns persist, the greater their tendency to resist change. Sheldrake terms this habitual tendency of nature ``morphic resonance,`` whereby present forms are shaped through the influence of past forms. Morphic resonance is transmitted by means of ``morphogenetic fields,`` which are analogous to electromagnetic fields in that they transmit information, but differ in that they do so without using energy, and are therefore not diminished by transmission through time or space.
Sheldrake illustrates his idea with the analogy of a television set. Though we can alter the images on our screens by adjusting components or distorting them---just as we can alter or distort phenotypical characteristics through genetic engineering---it by no means follows that the images are coming from inside the television set. They are in fact encoded as information coming from electromagnetic frequencies which the skillful arrangement of the transistors and circuits within the television set enables us to pick up and render visible. Likewise, it is not at all necessary for us to assume that the physical characteristics of organisms are contained inside the genes, which may in fact be analogous to transistors tuned in to the proper frequencies for translating invisible information into visible form. Thus, morphogenetic fields are located invisibly in and around organisms, and may account for such hitherto unexplainable phenomena as the regeneration of severed limbs by worms and salamanders, phantom limbs, the holographic properties of memory, telepathy, and the increasing ease with which new skills are learned as greater quantities of a population acquire them.
When Sheldrake`s first book was published, needless to say, there was great controversy in the academic journals regarding the value of his hypothesis. One reviewer in Nature magazine considered that the book would make good kindling for a fire, at least, if nothing else. Such reactions, however, are an indication that someone has come up with a perspective containing enough incendiary potential to melt down the rusted old paradigm and reforge it into something fresh. One recalls the anxieties of Saturn which impelled him to devour his children when he learned that Zeus was coming to put an end to his Golden Age.
Sheldrake`s first book was followed by his magnum opus, The Presence of the Past (1988), a philosophical and cultural amplification of ideas presented academically in the first volume. This was followed by The Rebirth of Nature (1991), in which he traced the birth, rise, and inevitable senescence of the materialistic world view that is presently crumbling beneath the onslaught of such fresh thought worlds as chaos theory, the Gaia hypothesis, cellular symbiosis, and morphic resonance. Sheldrake`s next book, Trialogues at the Edge of the West (1992), was a series of discussions with friends Terence McKenna and Ralph Abraham regarding the current state of cosmology.
In 1995, Sheldrake`s little gem Seven Experiments That Could Change the World was proposed as a do-it-yourself guide to science, in the spirit that some of science`s great ideas have come from amateurs and dilettantes outside the formal academic world (Leeuwenhoek was a janitor; Mayer was a surgeon; Mendel was a monk). Sheldrake presents a series of experiments in which he invites the reader to participate in the investigation of such unexplained phenomena as pets who know when their owners are coming home, the strange homing powers of pigeons, or the phenomenon of phantom limbs.
Most recently Sheldrake has collaborated with theologian Matthew Fox on two sets of dialogues, Natural Grace and the Physics of Angels, in which the ongoing conversation between science and spirituality finds fresh incarnation. A new set of discussions with Abraham and McKenna is on the way, to be entitled Trialogues at the Edge of the Unthinkable.
In the following interview, Sheldrake and I discuss his ideas about aging, the existence of the soul, reincarnation, ghosts, telepathy, and angels. For despite Kant`s insistence on keeping the two spheres separate, it is important to know what the changing perspectives of science have to say about traditional spiritual beliefs. The elementary ideas of the human imagination---gods, spirits, the category of the holy---have been ubiquitous throughout the development of human evolution, and there is no reason to think that the death of orthodox Christianity at the hands of an increasingly arrogant mechanistic science means that these ideas are merely vestigial relics from man`s ``superstitious`` past. On the contrary, as Carl Jung often pointed out, modern man`s lack of contact with these ideas has left him vulnerable to all sorts of political, social, and economic hysterias which have plagued the course of the twentieth century with one catastrophe after another. It is therefore important to bring the two perspectives together in order to heal the deep schism between the sciences and the humanities, which has resulted in an inability to communicate with each other, which C. P. Snow remarked upon in his book The Two Cultures.
JE: One of the first papers that you wrote was on the aging, growth, and death of cells. Can you say a few words about the theory of aging that you proposed in that paper?
RS: Well, I think aging is inherent in all forms of life because accidents occur, things go wrong, just like they do in a house, where there`s always something that goes wrong and needs repairing. But living cells have limited repair capacities. And so, when there are mistakes that can`t be repaired, they tend to accumulate. That I think is the basis of aging. My proposal was that what happens in regeneration is that cells can be regenerated only by growing so fast that they dilute these breakdown products, these seeds of death that build up as a result of aging.
Or, cells divide asymmetrically---that is, they divide in an unequal way, so that one of the daughter cells gets the seeds of death in an unfair measure, while the other one is regenerated. Asymmetrical cell division is very common in both animals and plants, in tissues which go on growing indefinitely, like the skin, the blood cells, or the growing tips of plant shoots. It`s also found in the way egg cells are formed in both animals and plants, where, for every egg cell that`s made, there are three highly mortal cells which are cast aside as the new regenerated egg cell is formed. So this was the basis of the cellular theory of aging as I proposed it in my Nature paper.
JE: Joseph Campbell (102) once suggested that the idea of morphogenetic fields reminded him of the Hindu concept of maya---the field of space-time that gives birth to the forms of the world. You wrote your first book, A New Science of Life, while living in an ashram in India. Do you think that the content of your book was influenced at all by a resonance with the traditions of Indian thought?
RS: Well, I think it probably was, but the basic idea of morphic resonance and morphic fields came to me while I was in Cambridge, before I went to live in India. The main influence on my thinking about morphogenetic fields came from the holistic tradition in developmental biology, where these fields are fairly widely accepted.
The main influence on my idea of an influence through time---the morphic resonance idea---in fact came through Henri Bergson in his book Matter and Memory, where he argues that memory is not stored in a material form in the brain. I realized that Bergson`s ideas on memory, which were to me completely new and incredibly exciting, could be generalized, and it was really through reflecting on Bergson`s thought that I came to this idea.
However, when I went to work in India in an agricultural institute, I went on thinking about these ideas, and indeed they had much in common with Indian thought. I discovered, when I was first thinking about these things in Cambridge, that many people there simply couldn`t understand what I was going on about---particularly scientists---and thought the idea was too ridiculous to be worth taking seriously. When I arrived in India and discussed it with Hindu friends and colleagues, they took the opposite approach; they said, ``There`s nothing new in this, it was all known millennia ago to the ancient rishis.`` So, they found the ideas perfectly acceptable; the only thing was, they weren`t particularly interested in extending them into a scientific hypothesis.
I worked for five years in an agricultural institute before I went to live in the ashram to write my book. And I dare say, the climate of Indian thought was a very fertile one for me. It enabled me to go on thinking about these ideas in a much more favorable environment than if I`d been doing it in Cambridge. But the germs of these ideas, the roots of my own thought, are in Western philosophy and science rather than Oriental philosophy. So, it`s a kind of convergence.
JE: You see evolutionary history as a tension between the two forces of habit---or morphic resonance---and creativity, which involves the appearance of new morphic fields. But in the case of mass extinctions you suggested once that the ghosts of dead species would still be haunting the world, that the fields of the dinosaurs would still be potentially present if you could tune into them. Would you mind commenting on how it might be possible for extinct species to reappear?
RS: Well, I haven`t in mind some kind of Jurassic Park scenario. What I was thinking of was that the fields would remain present, but the conditions for tuning into them are no longer there if the species is extinct, so they`re not expressed. However, it`s a well known fact in evolutionary studies that some of the features of extinct species can reappear again and again. Sometimes this happens in occasional mutations, sometimes it turns up in the fossil record. And when these features of extinct species reappear, they`re usually given the name, ``atavism,`` which implies a kind of throwback to an ancestral form. Atavisms were well known to Darwin, and he was very interested in them for the same reasons I am, that they seem to imply a kind of memory of what went before.
JE: Do you think that morphic fields could account for the existence of ghosts in any way?
RS: Well, the fields represent a kind of memory. If places have memories, then I suppose it`s possible for ghostly-type phenomena to be built into their fields. This is a very hazy area of speculation and not one I`ve thought through rigorously. And I`ve had no incentive to think it through rigorously because it`s so hard to think of repeatable experiments with ghosts. But ghosts do seem to be a kind of memory thing, and morphic fields have to do with memory, so there may well be a connection.
JE: Karl Pribram suggests that memories are spread throughout the brain like waves, or holograms, and you go further in suggesting that memories may not be stored in the brain at all, but rather that the brain acts as a tuning device and picks up memories analogously to the way a television tunes in to certain frequencies. Furthermore, you`ve suggested that if memories aren`t stored in the brain at all, this leaves the door open for the possibility of the existence of the soul. Can you explain how your ideas on the existence of the soul fit into this paradigm?
RS: Well, we should clarify the terms here. The traditional view in Europe was that all animals and plants have souls---not just people---and that these souls were what organized their bodies and their instincts. In some ways, therefore, the traditional idea of soul is very similar to what I mean by morphic fields. The traditional view of the soul in Aristotle and in St. Thomas Aquinas was not the idea of some immortal spiritual principle. It was that the soul is a part of nature, a part of physics, in the general sense. It`s that which organizes living bodies. In that sense, all morphic fields of plants and animals are like souls.
However, in the case of human beings, the additional question arises as to whether it`s possible for the soul to persist after bodily death. Now, normally souls are associated with bodies. And the theory I`m putting forward is one that would see the soul normally associated with the body and memories coming about by morphic resonance. If it`s possible for the soul to survive the death of the body, then you could have a persistence of memory and of consciousness. From the point of view of the theory I`m putting forward, there`s nothing in the theory that says the soul has to survive the death of the body, and there`s nothing that says that it can`t. So this is simply an open question. But it`s not one that can be decided a priori.
JE: In your book The Presence of the Past (220B2), you have an interesting theory of reincarnation. You suggest that people who have memories of past lives may actually be tuning in to the memories of other people in the morphogenetic field, and that they may not actually represent reincarnated people at all. Would you care to comment on that?
RS: Yes. I`m suggesting that through morphic resonance we can all tune in to a kind of collective memory, memories from many people in the past. It`s theoretically possible that we could tune into the memories of specific people. That might be explained subjectively as a memory of a past life. But this way of thinking about it doesn`t necessarily mean this has to be reincarnation. The fact that you can tune into somebody else`s memories doesn`t prove that you are that person. Again, I would leave the question open.
But, you see, this provides a middle way of thinking about the evidence for memories of past lives, for example, that collected by Ian Stevenson and others. Usually the debate is polarized between people who say this is all nonsense because reincarnation is impossible---the standard scientific, skeptical view (I should say, the standard skeptical view; it`s not particularly scientific)---and the other people who say this evidence proves what we`ve always believed, namely, the reality of reincarnation. I`m suggesting that it`s possible to accept the evidence and accept the phenomenon, but without jumping to the conclusion that it has to be reincarnation.
JE: So your theory that information can be transmitted by these nonmaterial morphic fields makes theoretically plausible a paradigm in which phenomena such as telepathy or ESP can be understood. Can you explain how your paradigm makes sense out of this type of phenomena?
RS: Well, if people can tune in to what other people have done in the past, then telepathy is a kind of logical extension of that. If you think of somebody tuning in to somebody else`s thought a fraction of a second ago, then it becomes almost instantaneous and approaches the case of telepathy. So telepathy doesn`t seem to be particularly difficult in principle to explain, if there`s a world in which morphic resonance takes place.
I think that some of the other phenomena of parapsychology are hard to explain from the point of view of morphic fields and morphic resonance. For example, anything to do with precognition or premonition doesn`t fit in to an idea of influences just coming in from the past. So, I don`t think this is going to give a blanket explanation of all parapsychological phenomena, but I think it`s going to make some of it at least, seem normal, rather than paranormal.
JE: In your book Seven Experiments That Could Change the World, you point out that the expectations of experimenters have a great deal to do with the outcome of their experiments. And you even suggest that they might influence their experiments through psychokinesis or telepathy. Would you mind discussing how that might work?
RS: Yes, it`s well known that, in psychology and in medicine, the experimenter`s expectations can and do influence the outcome of experiments, which is why people use blind experimental techniques to try and minimize this effect. The second point is a new one that I`ve just discovered by doing a survey of the literature and scientific practice of laboratories from different branches of science. And this reveals that in the physical sciences and in most of biology, people never do blind experiments. There`s no protection, whatever, against possible experimenter effects. It seems to me quite possible that experimenters could be biasing the way they record their data. And I would be very surprised if that doesn`t happen in conventional science.
But I think something more surprising and alarming might be happening, as you suggest, namely, a possible psychokinetic influence over the actual experimental system. Scientists would be completely unprepared for this if it were happening; they`d take no precautions against it. The culture of institutional science dismisses it as impossible. So, there would be a great vulnerability to this effect, if it`s going on, and it might be happening quite commonly in science.
We know from the psychokinetic studies of Robert Jahn of Princeton that people can influence random number generators in a rather surprising way, even at a distance. And since quantum events and random number generators are not unlike the quantum events occurring in physical, chemical, and biological systems, there`s already a precedent in experimental data for this kind of mind over matter effect. In Jahn`s experiments, people are simply doing a kind of harmless game. In scientific experiments, where the experimenter has a lot invested in the outcome of the experiment, a lot of hopes and tensions and funding proposals hinging on what happens, the intensity of expectation may be much greater, and the consequences far larger than anything detected by Jahn. But this is an unexplained area. In that book I suggest several experiments that could be done in order to test for this effect in conventional science.
JE: Your recent books Natural Grace and The Physics of Angels, co-written with Matthew Fox, are explorations into the interface between science and spirituality. There have been other important scientists---such as David Bohm and Fritjof Capra---who have also taken an interest in crossbreeding science and spirituality. In what ways do you see these two areas of discourse intersecting and what kinds of cultural hybrids do you see resulting from this fusion?
RS: There are many areas of potential intersection. One is the cosmological, because when science is talking about creation, it`s getting into a realm that has been very much the preserve of religion for a long time. I`m not now thinking simply of ``where did the big bang come from?`` If we focus too much on the initial moments of creation, about which we know practically nothing, we get into a situation rather like that of the eighteenth-century deists, who thought of God making the world machine and starting it up and then standing back and letting it go on by itself.
I`m more interested in the ongoing creativity, which is expressed in the evolutionary process, and the evolutionary process must have an inherent creativity, and we know that our universe is creative at all levels, physical, biological, or mental, cultural, and so on. So, what is the source of this creativity? Well, it`s really a metaphysical question and materialist science has no other suggestion than chance, which really means that it`s unintelligible---we can`t think about it. However, this does overlap with traditional areas of theological and spiritual enquiry. Therefore this is one area of discussion.
Another is the nature of the soul, the psyche, consciousness, which science, until very recently, has had almost nothing to say about but which is obviously of crucial importance to our understanding of ourselves and of nature. And as I show in my book with Matthew Fox, there are yet further areas, such as the question of prayer and how it works. If people praying for things to happen on the other side of the world have a statistically measurable effect on what does happen, you`ve got a kind of action at a distance, which is in the purview of science to investigate. And this is precisely what people who pray claim can happen. So I think there are quite a number of areas of fruitful discourse and enquiry. And I think that as science breaks out of this narrow mechanism that has been its straitjacket for so long, approaching a more holistic view of nature, then much more possibility of fruitful interaction occurs between science and the spiritual.
JE: You mention that your new book, The Physics of Angels, was inspired by the similarity of St. Thomas Aquinas`s descriptions of angels as without mass or body, and the modern view of science that particles of lightCphotonsCalso have neither mass nor body. Can you elaborate on the significance of this?
RS: Well, when Matthew Fox and I were first talking about angels together, this was one of the points we raised. We both found it quite fascinating. I think that Aquinas was trying to think as logically and as rationally as he could about what it would mean to be a being with no mass which could yet move and act. If you think in those terms, I suppose you come to rather similar conclusions as people like Einstein and other pioneers in the present century, when they were thinking about relativity and quantum theory. You`re sort of driven to very similar conclusions. Einstein`s photons of light have remarkable parallels to Aquinas`s discussions of the movements of angels. And I think it`s because they were starting from similar premises. And thinking in a similarly logical way about the consequences.
References
Campbell, Joseph. The Inner Reaches of Outer Space. New York: Harper & Row, 1988.
Fox, Matthew, and Rupert Sheldrake. Natural Grace: Dialogues on Creation, Darkness, and the Soul in Spirituality and Science. New York: Doubleday, 1996.
Jahn, Robert G. and Brenda J. Dunne. Margins of Reality: The Role of Consciousness in the Physical World. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1987.
Sheldrake, Rupert. ``The Ageing, Growth and Death of Cells.`` Nature 250 (1974): 381B5.
------. A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Formative Causation. Los Angeles: Tarcher, 1981.
------. The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature. New York: Random House, 1988.
------. The Rebirth of Nature: The Greening of Science and God. New York: Bantam, 1991.
------. Seven Experiments That Could Change the World: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Revolutionary Science. New York: Riverhead Books, 1995.
Sheldrake, Rupert, Terence McKenna, and Ralph Abraham. Trialogues at the Edge of the West. Santa Fe, NM: Bear, 1992.
Stevenson, Ian. Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1974.
Cantonement-Critters & ColonyCleaners:``Right On brothers.Amen``
BashirUddin Mehmood says:``Djinn power should be looked at``
CantonementCritters & ColonyCleaners:``What a crazy shudr muslim---fanatic,fundamentalist,Unbeliever in WhiteMangod``
__________________________________________________
Quest Magazine Interview
From Cellular Aging to the Physics of Angels: A Conversation with Rupert Sheldrake
Interviewed by John David Ebert
Can there be a science of metaphysics? The question was posed by Immanuel Kant in 1781 with his monumental cathedral of a book, The Critique of Pure Reason. Deeply embedded within the towering spires and vaulted arches of its frame---with its ornate tracery of axioms and foliated scrollwork of concepts within concepts repeating like Cantor sets to infinity---was to be found, for the patient reader, Kant`s answer: there can never be a science of metaphysics because science, by its very nature, is concerned with a recondite analysis of tangible things within the world of space and time.
Metaphysics, on the contrary, is concerned with transcendent intangibles, such as God, the soul, freedom, and immortality. Theology has never been the province of science, the primary aim of which is a coniunctio of the categories of the mind with the impressions of the senses. Metaphysics, however, confined as it is by the rigid nexus of classical logic, has always looked askance at the earthly plane as a place for confirmation of the validity of its ``truths.``
The question is still relevant today, for some of our most creative scientists have begun trespassing into the territory of metaphysics, which Kant had insisted should remain separate from science in order to preserve the domain of human freedom and religiousness from being absorbed by the machine of the Newtonian cosmos. Kant knew very well what would happen to society if its citizens came to believe that free will was an anachronism and that the events of one`s own life were to be regarded strictly as functions of the impersonal laws of a secularized environment.
Indeed, with the publication of the works of Darwin, Marx, Freud, and Skinner during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, precisely what Kant had feared came into cultural manifestation with the unfolding of these various materialisms. T. S. Eliot`s poems ``The Waste Land`` and ``The Hollow Men`` have become emblematic of the spiritual climate of the twentieth century, particularly since every one of the classical domains of the humanities has been colonized by the expanding empire of mechanistic science. But now, as the twentieth century spirals to its finale, it would seem that science is very much in need of a blast of wind from the pneumatic spirit to set its stagnant waters in motion once again.
Rupert Sheldrake is one of the few scientists with no reservations whatsoever about discoursing on those metaphysical topics which engaged the famous banqueters of Plato`s tables, such as the existence of the soul, reincarnation, or the soul of the world. He is the biologist who made himself famous with the concept of morphogenetic fields, which he articulated in his first book, A New Science of Life (1981), as a creative response to the challenge set by nineteenth-century debates between mechanists and vitalists over the development of organisms.
In the 1990`s, the ``organicists`` first proposed the idea of morphogenetic fields as a kind of golden mean between the extremes of mechanism and vitalism. The models proposed by these thinkers, however, tended towards Platonism, with their vision of morphogenetic fields as transcendent ``laws`` of organization. But Sheldrake`s innovation was to see these fields as themselves evolving along with the forms which they produce.
And indeed for Sheldrake, the ``laws`` of the universe may not in fact be laws at all, but rather deeply ingrained habits of action which have been built up over the many eons in which the universe has spun itself out. Like the ancient riverbeds on the surface of Mars left behind by the pressures of flowing water over billions of years, so too, the ``laws`` of the universe may be thought of as runnels engraved in the texture of space-time by endless, unchanging repetition. And the longer particular patterns persist, the greater their tendency to resist change. Sheldrake terms this habitual tendency of nature ``morphic resonance,`` whereby present forms are shaped through the influence of past forms. Morphic resonance is transmitted by means of ``morphogenetic fields,`` which are analogous to electromagnetic fields in that they transmit information, but differ in that they do so without using energy, and are therefore not diminished by transmission through time or space.
Sheldrake illustrates his idea with the analogy of a television set. Though we can alter the images on our screens by adjusting components or distorting them---just as we can alter or distort phenotypical characteristics through genetic engineering---it by no means follows that the images are coming from inside the television set. They are in fact encoded as information coming from electromagnetic frequencies which the skillful arrangement of the transistors and circuits within the television set enables us to pick up and render visible. Likewise, it is not at all necessary for us to assume that the physical characteristics of organisms are contained inside the genes, which may in fact be analogous to transistors tuned in to the proper frequencies for translating invisible information into visible form. Thus, morphogenetic fields are located invisibly in and around organisms, and may account for such hitherto unexplainable phenomena as the regeneration of severed limbs by worms and salamanders, phantom limbs, the holographic properties of memory, telepathy, and the increasing ease with which new skills are learned as greater quantities of a population acquire them.
When Sheldrake`s first book was published, needless to say, there was great controversy in the academic journals regarding the value of his hypothesis. One reviewer in Nature magazine considered that the book would make good kindling for a fire, at least, if nothing else. Such reactions, however, are an indication that someone has come up with a perspective containing enough incendiary potential to melt down the rusted old paradigm and reforge it into something fresh. One recalls the anxieties of Saturn which impelled him to devour his children when he learned that Zeus was coming to put an end to his Golden Age.
Sheldrake`s first book was followed by his magnum opus, The Presence of the Past (1988), a philosophical and cultural amplification of ideas presented academically in the first volume. This was followed by The Rebirth of Nature (1991), in which he traced the birth, rise, and inevitable senescence of the materialistic world view that is presently crumbling beneath the onslaught of such fresh thought worlds as chaos theory, the Gaia hypothesis, cellular symbiosis, and morphic resonance. Sheldrake`s next book, Trialogues at the Edge of the West (1992), was a series of discussions with friends Terence McKenna and Ralph Abraham regarding the current state of cosmology.
In 1995, Sheldrake`s little gem Seven Experiments That Could Change the World was proposed as a do-it-yourself guide to science, in the spirit that some of science`s great ideas have come from amateurs and dilettantes outside the formal academic world (Leeuwenhoek was a janitor; Mayer was a surgeon; Mendel was a monk). Sheldrake presents a series of experiments in which he invites the reader to participate in the investigation of such unexplained phenomena as pets who know when their owners are coming home, the strange homing powers of pigeons, or the phenomenon of phantom limbs.
Most recently Sheldrake has collaborated with theologian Matthew Fox on two sets of dialogues, Natural Grace and the Physics of Angels, in which the ongoing conversation between science and spirituality finds fresh incarnation. A new set of discussions with Abraham and McKenna is on the way, to be entitled Trialogues at the Edge of the Unthinkable.
In the following interview, Sheldrake and I discuss his ideas about aging, the existence of the soul, reincarnation, ghosts, telepathy, and angels. For despite Kant`s insistence on keeping the two spheres separate, it is important to know what the changing perspectives of science have to say about traditional spiritual beliefs. The elementary ideas of the human imagination---gods, spirits, the category of the holy---have been ubiquitous throughout the development of human evolution, and there is no reason to think that the death of orthodox Christianity at the hands of an increasingly arrogant mechanistic science means that these ideas are merely vestigial relics from man`s ``superstitious`` past. On the contrary, as Carl Jung often pointed out, modern man`s lack of contact with these ideas has left him vulnerable to all sorts of political, social, and economic hysterias which have plagued the course of the twentieth century with one catastrophe after another. It is therefore important to bring the two perspectives together in order to heal the deep schism between the sciences and the humanities, which has resulted in an inability to communicate with each other, which C. P. Snow remarked upon in his book The Two Cultures.
JE: One of the first papers that you wrote was on the aging, growth, and death of cells. Can you say a few words about the theory of aging that you proposed in that paper?
RS: Well, I think aging is inherent in all forms of life because accidents occur, things go wrong, just like they do in a house, where there`s always something that goes wrong and needs repairing. But living cells have limited repair capacities. And so, when there are mistakes that can`t be repaired, they tend to accumulate. That I think is the basis of aging. My proposal was that what happens in regeneration is that cells can be regenerated only by growing so fast that they dilute these breakdown products, these seeds of death that build up as a result of aging.
Or, cells divide asymmetrically---that is, they divide in an unequal way, so that one of the daughter cells gets the seeds of death in an unfair measure, while the other one is regenerated. Asymmetrical cell division is very common in both animals and plants, in tissues which go on growing indefinitely, like the skin, the blood cells, or the growing tips of plant shoots. It`s also found in the way egg cells are formed in both animals and plants, where, for every egg cell that`s made, there are three highly mortal cells which are cast aside as the new regenerated egg cell is formed. So this was the basis of the cellular theory of aging as I proposed it in my Nature paper.
JE: Joseph Campbell (102) once suggested that the idea of morphogenetic fields reminded him of the Hindu concept of maya---the field of space-time that gives birth to the forms of the world. You wrote your first book, A New Science of Life, while living in an ashram in India. Do you think that the content of your book was influenced at all by a resonance with the traditions of Indian thought?
RS: Well, I think it probably was, but the basic idea of morphic resonance and morphic fields came to me while I was in Cambridge, before I went to live in India. The main influence on my thinking about morphogenetic fields came from the holistic tradition in developmental biology, where these fields are fairly widely accepted.
The main influence on my idea of an influence through time---the morphic resonance idea---in fact came through Henri Bergson in his book Matter and Memory, where he argues that memory is not stored in a material form in the brain. I realized that Bergson`s ideas on memory, which were to me completely new and incredibly exciting, could be generalized, and it was really through reflecting on Bergson`s thought that I came to this idea.
However, when I went to work in India in an agricultural institute, I went on thinking about these ideas, and indeed they had much in common with Indian thought. I discovered, when I was first thinking about these things in Cambridge, that many people there simply couldn`t understand what I was going on about---particularly scientists---and thought the idea was too ridiculous to be worth taking seriously. When I arrived in India and discussed it with Hindu friends and colleagues, they took the opposite approach; they said, ``There`s nothing new in this, it was all known millennia ago to the ancient rishis.`` So, they found the ideas perfectly acceptable; the only thing was, they weren`t particularly interested in extending them into a scientific hypothesis.
I worked for five years in an agricultural institute before I went to live in the ashram to write my book. And I dare say, the climate of Indian thought was a very fertile one for me. It enabled me to go on thinking about these ideas in a much more favorable environment than if I`d been doing it in Cambridge. But the germs of these ideas, the roots of my own thought, are in Western philosophy and science rather than Oriental philosophy. So, it`s a kind of convergence.
JE: You see evolutionary history as a tension between the two forces of habit---or morphic resonance---and creativity, which involves the appearance of new morphic fields. But in the case of mass extinctions you suggested once that the ghosts of dead species would still be haunting the world, that the fields of the dinosaurs would still be potentially present if you could tune into them. Would you mind commenting on how it might be possible for extinct species to reappear?
RS: Well, I haven`t in mind some kind of Jurassic Park scenario. What I was thinking of was that the fields would remain present, but the conditions for tuning into them are no longer there if the species is extinct, so they`re not expressed. However, it`s a well known fact in evolutionary studies that some of the features of extinct species can reappear again and again. Sometimes this happens in occasional mutations, sometimes it turns up in the fossil record. And when these features of extinct species reappear, they`re usually given the name, ``atavism,`` which implies a kind of throwback to an ancestral form. Atavisms were well known to Darwin, and he was very interested in them for the same reasons I am, that they seem to imply a kind of memory of what went before.
JE: Do you think that morphic fields could account for the existence of ghosts in any way?
RS: Well, the fields represent a kind of memory. If places have memories, then I suppose it`s possible for ghostly-type phenomena to be built into their fields. This is a very hazy area of speculation and not one I`ve thought through rigorously. And I`ve had no incentive to think it through rigorously because it`s so hard to think of repeatable experiments with ghosts. But ghosts do seem to be a kind of memory thing, and morphic fields have to do with memory, so there may well be a connection.
JE: Karl Pribram suggests that memories are spread throughout the brain like waves, or holograms, and you go further in suggesting that memories may not be stored in the brain at all, but rather that the brain acts as a tuning device and picks up memories analogously to the way a television tunes in to certain frequencies. Furthermore, you`ve suggested that if memories aren`t stored in the brain at all, this leaves the door open for the possibility of the existence of the soul. Can you explain how your ideas on the existence of the soul fit into this paradigm?
RS: Well, we should clarify the terms here. The traditional view in Europe was that all animals and plants have souls---not just people---and that these souls were what organized their bodies and their instincts. In some ways, therefore, the traditional idea of soul is very similar to what I mean by morphic fields. The traditional view of the soul in Aristotle and in St. Thomas Aquinas was not the idea of some immortal spiritual principle. It was that the soul is a part of nature, a part of physics, in the general sense. It`s that which organizes living bodies. In that sense, all morphic fields of plants and animals are like souls.
However, in the case of human beings, the additional question arises as to whether it`s possible for the soul to persist after bodily death. Now, normally souls are associated with bodies. And the theory I`m putting forward is one that would see the soul normally associated with the body and memories coming about by morphic resonance. If it`s possible for the soul to survive the death of the body, then you could have a persistence of memory and of consciousness. From the point of view of the theory I`m putting forward, there`s nothing in the theory that says the soul has to survive the death of the body, and there`s nothing that says that it can`t. So this is simply an open question. But it`s not one that can be decided a priori.
JE: In your book The Presence of the Past (220B2), you have an interesting theory of reincarnation. You suggest that people who have memories of past lives may actually be tuning in to the memories of other people in the morphogenetic field, and that they may not actually represent reincarnated people at all. Would you care to comment on that?
RS: Yes. I`m suggesting that through morphic resonance we can all tune in to a kind of collective memory, memories from many people in the past. It`s theoretically possible that we could tune into the memories of specific people. That might be explained subjectively as a memory of a past life. But this way of thinking about it doesn`t necessarily mean this has to be reincarnation. The fact that you can tune into somebody else`s memories doesn`t prove that you are that person. Again, I would leave the question open.
But, you see, this provides a middle way of thinking about the evidence for memories of past lives, for example, that collected by Ian Stevenson and others. Usually the debate is polarized between people who say this is all nonsense because reincarnation is impossible---the standard scientific, skeptical view (I should say, the standard skeptical view; it`s not particularly scientific)---and the other people who say this evidence proves what we`ve always believed, namely, the reality of reincarnation. I`m suggesting that it`s possible to accept the evidence and accept the phenomenon, but without jumping to the conclusion that it has to be reincarnation.
JE: So your theory that information can be transmitted by these nonmaterial morphic fields makes theoretically plausible a paradigm in which phenomena such as telepathy or ESP can be understood. Can you explain how your paradigm makes sense out of this type of phenomena?
RS: Well, if people can tune in to what other people have done in the past, then telepathy is a kind of logical extension of that. If you think of somebody tuning in to somebody else`s thought a fraction of a second ago, then it becomes almost instantaneous and approaches the case of telepathy. So telepathy doesn`t seem to be particularly difficult in principle to explain, if there`s a world in which morphic resonance takes place.
I think that some of the other phenomena of parapsychology are hard to explain from the point of view of morphic fields and morphic resonance. For example, anything to do with precognition or premonition doesn`t fit in to an idea of influences just coming in from the past. So, I don`t think this is going to give a blanket explanation of all parapsychological phenomena, but I think it`s going to make some of it at least, seem normal, rather than paranormal.
JE: In your book Seven Experiments That Could Change the World, you point out that the expectations of experimenters have a great deal to do with the outcome of their experiments. And you even suggest that they might influence their experiments through psychokinesis or telepathy. Would you mind discussing how that might work?
RS: Yes, it`s well known that, in psychology and in medicine, the experimenter`s expectations can and do influence the outcome of experiments, which is why people use blind experimental techniques to try and minimize this effect. The second point is a new one that I`ve just discovered by doing a survey of the literature and scientific practice of laboratories from different branches of science. And this reveals that in the physical sciences and in most of biology, people never do blind experiments. There`s no protection, whatever, against possible experimenter effects. It seems to me quite possible that experimenters could be biasing the way they record their data. And I would be very surprised if that doesn`t happen in conventional science.
But I think something more surprising and alarming might be happening, as you suggest, namely, a possible psychokinetic influence over the actual experimental system. Scientists would be completely unprepared for this if it were happening; they`d take no precautions against it. The culture of institutional science dismisses it as impossible. So, there would be a great vulnerability to this effect, if it`s going on, and it might be happening quite commonly in science.
We know from the psychokinetic studies of Robert Jahn of Princeton that people can influence random number generators in a rather surprising way, even at a distance. And since quantum events and random number generators are not unlike the quantum events occurring in physical, chemical, and biological systems, there`s already a precedent in experimental data for this kind of mind over matter effect. In Jahn`s experiments, people are simply doing a kind of harmless game. In scientific experiments, where the experimenter has a lot invested in the outcome of the experiment, a lot of hopes and tensions and funding proposals hinging on what happens, the intensity of expectation may be much greater, and the consequences far larger than anything detected by Jahn. But this is an unexplained area. In that book I suggest several experiments that could be done in order to test for this effect in conventional science.
JE: Your recent books Natural Grace and The Physics of Angels, co-written with Matthew Fox, are explorations into the interface between science and spirituality. There have been other important scientists---such as David Bohm and Fritjof Capra---who have also taken an interest in crossbreeding science and spirituality. In what ways do you see these two areas of discourse intersecting and what kinds of cultural hybrids do you see resulting from this fusion?
RS: There are many areas of potential intersection. One is the cosmological, because when science is talking about creation, it`s getting into a realm that has been very much the preserve of religion for a long time. I`m not now thinking simply of ``where did the big bang come from?`` If we focus too much on the initial moments of creation, about which we know practically nothing, we get into a situation rather like that of the eighteenth-century deists, who thought of God making the world machine and starting it up and then standing back and letting it go on by itself.
I`m more interested in the ongoing creativity, which is expressed in the evolutionary process, and the evolutionary process must have an inherent creativity, and we know that our universe is creative at all levels, physical, biological, or mental, cultural, and so on. So, what is the source of this creativity? Well, it`s really a metaphysical question and materialist science has no other suggestion than chance, which really means that it`s unintelligible---we can`t think about it. However, this does overlap with traditional areas of theological and spiritual enquiry. Therefore this is one area of discussion.
Another is the nature of the soul, the psyche, consciousness, which science, until very recently, has had almost nothing to say about but which is obviously of crucial importance to our understanding of ourselves and of nature. And as I show in my book with Matthew Fox, there are yet further areas, such as the question of prayer and how it works. If people praying for things to happen on the other side of the world have a statistically measurable effect on what does happen, you`ve got a kind of action at a distance, which is in the purview of science to investigate. And this is precisely what people who pray claim can happen. So I think there are quite a number of areas of fruitful discourse and enquiry. And I think that as science breaks out of this narrow mechanism that has been its straitjacket for so long, approaching a more holistic view of nature, then much more possibility of fruitful interaction occurs between science and the spiritual.
JE: You mention that your new book, The Physics of Angels, was inspired by the similarity of St. Thomas Aquinas`s descriptions of angels as without mass or body, and the modern view of science that particles of lightCphotonsCalso have neither mass nor body. Can you elaborate on the significance of this?
RS: Well, when Matthew Fox and I were first talking about angels together, this was one of the points we raised. We both found it quite fascinating. I think that Aquinas was trying to think as logically and as rationally as he could about what it would mean to be a being with no mass which could yet move and act. If you think in those terms, I suppose you come to rather similar conclusions as people like Einstein and other pioneers in the present century, when they were thinking about relativity and quantum theory. You`re sort of driven to very similar conclusions. Einstein`s photons of light have remarkable parallels to Aquinas`s discussions of the movements of angels. And I think it`s because they were starting from similar premises. And thinking in a similarly logical way about the consequences.
References
Campbell, Joseph. The Inner Reaches of Outer Space. New York: Harper & Row, 1988.
Fox, Matthew, and Rupert Sheldrake. Natural Grace: Dialogues on Creation, Darkness, and the Soul in Spirituality and Science. New York: Doubleday, 1996.
Jahn, Robert G. and Brenda J. Dunne. Margins of Reality: The Role of Consciousness in the Physical World. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1987.
Sheldrake, Rupert. ``The Ageing, Growth and Death of Cells.`` Nature 250 (1974): 381B5.
------. A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Formative Causation. Los Angeles: Tarcher, 1981.
------. The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature. New York: Random House, 1988.
------. The Rebirth of Nature: The Greening of Science and God. New York: Bantam, 1991.
------. Seven Experiments That Could Change the World: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Revolutionary Science. New York: Riverhead Books, 1995.
Sheldrake, Rupert, Terence McKenna, and Ralph Abraham. Trialogues at the Edge of the West. Santa Fe, NM: Bear, 1992.
Stevenson, Ian. Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1974.
#32 Posted by scout on April 21, 2002 8:29:04 pm
Ansari #28,
you think too much, relax and live for the moment
you think too much, relax and live for the moment
#31 Posted by progressive on April 21, 2002 1:04:59 pm
Asim Hayat:
Impressed by your replies to the disgustingly boring & insipid Chowk Naaseh;here`s looking at you,buddy.
The Seven Experiments
Some of sheldrake`s more controversial proposals are outlined in Seven Experiments That Could Change the World: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Revolutionary Science (1994). Here he offers unconventional explanations for some of the mysterious occurrences in biology and invites the public to carry out their own preliminary tests. Many of Sheldrake`s theories deal with animals Sheldrake himself became fascinated by the ability of homing pigeons as a boy.
1. A pet`s ability to anticipate its owner`s return home. Some pets seem to anticipate when their owners are returning home. One case reported to Sheldrake concerned a dog who sat by the front door half an hour before her owner returned from work, even though the owner kept extremely irregular hours, and often failed to telephone in advance. Sheldrake believes the pet and owner are connected via a morphic field.
2. The direction-finding instincts of homing pigeons. The ability of pigeons and other animals to find their homes even when transported far away has been explained by dead reckoning, vision, smell or magnetism. But Sheldrake proposes that their homing is due in part to the morphic field, which can expand like an invisible elastic band.
3. The highly organized structure of termite communities. When making tunnels, two groups of termites begin by building each side of an arch until it meets in the middle even with a steel plate dividing the two sides. How does each team know what the other is doing? Sheldrake suggests that the animals themselves and the structure they are building create a morphic field, analogous to the magnetic field around an electric coil, within which all individuals perform their allotted tasks.
4. Our own tendency to know when we are being stared at from behind. About 90% of the population have experienced the phenomena of being looked at from behind and of looking at someone from behind and finding that they turn round. ``If people really can tell when they are being looked at from behind, this suggests that an influence somehow reaches out from the looker,`` Sheldrake says. ``Since my book was published, staring experiments have been conducted at more than 60 schools in Britain, America and Germany, and also by more than 20 other groups. The results of these experiments have been positive in practically all cases.``
5. Sensations felt in phantom limbs after amputation. When people lose a limb, they do not usually lose the sense of its presence. It feels as if it is really there, even though it is no longer materially real. In addition to a sense of its shape, position and movement, amputees generally experience various feelings within the missing limb, such as itching, warmth and twisting.
6. The validity of the scientific constants as true constants. The ``physical constants`` are numbers used by scientists in their calculations. They are supposed to be changeless and are believed to reflect an underlying constancy of nature. Sheldrake posits that the values of the fundamental physical constants have in fact changed over the last few decades and suggests how the nature of these changes can be investigated further.
7. The effect scientists` biases may have on experimentation. Positive and negative expectations often influence what actually happens. According to Sheldrake, many scientists carry out experiments with strong expectations about the outcome, and with deep-rooted assumptions about what is and what is not possible. He believes their expectations influence their results. He cites numerous experiments with placebos and the need for ``double blind`` tests so as to not affect the experiment by the experimenters` thoughts or views.
On the Web
Whether you have an advanced degree in biochemistry or you`re just an armchair scientist with an open mind, you`ll find Dr. Sheldrake`s website (www.sheldrake.org) a surprisingly approachable resource for discovering more about his experiments, books and theories. The site is easy to navigate and avoids the Ph.D. language that could make it more of a puzzle than a pleasure. For those who want to get more involved, check out the Experiments link, where you can find all the details you`ll need to test a few of Sheldrake`s experiments at home. Then you can link to the Web discussion page, ``Morphic Talk,`` which allows viewers to participate in some heady online discussion.
This is also the place to go to find out what Sheldrake is working on now, where to buy his books and even send him an email. One viewer told Sheldrake about her telepathic parrot, a Congo African Gray parrot named N`kisi, who speaks in original sentences and evidently possesses a rudimentary grasp of grammar. The parrot is now the subject of ongoing research by Sheldrake and the parrot`s owner. ``We also hope this work will assist people to realize the amazing abilities, intelligence and awareness of animals, and encourage greater care of these precious beings and the planetary environment we share,`` Sheldrake writes. Also of interest are his biography, Papers & Abstracts, FAQs and a glossary, in case you need to know the difference between morphic and morphogenesis. Finally, there`s a nice selection of interviews and discussions of some of the more heated controversies surrounding Sheldrake`s work.
Impressed by your replies to the disgustingly boring & insipid Chowk Naaseh;here`s looking at you,buddy.
The Seven Experiments
Some of sheldrake`s more controversial proposals are outlined in Seven Experiments That Could Change the World: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Revolutionary Science (1994). Here he offers unconventional explanations for some of the mysterious occurrences in biology and invites the public to carry out their own preliminary tests. Many of Sheldrake`s theories deal with animals Sheldrake himself became fascinated by the ability of homing pigeons as a boy.
1. A pet`s ability to anticipate its owner`s return home. Some pets seem to anticipate when their owners are returning home. One case reported to Sheldrake concerned a dog who sat by the front door half an hour before her owner returned from work, even though the owner kept extremely irregular hours, and often failed to telephone in advance. Sheldrake believes the pet and owner are connected via a morphic field.
2. The direction-finding instincts of homing pigeons. The ability of pigeons and other animals to find their homes even when transported far away has been explained by dead reckoning, vision, smell or magnetism. But Sheldrake proposes that their homing is due in part to the morphic field, which can expand like an invisible elastic band.
3. The highly organized structure of termite communities. When making tunnels, two groups of termites begin by building each side of an arch until it meets in the middle even with a steel plate dividing the two sides. How does each team know what the other is doing? Sheldrake suggests that the animals themselves and the structure they are building create a morphic field, analogous to the magnetic field around an electric coil, within which all individuals perform their allotted tasks.
4. Our own tendency to know when we are being stared at from behind. About 90% of the population have experienced the phenomena of being looked at from behind and of looking at someone from behind and finding that they turn round. ``If people really can tell when they are being looked at from behind, this suggests that an influence somehow reaches out from the looker,`` Sheldrake says. ``Since my book was published, staring experiments have been conducted at more than 60 schools in Britain, America and Germany, and also by more than 20 other groups. The results of these experiments have been positive in practically all cases.``
5. Sensations felt in phantom limbs after amputation. When people lose a limb, they do not usually lose the sense of its presence. It feels as if it is really there, even though it is no longer materially real. In addition to a sense of its shape, position and movement, amputees generally experience various feelings within the missing limb, such as itching, warmth and twisting.
6. The validity of the scientific constants as true constants. The ``physical constants`` are numbers used by scientists in their calculations. They are supposed to be changeless and are believed to reflect an underlying constancy of nature. Sheldrake posits that the values of the fundamental physical constants have in fact changed over the last few decades and suggests how the nature of these changes can be investigated further.
7. The effect scientists` biases may have on experimentation. Positive and negative expectations often influence what actually happens. According to Sheldrake, many scientists carry out experiments with strong expectations about the outcome, and with deep-rooted assumptions about what is and what is not possible. He believes their expectations influence their results. He cites numerous experiments with placebos and the need for ``double blind`` tests so as to not affect the experiment by the experimenters` thoughts or views.
On the Web
Whether you have an advanced degree in biochemistry or you`re just an armchair scientist with an open mind, you`ll find Dr. Sheldrake`s website (www.sheldrake.org) a surprisingly approachable resource for discovering more about his experiments, books and theories. The site is easy to navigate and avoids the Ph.D. language that could make it more of a puzzle than a pleasure. For those who want to get more involved, check out the Experiments link, where you can find all the details you`ll need to test a few of Sheldrake`s experiments at home. Then you can link to the Web discussion page, ``Morphic Talk,`` which allows viewers to participate in some heady online discussion.
This is also the place to go to find out what Sheldrake is working on now, where to buy his books and even send him an email. One viewer told Sheldrake about her telepathic parrot, a Congo African Gray parrot named N`kisi, who speaks in original sentences and evidently possesses a rudimentary grasp of grammar. The parrot is now the subject of ongoing research by Sheldrake and the parrot`s owner. ``We also hope this work will assist people to realize the amazing abilities, intelligence and awareness of animals, and encourage greater care of these precious beings and the planetary environment we share,`` Sheldrake writes. Also of interest are his biography, Papers & Abstracts, FAQs and a glossary, in case you need to know the difference between morphic and morphogenesis. Finally, there`s a nice selection of interviews and discussions of some of the more heated controversies surrounding Sheldrake`s work.
#30 Posted by anNy on April 21, 2002 1:04:59 pm
tahmedsaab
my annoying indian family would say it to annoy me as well as some friends from there..no more ;)
my annoying indian family would say it to annoy me as well as some friends from there..no more ;)
#29 Posted by rsaxena on April 21, 2002 1:04:59 pm
re: ylh
to jay:
{Your post shows how stupid you are ... It has nothing to do with North South east west or Geographical thickness or thinness... you idiot. }
...time zones ARE defined across lattitudes, or east-west...YOU idiot..
{{PS If you don`t know about something.. don`t make a fool of yourself...}}
precisely...
to jay:
{Your post shows how stupid you are ... It has nothing to do with North South east west or Geographical thickness or thinness... you idiot. }
...time zones ARE defined across lattitudes, or east-west...YOU idiot..
{{PS If you don`t know about something.. don`t make a fool of yourself...}}
precisely...
#28 Posted by Ansari on April 20, 2002 9:36:44 pm
The strangest things happen and just when you least expect it, life whacks you into place for not paying attention.
I was asked to lunch a few days ago. One of the aunties next door (there are many, each larger and more durraonee than the last) said she`d make some besni roti for me since she`d found out I like it. Most aunties, when making invitations of this sort always have some sort of ulterior motive festering somewhere, like that crocodile in the poem, cheerfully luring fish into its sweetly smiling jaws. An unmarried daughter or sister, an ingrowing toenail, perhaps a broken microwave; something they`d like you to relieve them of. But Sobiaunty is not a regular aunty. Sure she had her idiotsyncracies, her crooked teeth, her incessant twittering, frequent spells of mad giggling at the slightest provocation, but she meant well. You could be safe she wouldn`t poison your meal with ludicrous requests of the marrying kind.
So I went. And sat down with Sobiaunty fluttering about me like a drunken sparrow, setting the table while I tried to look friendly to her brood. Soon enough the rotis came out, fresh on to my plate. They were TREMENDOUS! Soft and buttery, they simply melted in your mouth leaving just the hint of a delicious besni aftertaste. For a good while I was lost to the food, oblivious even to the impudent chanting of her children, Lallu Panda and Jwoy (``Aamirbhai! Motubhai!``), conscious only of the storms bursting in my mouth. And when I got up, many many rotis later, there she was smiling good-humoredly at me, crooked teeth and all, with a doggy bag (``raat ke liye``).
I wanted to apologise, make up for privately maligning her in my thought, but couldn`t. There was nothing to say. We live such secluded lives, opening ourselves only to those who fall within our silly requirements that it`s easy to ignore the quiet generosity of strangers, or near-strangers. Maybe I can get her gift, though what I have no idea.
I was asked to lunch a few days ago. One of the aunties next door (there are many, each larger and more durraonee than the last) said she`d make some besni roti for me since she`d found out I like it. Most aunties, when making invitations of this sort always have some sort of ulterior motive festering somewhere, like that crocodile in the poem, cheerfully luring fish into its sweetly smiling jaws. An unmarried daughter or sister, an ingrowing toenail, perhaps a broken microwave; something they`d like you to relieve them of. But Sobiaunty is not a regular aunty. Sure she had her idiotsyncracies, her crooked teeth, her incessant twittering, frequent spells of mad giggling at the slightest provocation, but she meant well. You could be safe she wouldn`t poison your meal with ludicrous requests of the marrying kind.
So I went. And sat down with Sobiaunty fluttering about me like a drunken sparrow, setting the table while I tried to look friendly to her brood. Soon enough the rotis came out, fresh on to my plate. They were TREMENDOUS! Soft and buttery, they simply melted in your mouth leaving just the hint of a delicious besni aftertaste. For a good while I was lost to the food, oblivious even to the impudent chanting of her children, Lallu Panda and Jwoy (``Aamirbhai! Motubhai!``), conscious only of the storms bursting in my mouth. And when I got up, many many rotis later, there she was smiling good-humoredly at me, crooked teeth and all, with a doggy bag (``raat ke liye``).
I wanted to apologise, make up for privately maligning her in my thought, but couldn`t. There was nothing to say. We live such secluded lives, opening ourselves only to those who fall within our silly requirements that it`s easy to ignore the quiet generosity of strangers, or near-strangers. Maybe I can get her gift, though what I have no idea.
#27 Posted by ShirinAhmed on April 20, 2002 9:36:44 pm
Bina,
This was wonderful.I wish you would consider putting your work on a web site.Its a pity not to have access to it in Diyaare-Ghair .
love,
shirin
This was wonderful.I wish you would consider putting your work on a web site.Its a pity not to have access to it in Diyaare-Ghair .
love,
shirin
#26 Posted by musalmaan on April 20, 2002 9:36:44 pm
THE MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES AND PHYSICS
The Muslim mind has always been attracted to the mathematical sciences in accordance with the ``abstract`` character of the doctrine of Oneness which lies at the heart of Islam. The mathematical sciences have traditionally included astronomy, mathematics itself and much of what is called physics today. In astronomy the Muslims integrated the astronomical traditions of the Indians, Persians, the ancient Near East and especially the Greeks into a synthesis which began to chart a new chapter in the history of astronomy from the 8th century onward. The Almagest of Ptolemy, whose very name in English reveals the Arabic origin of its Latin translation, was thoroughly studied and its planetary theory criticized by several astronomers of both the eastern and western lands of Islam leading to the major critique of the theory by Nasir al-Din Al-Tusi and his students, especially Qutb al-Din Al-Shirazi, in the 13th century.
The Muslims also observed the heavens carefully and discovered many new stars. The book on stars of `Abd Al-Rahman al-Sufi was in fact translated into Spanish by Alfonso X. El Sabio had a deep influence upon stellar toponymy in European languages. Many star names in English, such as Aldabran, still recall their Arabic origin. The Muslims carried out many fresh observations which were contained in astronomical tables called Zij. One of the most acute of these observers was al-Battani whose work was followed by numerous others. The Zij of al-Ma`mun observed in Baghdad, the Hakimite Zij of Cairo, the Toledan Tables of al-Zarqali and his associated, the II-Khanid Zij of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi observed in Maraghah, and the Zij of Ulugh-Beg from Samarqand are among the most famous Islamic astronomical tables. They wielded a great deal of influence upon Western astronomy up to the time of Tycho Brahe. The Muslims were in fact the first to create an astronomical observatory as a scientific institution, this being the observatory of Maraghah in Persia established by al-Tusi. This was indirectly the model for the later European observatories. Many astronomical instruments were developed by Muslims to carry out observation, the most famous being the astrolabe. There existed even mechanical astrolabes perfected by Ibn Samh which must be considered as the ancestor of the mechanical clock.
Astronomical observations also had practical applications including not only finding the direction of Makkah for prayers, but also devising almanacs (the word itself being of Arabic origin). The Muslims also applied their astronomical knowledge to questions of time-keeping and the calendar. The most exact solar calendar existing to this day is the Jalali calendar devised under the direction of `Umar Khayyam in the 12th century and still in use in Persia and Afghanistan.
As for mathematics proper, like astronomy, it received its direct impetus from the Qur`an not only because of the mathematical structure related to the text of the Sacred Book, but also because the laws of inheritance delineated in the Qur`an require rather complicated mathematical solutions. Here again Muslims began by integrating Greek and Indian mathematics. The first great Muslim mathematician, al-Khwarazmi, who lived in the 9th century, wrote a treatise on arithmetic whose Latin translation brought what is known as Arabic numerals to the West. To this day guarismo, derived from his name, means figure or digit in Spanish while algorithm is still used in English. Al-Khwarizmi was also the author of the first book on algebra. This science was developed by Muslims on the basis of earlier Greek and Indian works of a rudimentary nature. The very name algebra comes from the first part of the name of the book of al-Khwarazmi, entitled Kitab al-jabr wa`l-muqabalah. Abu Kamil al-Shuja` discussed algebraic equations with five unknowns. The science was further developed by such figures as al-Karaji until it reached its peak with Khayyam who classified by kind and class algebraic equations up to the third degree.
The Muslims also excelled in geometry as reflected in their art. The brothers Banu Musa who lived in the 9th century may be said to be the first outstanding Muslim geometers while their contemporary Thabit ibn Qurrah used the method of exhaustion, giving a glimpse of what was to become integral calculus. Many Muslim mathematicians such as Khayyam and al-Tusi also dealt with the fifth postulate of Euclid and the problems which follow if one tries to prove this postulate within the confines of Euclidian geometry.
Another branch of mathematics developed by Muslims is trigonometry, which was established as a distinct branch of mathematics by al-Biruni. The Muslim mathematicians, especially al-Battani, Abu`l-Wafa`, Ibn Yunus and Ibn al-Haytham, also developed spherical astronomy and applied it to the solution of astronomy and applied it to the solutions of astronomical problems.
Love for the study of magic squares and amicable numbers led Muslims to develop a theory of numbers. Al-Khujandi discovered a particular case of Fermat`s theorem that ``the sum of two cubes cannot be another cube,`` while al-Karaji analyzed arithmetic and geometric progressions such as: 13+23+33+...+n3=(1+2+3+...+n)2. Al-Biruni also dealt with progressions, while Ghiyath al-Din Jamshid al-Kashani brought the study of number theory among Muslims to its peak.
In the field of physics the Muslims made contributions especially in three domains. The first was the measurement of specific weights of objects and the study of the balance following upon the work of Archimedes. In this domain the writings of al-Biruni and al-Khazini stand out. Secondly they criticized the Aristotelian theory of projectile motion and tried to quantify this type of motion. The critique of Ibn Sina, Abu`l-Barakat
al-Baghdadi, Ibn Bajjah and others led to the development of the idea of impetus and momentum and played an important role in the criticism of Aristotelian physics in the West up to the early writings of Galileo. Thirdly there is the field of optics in which the Islamic sciences produced in Ibn al-Haytham (the Latin Alhazen) who lived in the 11th century, the greatest student of optics between Ptolemy and Witelo. Ibn al-Haytham`s main work on optics, the Kitab al-manazir, was also well known in the West as Thesaurus opticus. Ibn al-Haytham solved many optical problems, one of which is named after him, studied the property of lenses, discovered the Camera Obscura, explained correctly the process of vision, studied the structure of the eye, and explained for the first time why the sun and the moon appear larger on the horizon. His interest in optics was carried out two centuries later by Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi and Kamal al-Din al-Farisi. It was Qutb al-Din who gave the first correct explanation of the formation of the rainbow.
It is important to recall that in physics as in many other fields of science the Muslims observed, measured and carried out experiments. They must be credited with having developed what came to be known later as the scientific, or empirical method.
The Muslim mind has always been attracted to the mathematical sciences in accordance with the ``abstract`` character of the doctrine of Oneness which lies at the heart of Islam. The mathematical sciences have traditionally included astronomy, mathematics itself and much of what is called physics today. In astronomy the Muslims integrated the astronomical traditions of the Indians, Persians, the ancient Near East and especially the Greeks into a synthesis which began to chart a new chapter in the history of astronomy from the 8th century onward. The Almagest of Ptolemy, whose very name in English reveals the Arabic origin of its Latin translation, was thoroughly studied and its planetary theory criticized by several astronomers of both the eastern and western lands of Islam leading to the major critique of the theory by Nasir al-Din Al-Tusi and his students, especially Qutb al-Din Al-Shirazi, in the 13th century.
The Muslims also observed the heavens carefully and discovered many new stars. The book on stars of `Abd Al-Rahman al-Sufi was in fact translated into Spanish by Alfonso X. El Sabio had a deep influence upon stellar toponymy in European languages. Many star names in English, such as Aldabran, still recall their Arabic origin. The Muslims carried out many fresh observations which were contained in astronomical tables called Zij. One of the most acute of these observers was al-Battani whose work was followed by numerous others. The Zij of al-Ma`mun observed in Baghdad, the Hakimite Zij of Cairo, the Toledan Tables of al-Zarqali and his associated, the II-Khanid Zij of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi observed in Maraghah, and the Zij of Ulugh-Beg from Samarqand are among the most famous Islamic astronomical tables. They wielded a great deal of influence upon Western astronomy up to the time of Tycho Brahe. The Muslims were in fact the first to create an astronomical observatory as a scientific institution, this being the observatory of Maraghah in Persia established by al-Tusi. This was indirectly the model for the later European observatories. Many astronomical instruments were developed by Muslims to carry out observation, the most famous being the astrolabe. There existed even mechanical astrolabes perfected by Ibn Samh which must be considered as the ancestor of the mechanical clock.
Astronomical observations also had practical applications including not only finding the direction of Makkah for prayers, but also devising almanacs (the word itself being of Arabic origin). The Muslims also applied their astronomical knowledge to questions of time-keeping and the calendar. The most exact solar calendar existing to this day is the Jalali calendar devised under the direction of `Umar Khayyam in the 12th century and still in use in Persia and Afghanistan.
As for mathematics proper, like astronomy, it received its direct impetus from the Qur`an not only because of the mathematical structure related to the text of the Sacred Book, but also because the laws of inheritance delineated in the Qur`an require rather complicated mathematical solutions. Here again Muslims began by integrating Greek and Indian mathematics. The first great Muslim mathematician, al-Khwarazmi, who lived in the 9th century, wrote a treatise on arithmetic whose Latin translation brought what is known as Arabic numerals to the West. To this day guarismo, derived from his name, means figure or digit in Spanish while algorithm is still used in English. Al-Khwarizmi was also the author of the first book on algebra. This science was developed by Muslims on the basis of earlier Greek and Indian works of a rudimentary nature. The very name algebra comes from the first part of the name of the book of al-Khwarazmi, entitled Kitab al-jabr wa`l-muqabalah. Abu Kamil al-Shuja` discussed algebraic equations with five unknowns. The science was further developed by such figures as al-Karaji until it reached its peak with Khayyam who classified by kind and class algebraic equations up to the third degree.
The Muslims also excelled in geometry as reflected in their art. The brothers Banu Musa who lived in the 9th century may be said to be the first outstanding Muslim geometers while their contemporary Thabit ibn Qurrah used the method of exhaustion, giving a glimpse of what was to become integral calculus. Many Muslim mathematicians such as Khayyam and al-Tusi also dealt with the fifth postulate of Euclid and the problems which follow if one tries to prove this postulate within the confines of Euclidian geometry.
Another branch of mathematics developed by Muslims is trigonometry, which was established as a distinct branch of mathematics by al-Biruni. The Muslim mathematicians, especially al-Battani, Abu`l-Wafa`, Ibn Yunus and Ibn al-Haytham, also developed spherical astronomy and applied it to the solution of astronomy and applied it to the solutions of astronomical problems.
Love for the study of magic squares and amicable numbers led Muslims to develop a theory of numbers. Al-Khujandi discovered a particular case of Fermat`s theorem that ``the sum of two cubes cannot be another cube,`` while al-Karaji analyzed arithmetic and geometric progressions such as: 13+23+33+...+n3=(1+2+3+...+n)2. Al-Biruni also dealt with progressions, while Ghiyath al-Din Jamshid al-Kashani brought the study of number theory among Muslims to its peak.
In the field of physics the Muslims made contributions especially in three domains. The first was the measurement of specific weights of objects and the study of the balance following upon the work of Archimedes. In this domain the writings of al-Biruni and al-Khazini stand out. Secondly they criticized the Aristotelian theory of projectile motion and tried to quantify this type of motion. The critique of Ibn Sina, Abu`l-Barakat
al-Baghdadi, Ibn Bajjah and others led to the development of the idea of impetus and momentum and played an important role in the criticism of Aristotelian physics in the West up to the early writings of Galileo. Thirdly there is the field of optics in which the Islamic sciences produced in Ibn al-Haytham (the Latin Alhazen) who lived in the 11th century, the greatest student of optics between Ptolemy and Witelo. Ibn al-Haytham`s main work on optics, the Kitab al-manazir, was also well known in the West as Thesaurus opticus. Ibn al-Haytham solved many optical problems, one of which is named after him, studied the property of lenses, discovered the Camera Obscura, explained correctly the process of vision, studied the structure of the eye, and explained for the first time why the sun and the moon appear larger on the horizon. His interest in optics was carried out two centuries later by Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi and Kamal al-Din al-Farisi. It was Qutb al-Din who gave the first correct explanation of the formation of the rainbow.
It is important to recall that in physics as in many other fields of science the Muslims observed, measured and carried out experiments. They must be credited with having developed what came to be known later as the scientific, or empirical method.
#25 Posted by Snoopy on April 20, 2002 9:36:44 pm
``....the government is almost certain to consider advancing the clocks by two hours instead of one the same time next year, following the old adage of ``More is Better`` (no reference to Benazir Bhutto or Nawaz Sharif intended)....``
rotfl...ha ha ha
Wish india follows Pakistan in DST ...We have to keep worrying... is it 91/2 or 101/2 hrs Time differential depending which season it is!!
Come to think of it ...Now that Pakistan has done it ...``mar jayenge lekin Pakistan jaisa har giz nahi hone dain ge ...jan jaye par vachan jaye ...maaaa``
rotfl...ha ha ha
Wish india follows Pakistan in DST ...We have to keep worrying... is it 91/2 or 101/2 hrs Time differential depending which season it is!!
Come to think of it ...Now that Pakistan has done it ...``mar jayenge lekin Pakistan jaisa har giz nahi hone dain ge ...jan jaye par vachan jaye ...maaaa``
#24 Posted by ylh on April 20, 2002 9:36:44 pm
Jay the idiot,
Your post shows how stupid you are ... It has nothing to do with North South east west or Geographical thickness or thinness... you idiot.
England is much thinner than us.. but they have the times don`t they? First grow up and learn what is being talked about.. pagal kahin kay...
-YLH
PS If you don`t know about something.. don`t make a fool of yourself...
#23 Posted by taimurmalik on April 19, 2002 8:14:42 pm
Bina
Nice and Interesting :)
Read the piece in Review as well..found it pretty interesting too..you should do such stuff more often..
But i think it won`t hurt if every time you were to also acknowledge the finer points, the advantages as well..:)..even if in a funny way!
regards,
Taimur.
Nice and Interesting :)
Read the piece in Review as well..found it pretty interesting too..you should do such stuff more often..
But i think it won`t hurt if every time you were to also acknowledge the finer points, the advantages as well..:)..even if in a funny way!
regards,
Taimur.
#22 Posted by tahmed321 on April 19, 2002 3:44:18 pm
anNY #17 you write ``one more `the land time forgot` taanaa and i would have screamt really loud``
I missed this ``land that time forgot`` quote on chowk, and it is quite funny. I am trying to think which chowk person would have written this: was it hamidm?
I missed this ``land that time forgot`` quote on chowk, and it is quite funny. I am trying to think which chowk person would have written this: was it hamidm?
#21 Posted by tahmed321 on April 19, 2002 11:25:42 am
musulman #19 As a product of the cantonments, and now living in the west, I wish to thank you for your Freudian analysis of my motivations for coming to the west and as being one of seeking ``menial jobs`` (your phrase) in order to one day be mistaken for ``a white or even black westerner`` (your phrase).
I note your two phrases in quotes above since they seem to reveal something about you that is in conflict with your considering yourself to be a musulman, as follows: You write ``menial jobs`` (like bhhangi, choorha, or as they say more respectfully in the west like janitor). A true muslim (or forget this muslim bullsh!t, and say any decent man) would not consider ANY job to be menial. I suppose they did not teach you that in the non-cantonment area where you were raised.
Second, ``white or EVEN black`` - I capitalize the EVEN since this reveals your own personal views of where a black man stands relative to a white man.
When you point a finger at someone, remember there are four fingers that you are pointing at yourself. My dear last musulman on earth. Fix yourself and stop worrying about Brahmans and Brigadiers. Most of them are living 10 floors above you in Morality Apartments.
I note your two phrases in quotes above since they seem to reveal something about you that is in conflict with your considering yourself to be a musulman, as follows: You write ``menial jobs`` (like bhhangi, choorha, or as they say more respectfully in the west like janitor). A true muslim (or forget this muslim bullsh!t, and say any decent man) would not consider ANY job to be menial. I suppose they did not teach you that in the non-cantonment area where you were raised.
Second, ``white or EVEN black`` - I capitalize the EVEN since this reveals your own personal views of where a black man stands relative to a white man.
When you point a finger at someone, remember there are four fingers that you are pointing at yourself. My dear last musulman on earth. Fix yourself and stop worrying about Brahmans and Brigadiers. Most of them are living 10 floors above you in Morality Apartments.
#20 Posted by jay on April 19, 2002 11:25:42 am
GIVE CREDIT WHERE IT IS DUE
A typical pakistani journalist, give no credit to the one who pointed out the reason behind it long time ago
A typical pakistani journalist, give no credit to the one who pointed out the reason behind it long time ago
#19 Posted by musalmaan on April 18, 2002 9:06:00 pm
Brahmanism is not the exclusive domain of the hindus.Those spawned from the colonies & cantonements and are awfully proud to dwell there have no compunction to distance themselves from the ``masses``(read shudar,dalits).
The Bureaucrat,Brigadier,and the Bania enjoys to take any menial job in the west for the sole advantage that he might one day,perhaps,get mistaken for a white or even black westerner.
Such kind are supposed to get reincarnated as /your-obedient-servants-in-english in perpetuity.
__________________________________________________
The Apparently Odd Behaviour of Sunrise/set times near the Winter Solstice
The winter solstice is the time when the Sun reaches its southmost distance from the celestial equator and hence, in northern latitudes is the day when the Sun is lowest in the sky at noon. This is, naturally, the shortest day of the year in northern latitudes. To many people it seems odd, therefore, that the time of sunrise continues to get later in the day after the solstice.
The reason for this is that the Sun does not cross the meridian (when it is highest in the sky) at precisely noon each day. The difference between clock-defined noon and the time when the Sun is on the meridian is called the Equation of Time and represents the correction which must be applied to the time given by a sundial to make it agree with clock time.
There are two reasons why the Sun is not on the meridian at noon each day. The first is that the path of the Earth around the Sun is an ellipse, and not a circle. The second is that the Earth`s equatorial plane and its orbital plane are inclined to one another. The two effects add together to yield the Equation of Time which can amount to some 16 minutes difference between solar and mean time.
The period when the Equation of Time is changing fastest in the whole year is very close to the Winter Solstice. It changes by 10 minutes from December 16 to January 5. This means that the time at which the Sun crosses the meridian changes by 10 minutes in this interval and also that the times of sunrise and sunset will change by the same amount.
Near the Solstice the Sun`s height in the sky changes very slowly and the length of the day also changes slowly. The rapid change due to the Equation of Time dominates the very slow change in day length and leads to the observed sunrise times.
The Bureaucrat,Brigadier,and the Bania enjoys to take any menial job in the west for the sole advantage that he might one day,perhaps,get mistaken for a white or even black westerner.
Such kind are supposed to get reincarnated as /your-obedient-servants-in-english in perpetuity.
__________________________________________________
The Apparently Odd Behaviour of Sunrise/set times near the Winter Solstice
The winter solstice is the time when the Sun reaches its southmost distance from the celestial equator and hence, in northern latitudes is the day when the Sun is lowest in the sky at noon. This is, naturally, the shortest day of the year in northern latitudes. To many people it seems odd, therefore, that the time of sunrise continues to get later in the day after the solstice.
The reason for this is that the Sun does not cross the meridian (when it is highest in the sky) at precisely noon each day. The difference between clock-defined noon and the time when the Sun is on the meridian is called the Equation of Time and represents the correction which must be applied to the time given by a sundial to make it agree with clock time.
There are two reasons why the Sun is not on the meridian at noon each day. The first is that the path of the Earth around the Sun is an ellipse, and not a circle. The second is that the Earth`s equatorial plane and its orbital plane are inclined to one another. The two effects add together to yield the Equation of Time which can amount to some 16 minutes difference between solar and mean time.
The period when the Equation of Time is changing fastest in the whole year is very close to the Winter Solstice. It changes by 10 minutes from December 16 to January 5. This means that the time at which the Sun crosses the meridian changes by 10 minutes in this interval and also that the times of sunrise and sunset will change by the same amount.
Near the Solstice the Sun`s height in the sky changes very slowly and the length of the day also changes slowly. The rapid change due to the Equation of Time dominates the very slow change in day length and leads to the observed sunrise times.
#18 Posted by ylh on April 18, 2002 9:06:00 pm
Bina,
Great article... atleast the people of Pakistan appreciate change.. given that there hasn`t been any for a very long time :) I must say, despite my cynicism with chowk and chowkwallahs, I actually do enjoy your writings...
Sincerely
Yasser
Great article... atleast the people of Pakistan appreciate change.. given that there hasn`t been any for a very long time :) I must say, despite my cynicism with chowk and chowkwallahs, I actually do enjoy your writings...
Sincerely
Yasser
#17 Posted by anNy on April 18, 2002 2:49:09 pm
Bina
funny...this is almost as good as the review piece a few weeks ago..(i did NOT like the results i got in this mornings quiz)..the time change had me very confused for the first 3 days and i kept on arriving early for classes and late for work...it was very disorienting...but i love it now...gives me 2 whole hours to hang out with my family shaam ko after work before dark..and dont underestimate being ahead of india..one more `the land time forgot` taanaa and i would have screamt really loud
funny...this is almost as good as the review piece a few weeks ago..(i did NOT like the results i got in this mornings quiz)..the time change had me very confused for the first 3 days and i kept on arriving early for classes and late for work...it was very disorienting...but i love it now...gives me 2 whole hours to hang out with my family shaam ko after work before dark..and dont underestimate being ahead of india..one more `the land time forgot` taanaa and i would have screamt really loud
#16 Posted by Charmed on April 18, 2002 2:49:09 pm
``oh, there is something in today`s Review section check out the quiz ``What Pakistani Personality Are You?``.``
u know Bina i`ve been giggling all day since i read that quiz. can`t get over it, especially that `lota-western demon` bit! thoroughly enjoy your commentary on the idiosyncractic pakistani way :-)
u know Bina i`ve been giggling all day since i read that quiz. can`t get over it, especially that `lota-western demon` bit! thoroughly enjoy your commentary on the idiosyncractic pakistani way :-)
#15 Posted by Prem on April 18, 2002 2:49:09 pm
Bina,
Saw your ``What Pakistani Personality Are You?`` as well. Delightful readings, both.
Saw your ``What Pakistani Personality Are You?`` as well. Delightful readings, both.
#14 Posted by jntuece99 on April 18, 2002 2:49:09 pm
Bina,
A Great article.. Felt a lot better when I read it. Keep it up.
Thanks for the article,
Rgds,
jntuece99
A Great article.. Felt a lot better when I read it. Keep it up.
Thanks for the article,
Rgds,
jntuece99
#13 Posted by temporal on April 18, 2002 1:03:41 pm
sac:
do that bina test...none of the options provided worked for me in them queries save one... think would go for `a` in 5...damn...another test flunked!...this road is not leading towards any heavenly destination...dunno if should seek bina`s help in deciphering or turn to my favourite shrink?...gawd...just occurred..maybe am no pakistani...sorry...refuse to entertain the obvious!...that have no `personality`...see what you did kiddo;)...and while i have you here let me hint at what you raised there...that stuff was a `spontaneous` response...the stuff that have written covers a very broad range...mostly to surface ...if at all...post humously...but thanks for appreciation...
rgds,
t
do that bina test...none of the options provided worked for me in them queries save one... think would go for `a` in 5...damn...another test flunked!...this road is not leading towards any heavenly destination...dunno if should seek bina`s help in deciphering or turn to my favourite shrink?...gawd...just occurred..maybe am no pakistani...sorry...refuse to entertain the obvious!...that have no `personality`...see what you did kiddo;)...and while i have you here let me hint at what you raised there...that stuff was a `spontaneous` response...the stuff that have written covers a very broad range...mostly to surface ...if at all...post humously...but thanks for appreciation...
rgds,
t
#12 Posted by Urstruly on April 18, 2002 9:46:12 am
It was a delightful read.
Daylight Saving Time in Paksitan can make sense, if the working and schooling hours are also adjusted (in summer) as from 7:00 am to 2pm. (DST applied). This way children and people can spend hot summer afternoons at their homes (without load shedding, I hope). The electricity for airconditioning and/or fans at work can thus be saved. This saving then can be transferred to consumers at home. ha ha ha I am just kidding.
Daylight Saving Time in Paksitan can make sense, if the working and schooling hours are also adjusted (in summer) as from 7:00 am to 2pm. (DST applied). This way children and people can spend hot summer afternoons at their homes (without load shedding, I hope). The electricity for airconditioning and/or fans at work can thus be saved. This saving then can be transferred to consumers at home. ha ha ha I am just kidding.
#11 Posted by Bina on April 18, 2002 8:57:47 am
Glad you all liked this piece. I wrote this on the first day of the time change, totally groggy and confused whether I should be waking up one hour earlier or one hour later.
Sac, Temporal - I write a lot of stuff like this for the Dawn, unfortunately none of it is available on the Web. (oh, there is something in today`s Review section check out the quiz ``What Pakistani Personality Are You?``).
Soundmeister - it wasn`t me, it was the sportsman turned politician who said that India and Pakistan were in the same time zone.
Harsh - Thanks for your compliments :)
Scout, Jawahara, semiprecious, etc - ty!
Sac, Temporal - I write a lot of stuff like this for the Dawn, unfortunately none of it is available on the Web. (oh, there is something in today`s Review section check out the quiz ``What Pakistani Personality Are You?``).
Soundmeister - it wasn`t me, it was the sportsman turned politician who said that India and Pakistan were in the same time zone.
Harsh - Thanks for your compliments :)
Scout, Jawahara, semiprecious, etc - ty!