Bigthink - User Ideas Feed

Re: Do economics explain everything?

Bigthink — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 16:33:21 +0100

: When we are limiting economics to merely explaining everything we mean it has limited application in using to control our affairs and direct economic behaviour towards the individual good or collective welfare. What we mean is that it is a mere post facto thing and not a tool for guiding the economic affairs of the community or the individual. This of course is a controversial thing to say .But the real question is whether economics explains everything. when we say economics can explain everything we say that humans collectively behave in particular ways which lend themselves to being read as patterns .I really do not know if large thought movements in a market which is globalised can be spotted and economice decisions taken on the basis of such knowledge. However the herd mentality can perhaps be mapped by a close understanding of the market but surely over short spans of time and not across years or decades.

Re: Inteligence VS Wisdom

Bigthink — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 00:35:53 +0100

: I have a different view on this .Intelligence is the ability to quickly grasp knowledge ,read patterns ,anticipate movements ,crystallise knowledge on the basis of available data,use words to further mental progression and direct flows of thought in groups.Wisdom is something more down-to-earth ,depending upon the shared knowledge of the community and is more practical ,concerning itself with self-preservation than with pursuit of knowledge. It is a cliched thinking to say that older people are repositories of wisdom while the younger ones are "intelligent" .Both the young and the old can be wise and/or intelligent.

Re: Is poetry translatable?

Bigthink — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 05:16:37 +0100

If poetry is indeed emotion recollected in tranquillity or the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings as Wordsworth believed,it certainly cannot be translated because the language used by the poet is uniquely his own ,created as part of his own poetic experience.A translator may try to recreate his experience by simulating for himself a similar one and try to re-create it for others in an alien language.But that is a mere approximation.

On the other hand poetry is not merely emotion recollected with a specificity of the experience that caused it,the poetic experience can be re-created in any language ,looking for approximate symbols for a similar experience .this is of course on the basis that such experiences are universal in nature ,being part of the shared human experience .

Re: Words of Wisdom

Bigthink — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 00:20:58 +0100

: A funny realisation came to me that Americans are rather an insulated lot .The high pedestal they have been sitting on has blocked their view of the world and their relative insulation is borne out by the way the world media and internet are America-obsessed.People in America seem to believe that beyond their borders lie savage lands who are marginal people with no contribution to the evolution of human thought. There are other lands ,other people who also live in the same planet and it is not always that America can adopt a high and mighty air and pretend to be deciding the future of mankind .This way America has for a long time gained in self-importance but has lost in terms of joining the fraternity of other peoples ,other cultures and the mainstream of human life.The loss is not just the world's but America's. The leaders of a new America will necessarly have to work towards America shedding its image of a super power,of a super bully.

Re: Art Defined

Bigthink — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 23:54:06 +0100

: When the past moments happened they were actually the present, which was just a boring succession of events and nothing seemed to actually happen.Now ,there is a haze which accompanies my past and the past moments are wonderful and inviting ,beautiful shells on the beach which I collect and fill my pockets with,although they had no meaning when they had happened nor will they have any significance once my pockets are emptied.

Re: If I dont believe in you, do you exist?

Bigthink — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 09:22:01 +0100

: Do you exist if I do not believe you exist-is the question. Of course one is not sure.An objective reality cannot exist without somebody perceiving it.If you believe it still exists independent of your perception,you may do so but that is only a belief and hence is subjective. It is therefore safe to presume that nothing exists without our perceiving that it exists. The question that arises is whether a reality has necessarily to exist if we believe it exists.By way of example ,I believe ghosts and gnomes exist and does that mean they exist as an objective reality ? No.Additional conditions apply .Verifiability of the evidence suggesting their existence should possibly be one of the conditions. Of course one would ask what we mean by verifiability.Suppose there is a mountain near the horizon and everybody's perception and everything else points to the possibility of its existing. Which means the sensory impressions of all the people with respect to the object tally in all respects. We may therefore conclude the mountain exists. The unanswered question is whether several assessments tallying with one other and based upon "physical verifiability" make the mountain an objective reality . Since we cannot separate our consciousness from what we perceive outside of ourselves the only way of verifying the existence of the objective reality is to cease to be the experiencer and become a part of the experienced. This is what the Hindus call brahma gyan(knowledge of Brahma)

Re: Re: Re: What is justice?

Bigthink — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 00:26:39 +0100

: The difficulty with justice is its variability in different spatial and temporal contexts .Today we call the burning of St.Joan a barbarous thing but at the time it took place not many consciences were disturbed. Similarly in the religious law practised in the Moslem countries ,several things which are shocking to another culture take place day in and day out and not many raise heir voices in those places. Does that mean that there is nothing called the absolute justice ,a kind of universal justice which applies to all places and times .The second issue is whether justice applies only to man's relationship with a fellow-human or whether man vs.other fellow-creatures justice is also to be thought of. Since we cannot decide all this we lapse into what we know best-a few cliches about universal brotherhood,humanism,etc.

Re: Is Digital Photography a real work of Art?

Bigthink — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 02:58:41 +0100

: While confining ourselves to digital photography (instead of digital art),I don't understand why we cannot treat digital photography as an art. First of all the question arises as to if photography is an art at all .Just as all photography may not have the characteristics of an art,all digital photography is not art.Having accepted this,we may go on to treat digital photography as an art sharing common characteristics with other forms of art. A digital photograph enables you like any other art to express your uniquely artistic vision and the techniques used in composition and editing are the tools of an artist as in any other form of art. Each work represents a unique spatial consciousness and records the drama of human actions just as in any form of aesthetic expression.

Re: Re: Should the rich be expected to give away their money?

Bigthink — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 02:29:31 +0100

: That the rich should give away a part of their wealth to the poor is as much a need of the rich as it is to the poor. This is because there cannot be a society where some people have all the goodies all the time and the others remain in perpetual starvation.The rich cannot have amassed their wealth without building on the sweat,tears and blood of the poor .Rather than let the poor starve and force them to rob the rich ultimately,the rich should have the sense to share a part of their wealth with them and treat them with dignity and respect.Mahatma Gandhi advocated the trusteeship theory which says that the wealth held by the rich is being held by them only as trustees for the society and it is not their private ownership at all. Vinoba Bhave tried,albeit unsuccessfully,to persuade the rich landlords to voluntarily part with a part of their land for the common pool from which the poor will be allotted their piece of land.

Re: Are you in business strictly to make money?

Bigthink — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 08:59:52 +0100

: We are in business not merely for the "filthy lucre" but for the kick one gets out of making money or ,may be, as an activity pursued like any other creative pursuit like art, literature , music etc. which make you feel fulfilled. Participating in the fascinating drama of human life as it unfolds in business and commerce dealings is yet another motive for indulging in money making.

Re: Is a kind person born that way, or cultivated?

Bigthink — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 08:27:11 +0100

: Interesting .I have read somewhere that what is at work behind kindness is the "empathy neurons" which seem to be experiencing suffereing in others as though it is theirs. I mean whenever a kind man sees suffering ,something in him produces a similar kind of suffering in sympathy or rather in "empathy".Neurologists say that altruism is a natural born tendency ,not a cultivated one. The very word "kindness" implies identification with persons of the same "kind "

Re: WHY DO NICE GUYS FINISH LAST?

Bigthink — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 09:58:11 +0100

: Nice guys finish last but they do not also last.Because they do not have the sheer grit and stamina required to push ahead.Bursts of creativity happen at the beginning but rarely last because in their anxiety to be nice they lose steam and it is the not-so-nice guys who surge ahead.In his poem "The Second Coming",W.B.Yeats speaks of a similar predicament :

"The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."

Re: WHAT IS RIGHT?

Bigthink — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 07:06:29 +0100

: What is right and what is wrong is a highly dynamic value system which has evolved through the human society's collective effort to perpetuate its existence.The need to have a moral system arises out of the need to perpetuate the human species. The moral system has necessarily to keep modifying in the context of the evolution of the human thought and the changing structures of the society.There is nothing absolute about any of the moral values and what is right in one society can be judged as wrong in another society. As to the need for the society to ensure its own survival by evolving rules of right and wrong from time to time,that appears to be a mere extension of the individual's own survival instinct.

Re: Learning Disability

Bigthink — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 06:13:43 +0100

: Yes ,as one of the respondents has said,it is better to start by defining learning disability and distinguish one disability from another .That done,we are not yet fully equipped to answer the question because there is no single way of tackling a learning disability the neurological basis of which is not yet fully understood.We plod along as it is suggested to us by experts drawn from different fields.As one who has a son with a learning disability I understand the frustration of the parents of such children .We only hope to find some solution some time in life and in the meantime do the best we could do. We live from day to day ,all the while hoping for some miracle to happen-something like a sudden burst of mental growth but such things happen alright but not as fast as we want them to.

Re: Learning Disability

Bigthink — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 06:12:16 +0100

Re: WHAT IS PERMANENET AND LONG LASTING?

Bigthink — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 00:16:00 +0100

: First of all,nothing can be permanent and long lasting ,which two terms contradict each other. Secondly ,the latter part of the statement namely that what is in nature or made by nature tends to be permanent while what is made by humans through a planned effort is of short duration is a matter of personal belief of the maker of the statement.

Re: Re: What do you think happens to you when you die?

Bigthink — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 08:46:28 +0100

: The amusing thing is that once dead,you do not even know you are dead !

Re: Re: Do you believe in God?

Bigthink — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 06:03:51 +0100

: We are talking about beliefs and faiths ,which may not entirely be founded on objective reality .Going to the Empire State Building and looking out from one side ,we may capture only 1/4s of Manhattan but one can always extrapolate the balance 3/4ths and conjure up a view as close to reality as possible.In any case faith becomes the viewpoint only when the limitations imposed by the intellect and the finiteness of imagination preclude a much larger vantage from which one can observe and form a view.

Re: Do you believe in God?

Bigthink — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 01:41:25 +0100

: Yes ,of course.I believe in God because he is a personal necessity for me .It is probably because it suits me to beiieve in Him .Because I do not have an alternative world-view minus God.i am not able to envision any other scheme which I can construct for myself without God at the centre. I have a lot of explaining to do to myself otherwise just to keep me intact.Without God I feel naked and defenceless .Additionally I have a little secret between me and God to keep all life.I am the dreamer and He is my dream and sometimes He dreams the dream in which I exist.

Re: What does it mean to be Indian?

Bigthink — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 15:27:02 +0100

: As an Indian I feel that all those who share the shared conscious of the people of the country are Indian,its imagination,its creative spirit,its culture and heritage ,its inclusiveness ,irrespective of the ethnic origin of the inhabitants. All who had come here thousands of years ago from across the Himalayas and made it their home and all those who had lived here before them -all of them have shaped the destiny of this country and all of them are Indian .To be Indian is to share the common destiny of the people of this country .