The next article on the theme “Let them
die to maintain the hegemony of western science” has to be postponed in order
to respond to what Mr. Bodhi Dhanapala has written on 28th October
2013. I thank Mr. Dhanapala from Quebec, Canada for responding to part of my
article published on 23rd October 2013. Though I shall be going into
detail describing my views on Western Science and Knowledge in general later,
after CHOGM, on which I intend to write mentioning Canadian boycott as well as
Manmohan Singh, England and Australia withdrawing funds to the commonwealth
after Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse becomes the Chairperson of CHOG, I thought a quick
response to Mr. Dhanapala is in order as the readers may not wish to wait so
long.
I am a Sinhala Buddhist trying to live
with a Sinhala Buddhist Chinthanaya in a world dominated by Greek Judaic
Christian (GJC) Chinthanaya, a feat that is not easy to say the least. During the last twenty five years or so I was
fortunate enough to develop an epistemology and an ontology (not mutually
exclusive) based on Sinhala Buddhist Chinthanaya. Readers are referred to Mage
Lokaya, Jathiya, Sanskrthiya saha Chinthanya and other articles in Kalaya website for explanations (not
definitions as there are no definitions as such in my epistemology) of
Chinthanaya in general and Sinhala Buddhist Chinthanaya in particular. The
knowledge on epistemology is also constructed relative to Sinhala Buddhist
Chinthanaya and there are neither absolute concepts nor paramaththa dhamma (somewhat different from the epistemology of the
third council or Sangayana) existing
even for a moment (kshanaya) in my epistemology. In a Chinthanaya there can
be different paradigms a la Kuhn,
which is a concept I have absorbed from GJC Chinthanaya, and my paradigm within
Sinhala Buddhist Chinthanaya is different from that of the third council. The
readers do not have to be disturbed by these statements as Prof. Carlo Fonseka
would tell that any original idea by me is not true.
All knowledge of human beings is
constructed relative to the five sense organs, the culture and the mind, due to
avidya (loosely translated as
ignorance) and there are different systems of knowledge based on different Chinthanayas
and paradigms. In that sense even pratyaksha (not the empirical knowledge mentioned
in western science and philosophy) associated with vinnana and nama-rupa, using
basic concepts like flower without any use of so called theories are also lies.
The biggest lie that all saththva have
created is that of self (ego, I , mamayanaya etc.) as for Buddhists such as me there
is no me, even though it appears to be a contradiction. There is no flower as
such but various cultures have constructed an associated concept. However, without
such concepts we cannot live, and though all the conceptual knowledge,
including what I have constructed, are lies we can depend on them and make use
of them. Though there is no “me”, “I” write this article and the concept of “I”
is useful to respond to Mr. Dhanapala. Most of our ancient knowledge is based
on pratyaksha not necessarily confined
to five sense organs. Those with “spiritually advanced” minds had pratyaksha of so called extra sensory
knowledge, which are also incorporated in our corpus of knowledge. However, all these are relative knowledge and
as human beings (in fact as saththva in
general) we can construct only such knowledge.
Western science without access to pratyaksha of extra sensory knowledge,
in order to “explain” “phenomena” perceptible to sense organs and mind
construct abstract theories without any pratyaksha
of them. These so called theories are nothing but stories (kathandara) constructed by those western
scientists who are creative in the Greek Judaic Christian Chinthanaya, and they
are blatant lies. The best example in this regard is the Newtonian theory of
gravitation constructed to explain why objects fall to the ground. Nobody
including Newton, except for a senior lecturer in Chemistry at the University
of Kelaniya has experienced gravitation, and Einstein would tell that there is
no gravitation as such. However, the latter’s curvature of space –time is also
a story and is a blatant lie that will be displaced with another blatant lie by
some other western scientist in time to come.
Regarding the proof of if A=B and B=C,
then A=C, as I thought a smart brat in the person of Mr. Dhanapala tells us
that it is an axiom, and further that it is the definition of equality. He
thinks that if A=B and B=C then A=C defines equality. I wonder from where he
got this definition and I am glad that this “humble teacher” is not teaching in
one of our schools in Sri Lanka. In the opinion of Mr. Dhanapala if A is
parallel to B, and B is parallel to C, then A is parallel to C could be a
definition of parallelism. These are examples for what are known as transitive
relations in set theory and not definitions. In set theory there could be a relation
between two elements X and Y belonging to a set, which is usually denoted by
the symbol X R Y. For example in the
set of straight lines, the relation R may
be “is parallel”. Thus in that case X R Y
means the straight line X is parallel to the straight line Y.
Equality is not defined using the above
transitive relation and it is clear that Mr. Dhanapala is confused regarding
definitions and transitive relations. If R
is a transitive relation it means that X R Y, and Y R Z
implies X R Z. It has to
be mentioned that transitive relations between elements of a set (a subset of
the set) have to be established first by other means to be called as such. R is called a transitive relation if X R Y and Y R Z implies X R Z. In
Euclidean Geometry if X is parallel to Y and Y is parallel to Z, then it can be
shown that X is parallel to Z, and therefore parallelism is called a transitive
relation. Mr. Dhanapala is also confused on the concepts equality and identity.
In any event identity operations have nothing to with A is identically equal to
B.
An object X is said to be equal to an
object Y if they have the same property or value or anything else respect to an
observer in a certain context. X is equal to Y only in a certain context and we
could say that A and B are equal in heights if the heights of A and B as
measured by some observer are equal. I use equality in that sense. However, one
cannot compare the height of A with the weight of B, and as far as respectively
the height and the weight are concerned A and B are neither equal nor not equal.
If the weight of A is equal to the weight of B, and if the height of B is equal to the height C then there is no
transitive relation, and in such case as far as A, B and C are concerned, if
A=B and B=C then A=C becomes meaningless. However my question is in a given
context, and all that I ask is to deduce that if A=B and B=C, then A=C within a
given context in the abstract where A B C stand for any elements for which
equality is defined as in western knowledge. It is certainly not a definition
of equality and it says that when equality is defined in a certain sense in a
given context among members of a subset of the set the relation of equality is
a transitive relation. The question is how to deduce it, say, as in the case of
parallel lines.
There is no deduction
possible of the statement if A = B, and B=C then A=C, and is neither a
definition, though it is used in many other deductions. It has been established
by induction as I have explained in the book “ Batahira Vidyava, Arsenic saha
Deviyo” (Western Science, Arsenic and Gods) and if Mr. Dhanapala is interested
I can send him a copy. Incidentally I wish to inform Mr. Dhanapala that I am
not qualified to be a Professor and hence I am not a member of the set of
Professors.
Nalin De Silva
30-10-2013