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Articles: Education/Training | Dharmik Concepts
- Mr. kedarnath jonnalagadda
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Universality Of Perception Of Things In Nature
Perceiving incident energy of the above five types is common to living things. Differences could exist in the speed, degree of refinement or accuracy of perception. These types of incident energy have been called 'stimuli' and what the living organism does as a result, the 'response'. The choice of words 'stimulus' and 'response' ought not to convey meaning that Nature, including us have the weird purpose to keep prodding and probing living things.
Significantly, all living things exhibit the process of growth, slow decay and death. This is called 'jévaëam'. 'präëam' is the principle of life and Death is 'maraëam'. Life -' jévaëam' and action or activity - 'karmaà' are manifestations for 'präëam', the principle of life. All forms of life have abilities to measure and quantify or otherwise depict incident energy on their being during their lifetime. This is used to infer or reckon and so it is 'fact' or data. This is data in some form understandable to it..
It is a pity that we understand data to be something that we can go hunting for and we 'capture' it. In Sanskrit, the words 'dhäta' and 'dhätum' have connotations for the giver and the given. This attitude and perspective could be important for obtaining knowledge harmoniously through observation of Nature.
Objects cannot be observed through sheer will power of sensory apparatuses. They are 'observable' because their presence is 'announced' in a way. It is the inherent nature of all objects and phenomena to do that. That a sensor observes it is incidental. I am not saying here that you cannot dive into the seas, search, and discover oysters and pearls. We are putting sensory apparatuses in a position to observe. Such use of the sensory apparatus is appropriately called 'probes'.
Reality and Truth
For reasons not clear to me yet, the word – 'satyam', has often been equated with 'reality' and 'truth'. The words 'nija', meaning 'innate' , 'native' , 'constant' , 'continual' with connotation of 'truthful reporting' is used colloquially 'nijam', in the Indian languages, Telugu, Tamil and Sanskrit but no other Indian language!
There is a distinction between 'reality' and 'truth'. Whatever is observable in Nature can be considered 'reality'. Our organs of knowledge have received energy from the objects or objects have impacted on the senses. They are sense-realities, 'satyam' . For example, a photograph is evidence. There is an area in the photograph that appears different from the background. This could be the picture of a man or something has caused a smudge in the photograph. This is sense-reality - 'satyam' A witness is asked, 'What do you see in this photograph?' Now the following are the possibilities
The witness sees the object or the 'smudge' (sense reality – 'satyam' and interprets it as a person and says, 'I see a person' – This is 'truthful' reporting 'nijam'.
The witness cannot see the object or smudge. He says, 'I can see nothing clearly. I have left my glasses at home'. This is 'truthful' reporting too 'nijam'.
The witness can see the figure of a person in the photograph. He says, 'I can the picture of a man'. This is 'truthful' reporting too 'nijam'.
The witness can see the figure of a person in the photograph. He says, 'I can see nothing clearly. I have left my glasses at home'. This is 'false reporting' willfully) (In Telugu and Sanskrit - 'abaddham').
Illusions- 'mitthya'- The senses or sensors perceive phenomena but interpretations are wrong. There is 'truthful' reporting, 'nijam' but corroborative evidence shows the 'reality' to be something else. What is false is the interpreted part not the perception. Continuing with example given above, the witness answers, 'I see a person'. An expert witness is called and he declares, 'Rocks subjected to weathering may take different shapes. The object in this photograph could be a boulder having the shape of a person. Since there is no air on Mars it cannot be a human'. Interestingly 'mitthya'– illusion is the name of the wife of 'adharma'! 'adharma' has connotation for disruptive and disharmonious principles.
Illusions are based on observed Reality and Facts. Our sense organs or sensors have observed and recorded these. We have data. We can process, analyze, draw inferences, 'reckon', and build up a 'knowledge' base from this too. But are they based on 'reality' 'satyam'? The only way of finding out is to go ahead. If we find the cool oasis it is real otherwise it was a mirage and an illusion.
We cannot just leave it at that either. We need to know why we are not finding anything though we have data. These could be important for avoiding potentially disastrous consequences of illusions. In order to know why it is an illusion and not reality we need a different set or sets of data that could assist us to understand why we did not find the oasis. It is possible also that we may not find explanations.
'mäyä' – is yet another word that has connotations of 'illusion' but the scale is grander and includes the whole Universe! Though we may initially tend to grant 'poetic license' to the authors for the concept there is need to be cautious as fallibility in interpretation is characteristic of the human race. Look around you and you will find a myriad scientifically created 'illusions'. These are all around and within us too for example air conditioning, TV, synthetic perfumes, flavors… the list can go on. And all those lights you see up in the sky the planets and stars and even the Sun. 'Science' tells us and our senses tell us they are real. Data on them can be gathered accurately. But light travels around 186 000 miles in one second. And light that started from these distant objects takes time to reach us. This could be thousands of years and more in case of stars. So, in real time, now, are they there or not? We don’t know! And it appears we cannot know too!
I am pressing the keys on the keyboard and letters are appearing on the keyboard. But at the microcosmic level there can be no physical contact between the atoms of my fingers and the atoms of the keyboard. So, am I touching the keys or not? This needs explanation at micro-levels of transference of energy, force and work. And this explains that 'Iam touching' and yet 'not touching the keys'. I don't know whether this type of scientific 'realities' is what the ancients chose to call 'mäyä'.
Abstraction is the beautiful capability of our mind for logic, conjecture, imagination and creativity. The start point of abstractive thought process is some primal building blocks. This could be innate or instinctive or learnt through experience. This also could be an axiom or primitive notion such as in mathematics. The 'known' bit in the Dictionary statement 'Data is known facts' may have some relevance here. Data about abstractions can be based on
1. Actually observed phenomena where abstraction may clearly be either reality or illusions based on some initial data representing an observed phenomenon,
2. Not actually observed phenomena in the realm of creativity and fiction. The words are relevant for abstraction.
The words 'ühä' – conjecture and 'kalpitä' are relevant to abstraction and need study to determine their exact relationship to the two types of abstraction.
Sense false is not observable in Nature. This is described exactly by our witness in earlier given example, 'Sorry, I can see nothing. I left my glasses at home'. I too am not really equipped to venture into this area. Briefly, sense-false cannot even be thought about. The very moment you tried it becomes a part of your mind and is a sense-reality! For all theoretical and practical purposes, sense-false does not exist and that makes sense. Shri Krishna in The Bhagavad Gita says, 'The unreal never is. The real, never is not. Those who know reality know this' (Chapter 2 The Path of Yoga) ( I have substituted the probable wrong translation of 'satyam' as 'truth' with 'reality')
With this background we can see that data can be recorded for anything that can be observed or imagined. And all of them are sense-realities - 'satyam'. They could even be abstract paintings that may never be understood. The moot questions are, 'of the phenomena observed, how much is reality, how much are illusions and how much are abstractions'.
Having read all the above we can be certain now that computers and computing in essence are about
Phenomena in Nature
Depictions of above called data
Processing the data
And when data is understood it becomes information.
Summary and Conclusion
'jïänaà' - knowledge is the starting point. It is there in data. This 'jïänaà' - knowledge is input for more 'jïänaà' – knowledge in our minds. 'mähité' - information is a process in our minds for understanding 'jïänaà' - knowledge in data 'buddhi' is the ultimate 'processor' and store of 'jïänam' - knowledge within us.
In short, data elements are actually 'jïänaà' - knowledge elements. So, There is 'jïänaà' - knowledge out there and 'jïänaà' - knowledge inside our minds. And information is 'food for thought'.
References
Cambridge Dictionaries Online http://dictionary.cambridge.org/
Gupta, Das, 1922, 'A History of Indian Philosophy', Cambridge 1922, reprinted Motilal Banarsidas, Delhi, 1975, referred in article 'The Enumerative Viewpoint saamkhya darshana',
http://www.philo.demon.co.uk/Darshana.htm
Kalyanaraman, S. 'Lexicon Bharathi' Equivalent words in Indian languages and English) http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/sarasvati/html/indlexmain.htm
Kalyanaraman, S. 'Dhathu Patha', (Maharishi Panini’s compendium of dhaathu with English translations)
http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/sarasvati/dictionary/9ROOTS.HTM
Merriam-Webster online dictionary - http://www.m-w.com
Mahoney, R.B. HTML version of Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary. Version: 0.1a_8 IITS - Cologne Digital Sanskrit Lexicon,
http://homepages.comnet.co.nz/~r-mahoney/mw_dict/mw_dict.html
The Sanskrit words in this paper were generated using the freeware 'Itranslator99' developed by the Omkarananda Ashram Himalayas, Swami Omkarananda Road, Muni-ki-reti (Rishikesh), Distt. Tehri Garhwal, P.O. Shivanandanagar- 249192, Uttaranchal, BHARATH. (India).
http://www.omkarananda-ashram.org
Devanagiri and transliteration text is a table, generated by the input of Roman letters, using the freeware. The transliterated text is in URW Palladio IT font available for download from above site separately and also included in the freeware install program.
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