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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Aug 24, 2014 - 09:25am PT
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The Indian caste system is based on the conquest of India by other groups. The people at the bottom are the original stone age inhabitants who were one of the first migrations out of Africa. In some areas like the Himalayas, they were remote enough to retain their tribal identity. In the populated plains, they became the casteless people the British labeled untouchables. They are considered polluting for the work they do - including killing animals (one whole group catches rats from the fields and that is the main stay of their diet), cleaning toilets, carrying corpses etc. Some of them in the west, seem to have obtained that status through mixing with Alexander's soldiers as there are not a few with blue or green eyes and light hair.
Just above them are the majority who are agricultural workers, above them the merchants, above that the warrior caste and on the top, the Brahmin priests, educators, and intellectuals. In general, the darker the skin, the longer time spent in India, and the lower the caste. The invading Indo-Europeans did however, give honorary Brahmin status to some of the indigenous Dravidian priests who were already there and had a highly developed society along the river banks while the tribals lived in the jungle.
The caste system created a very stable agrarian society with a large food surplus and over time, was incorporated into religious teachings to justify the privileges of those at the top. You can make an almost one for one comparison with the system of slavery and segregation that existed in America in the south, complete with scriptural quotations as to why that system was God ordained.
Jesus mixed with Samaritans, the Untouchables of his day. Buddha had many close untouchable followers. Both great spiritual leaders broke with the stratified societies of their time. Millions of untouchable Indians have converted to Islam in the past and Buddhism more recently. A significant number are also becoming Christian. Educated Hindus do not believe in caste and almost all modern Hindu religious leaders have spoken against it. As we have seen from our recent riots however, changing people's hearts and minds and the elite power structure is a slow process.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Aug 24, 2014 - 10:13am PT
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What people struggle with is that this is not an inherent skill, and that someone, somewhere has dicked it with no practice - which is as ludicrous as claiming someone could master writing sonnets or playing the violin or doing hard math with no practice at all. They could just step up and do it.
Not ever . . .
I agree with Largo on this... in the age of Google it has become easy to opine on something based on the opinions of others.
Take climbing, for instance... a fraction of the climbs that have been done are every repeated, based largely on the communication of the opinions of "quality" and a shared communal esthetic that changes as a fashion. Not unlike the clothing worn by the participants, and about as deeply motivated.
If you take nothing else from Largo's entreaties, take his implore to go out and do it (and you can fill in what "it" is). Often, it is more important to walk down a path, what ever path, than to sit and discuss what you will find at the end of that path, and especially if you never get around to the journey.
Being a scientist doesn't have a lot to do with sitting around taking about science, it has a lot to do with doing science. And to do science requires a lot of practice... reading popular accounts from scientists doesn't get you very far...
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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Aug 24, 2014 - 02:21pm PT
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And to do science requires a lot of practice... reading popular accounts from scientists doesn't get you very far...
Ditto for math.
I agree with JL on this also. I have always respected his meditative efforts, although I tend to disagree with the interpretation of the results. He has done the work. The same might be said of my efforts in math research: lots of hours in the saddle, but uncertainty regarding the value of the results (well not really - they are minor!) That's OK - it's the journey that matters. The voyage of discovery, no matter how elementary the results, provides satisfaction. That should be the motivating factor for anyone getting into science or math.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Aug 24, 2014 - 03:11pm PT
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What people struggle with is that this is not an inherent skill, and that someone, somewhere has dicked it with no practice - which is as ludicrous as claiming someone could master writing sonnets or playing the violin or doing hard math with no practice at all. They could just step up and do it.
I agree with the general premise reflected in the above comment--- namely, that the full range of any given skill or practice must be experienced first hand, subjectively, to be properly validated and truly understood. Somewhat of a no-brainer in fact.
The difference, and this is crucial in understanding much of the discussion having transpired on this thread, is that the practitioners of fiddle playing or hard math or sonnets are not ---as a matter of course, establishing and sustaining ironclad antithetical distinctions between their transcendent discipline versus normal default modes of mental functioning. A fiddle player is not positioning his special knowledge or experience as an equivalent ontological or epistemological rival to ordinary non-fiddle knowledge . Nor is the fiddle player requesting that you spend years fiddle playing as the indispensable condition for validating your considered criticisms of any non-empirical heuristic claims ,with which ,on the face of it, you just might happen to disagree .
To do so creates an unbridgeable chasm based upon an oppositional framework . IMO it's about high time to bring the "meditative arts " into proper appositional perspective, like fiddling, as a healthy corollary to daily living ---and thereby hopefully rid it of any awkwardly high pretensions of a profoundly existential nature.
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MH2
climber
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Aug 24, 2014 - 03:40pm PT
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I would not compare doing science or doing math with doing meditation except in the most general sense that they all involve doing something.
I agree that if you are curious about an activity and want to know about it you will learn things from doing it that you would not learn from reading about it or listening to someone talk about it.
I do not understand why Largo goes on at such length about meditation when it is so slippery to describe and so simple to say: just do it. Why say more?
The original post had to do with "mind" and said that a scientific understanding of consciousness could be ruled out because an apple is not an orange.
As jgill said on page one:
So many words...
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WBraun
climber
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Aug 24, 2014 - 04:13pm PT
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I do not understand why Largo goes on at such length about meditation when it is so slippery to describe and so simple to say: just do it. Why say more?
Because he's compassionate enough to actually care about other living entities.
There was a monk at the river who kept rescuing a scorpion out of the river as it kept going in knowing it was going to drown.
Every time the he pulled the scorpion out of the water it would sting him.
A mental speculator gross materialist was watching this for a time.
It was far beyond his comprehension why this monk was doing this and suffering each time getting stung.
Finally the mental speculator gross materialist went up to the monk and asked him why he's doing this.
The monk replied; "This is my nature".
Some of you people are the scorpions .......
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Aug 24, 2014 - 04:17pm PT
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Lol, that might be the funniest thing you've ever written!!
Variation on a theme, gotta love it.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Aug 24, 2014 - 04:26pm PT
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So many words...
What does it say of the experienced and the experience of fiddle playing between the 9yro virtuoso who can play Mozart by ear, and the 40 year veteran who can't stay in pitch?
Words on the table can fill that gap!
i've missed you guys! i just spent a week at Big Bear ending summer vacation with my 8yro daughter. Tomorrow school starts!
She asked me to teach her how to catch fish. You can't imagine how tickled that made me feel.. Fishing is prolly the one extracurricular experience i have the most experience in.
The difference between "fishing" and "catching fish" has a few words to cause a different-ion.
i myself am grateful for so many words, otherwise you wouldn't be in my life..
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Aug 24, 2014 - 04:57pm PT
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My latest issue of Scientific American showed up today,
Base, by coincidence i bought SA special collectors edition that same day.
Secrets of the Universe, Past, Present, Future.
Did you see it? i'm start'in it tonight. i'll look for the one on evolution and get back to ya!
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Aug 24, 2014 - 05:08pm PT
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The monk replied; "This is my nature".
i heard that story years ago. maybe even when i was about 12 or 15? Never forgot it Huge impact! Made sense many times..
i think ur last two posts were ur best..... for the masses.
but between me and you, almost everyone is a bullseye!!
Edit: sorry, i meant ur last three.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Aug 24, 2014 - 05:21pm PT
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Some of you people are the scorpions .......
In other words, "some of us" are the heavies, the villains --- with Largo's posts amounting to humanitarian public service announcements designed to save us from ourselves.
Why couldn't we have been tiny little furry flying bats suffering from rabies and mindlessly biting the heroic monk who must go through the agonizing anti-rabies protocol of endless hypodermic shots in a hospital somewhere in Katmandu?
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Aug 24, 2014 - 05:52pm PT
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^^^ You prolly will be in ur next life, according to the Duck!
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Aug 24, 2014 - 05:57pm PT
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Or maybe we can be "aye-ayes" who instead of hurting the monk simply just scares the hell out of him with our good looks:
Now tell me ---isn't that fellar worth saving from drowning--- unconditionally, without strings.?
It's as if he is saying with his eyes: " I can't swim...save me or die!"
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Aug 24, 2014 - 06:35pm PT
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Yea well everyone with eyes has a soul, worth saving!
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Aug 24, 2014 - 07:23pm PT
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And I picked up a copy of the Human Evolution SA this afternoon. It's my Sunday night reading.
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MH2
climber
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Aug 24, 2014 - 07:34pm PT
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Good answer, Werner.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Aug 24, 2014 - 08:02pm PT
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That's OK - it's the journey that matters. The voyage of discovery, no matter how elementary the results, provides satisfaction. That should be the motivating factor for anyone getting into science or math.
Forgive me if i'm off base(i love stealing bases in baseball), but aren't most/alot of mathematical questions solved, atleast through college? (besides trying to predict everthing as a mathematical equation). i was just telling my daughter today that math is the easiest class she'll ever take, because all the answers are known. All that she has to do is to understand and agree with them. Am i wrong?
So whats so great about the journey? That's like following a map from Maine to ElCap. And saying "Yea the map works" For some, map reading is easy, some it's not. If they both end up at the base of ElCap, is it the journey that mattered, or the fact that they both deciphered the truth?
And what kind of journey is it if the truth is already declared?
Is it a journey to agree upon an established truth?
Or it's a journey to change a mis-truth into a truth?
What does "Really Matter"?
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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Aug 24, 2014 - 08:49pm PT
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^^^^^ Maybe someone else will deal with this . . .
I'm tired. Sick for a week. Getting old is the pits!
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Aug 24, 2014 - 08:58pm PT
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Getting old is the pits!
NoWay!
Isn't the older the truth gets, the more verifiable it is?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Aug 24, 2014 - 09:17pm PT
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Forgive me if i'm off base(i love stealing bases in baseball), but aren't most/alot of mathematical questions solved, atleast through college? (besides trying to predict everthing as a mathematical equation). i was just telling my daughter today that math is the easiest class she'll ever take, because all the answers are known. All that she has to do is to understand and agree with them. Am i wrong?
what do you mean to say "most/alot of mathematical questions" are solved...
if you are asking about questions like 1+1=2 there are an infinite number like it, and we know how to solve them all, do you know how we know?
or 3x+2 = 7 solve for x
we can do those too
or
3^2 + 4^2 = 5^2
we can do that... you might even use it in construction to lay out a 90º corner...
but those are mathematical operations, not mathematics...
a mathematical question might be related to that last one...
does a solution exist for which integers n
N^n + M^n = L^n
where N, M and L are integers greater than zero?
That took 358 years to work out...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermat's_Last_Theorem
most mathematical questions are being worked out...
the path leads to places from the known regions on the map to the unknown... and what awaits us in the unknown are, well, not known. but you can't know unless you go there.
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