January 2009

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‘Disproving’ God

January 24, 2009 in General, Science and Technology

A tribute for the 200th birth anniversary of Charles Darwin…

Why science can talk about ‘God’ –

One of the reasons why people argue that science should be absent from discussions about God is because while science concerns itself with the material, God concerns himself with the ‘spiritual’ nonmaterial realm. But there are a number of theories of God (and ‘by God’ – if Bible is to be taken at its face value) that explicitly deal with the material realm. To that extent science has ‘standing’, in the judicial sense.

One prominent theory of the ‘divine’ made with ‘ungodly’ frequency is that God has a direct impact on the material well being of humans. But here’s how the claim falls short –

Given systematic temporal and geographic variance exists in poverty, life-expectancy, etc. and given we have been able to attribute a majority of the ‘causes’ for such to human action, ‘God’ inarguably plays only a peripheral part in the destiny of man, albeit a larger role in destiny of women (mostly through hands of believers). What I mean by that is simple – mortality rates differ by geography (US versus say Africa, or within US – maybe god likes the ‘godless’ NE liberals), and by time (we live longer today than we did 200 years ago). The variance in mortality and life-expectancy also seems to respond to human intervention, variedly defined as discovering new technologies, to committing war. So unless we believe God systematically dislikes Africans, or liked people less 200 years ago -when arguably people were more ‘moral’ on some variables favored by the current fundamentalists – we have little grounds to believe that God is a large force in determining life-expectancy, or mortality.

Let’s assume for the ‘devil’s’ sake that ‘God’ is a confounding variable, which can be seen as true in more than one way – first, given that he is alleged to work in mysterious ways, and second in the statistical sense i.e. God determines both temporal, geographic, racial and other kinds of variance in distribution of poverty, the human action to which it is causally attributed, and life-expectancy. But that version of God conflicts with our theories about human action (say greed) and our theories about God – who allegedly ought not to reward people motivated by such things as greed. But then punishment can come in the ‘after life’- via hell, where an ever larger number of people are being systematically tortured through great expense of energy, and in a manner that will leave the Bush administration officials chagrined. Even if we imagine that theories of after-life action are true, their impact on the material world is limited to the extent people believe in the threat of punishment. To that extent, God is an instrumental identity for achieving some version of morality.

Another challenge to the presence of ‘God’ comes from the probabilistic nature of our causal models. ‘God’ theories ought to be perfect (explain about 100% of variance) while theories of social action can be probabilistic. To ascribe probabilistic thinking and action to God would significantly conflict with theories of God, though one can imagine that he sets the mean, and ‘will’ causes the error term. A starker version of the same would be that God allows free will, and to that degree that he allows for it and the world is shaped by ‘free will’, and God is immaterial to bettering social condition. Another reason to discount challenge to God theory can be the following – we just don’t know the generating mechanism (or life/death) and probabilistic conditioning seems to come from fitting known world models onto data generated by God model – which is by the way synergestic enough with world model (more poverty = earlier death) to be disturbing.

One way to look at the argument presented here is that God may exist, but s/he/it isn’t particularly strong. And if strength/omnipotence is taken to be a fundamental descriptive attitude of the object (God), it is likely that the object doesn’t exist as well. The counterargument to the above would perhaps need to factor in differing conceptions about the object and its power. For example, one may say that s/he/it is doing all it can to reduce evil to its lowest form – and that is indeed the present condition. Perhaps then more minimally – since he is already doing all he can and rest depends on us – we can argue that God isn’t a particularly useful intervention for changing one’s situation in the world.

Israeli assault on Gaza

January 21, 2009 in Middle East

The scale of murder, and devastation

“Palestinian medical sources say at least 1,300 Palestinians were killed, nearly a third of them children, and 5,500 injured during the conflict.” [ BBC ]

“Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been left homeless and 400,000 people still have no running water, it says.” “Electricity is available for less than 12 hours a day, and 100,000 people had been displaced….A total of 50 UN facilities and 21 medical facilities were damaged.”

“Separately, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics said on Monday that 4,100 homes were totally destroyed and 17,000 others damaged during the conflict.

About 1,500 factories and workshops, 20 mosques, 31 security installations and 10 water or sewage pipes were also damaged, it added.

The bureau estimated that the overall physical damage so far amounted to about $1.9bn (£1.4bn), including about $200m (£140m) of damage to infrastructure.”

“The worst-hit areas in the Gaza Strip after Israel’s three-week offensive look as if they have been hit by a strong earthquake, aid agencies say.” [ BBC ]

Heart of Darkness

“The Israeli army used white phosphorus, a weapon with a highly incendiary effect, in densely populated civilian residential areas of Gaza City, according to indisputable evidence found an Amnesty International fact-finding team which reached the area last Saturday.” [ Amnesty , BBC ]

NOTE: 2/1/2010 Israeli army admits usage of white phosphorus

The UN said that “according to several testimonies, on January 4 Israeli foot soldiers evacuated approximately 110 Palestinians – half of whom were children – into a single-residence house in Zeitoun, warning them to stay indoors. Twenty-four hours later Israeli forces shelled the home repeatedly, killing approximately 30. [Sydney Morning Herald]

While the vast majority of Palestinians were killed by conventional weapons, a Norwegian doctor, Erik Fosse, said injuries he had seen in Gaza were consistent with the use of Dime (dense inert metal explosive) bombs. “It was as if [patients] had stepped on a mine, but there was no shrapnel in the wounds,” he said. [Independent]

BBC catalogs some of the more troubling types of weapons used  – Flechette shells (shells with nails), Tank shells (with high degree of inaccuracy), Drone missiles (atypically inaccurate or deliberate murder).

‘Wanton’ destruction of homes in Gaza. [BBC ]

The reasons

Israel’s stated reasons for the assault on Gaza were roughly the following – “that Hamas consistently violated the six-month truce that Israel observed and then refused to extend it; that Israel therefore had no choice but to destroy Hamas’s capacity to launch missiles into Israeli towns; that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, part of a global jihadi network; and that Israel has acted not only in its own defence but on behalf of an international struggle by Western democracies against this network” (LRB) and as part of ‘reaction’ or ‘response’ to violations of its borders. Dr. Siegman, professor with University of London, in the same LRB column, refutes these casually stated reasons, repeated ad infinitum in the news media, exposing both media’s complicity, and Israel’s wantonness in committing murder of 1300 plus people.

Some have argued that Israeli action was part of a strategy to pre-empt any doubts about Israel’s resolve to “protect” its territory, and punish even minor violations as a way to ward off imagined subsequent more major violations.  One can draw of Tzipi Livni’s statement, the assault on Gaza “restored Israel’s deterrence …Hamas now understands that when you fire on its citizens it responds by going wild – and this is a good thing” as corroboratory evidence.  However, the argument falters on a variety of grounds. Firstly, Israel carries a strong nuclear deterrent, and perhaps more powerfully, a superpower deterrent (America) – which pre-empts hostile countries or ‘hostile entities’ within countries from attempting anything. Secondly, most Arab nations have come around the idea of Israel, so no real or implied threat has been made.

From a strategic perspective, Israeli action may be seen as an effort to dent the nexus between Iran and Hamas. But, Israel’s continued allegations of a close nexus between Iran and Hamas (a Sunni organization) seem to falter under closer inspection. [Economist]

Most ‘independent’ analysts have argued that the assault was committed with forthcoming elections, due February 10th, in mind; a recent Ha’aretz poll revealed that Ehud Barak, the defense minister, profited the most. Albeit the most cynical of the explanations, it seems the most plausible for the following reasons – given massive political benefits likely to accrue for any significant military action, no real down sides – except if the invasion is ‘botched’ as in Lebanon in 2006 – the incentives to commit a large scale invasion, and little respect for Palestinian lives, are many.

A Selection of Published Analysis and Reflection about the Conflict

LRB also carries a selection of responses by a variety of political analysts and authors on Israel’s action in Gaza.

Roger Cohen writing for NYRB reflects – “I have never previously felt so despondent about Israel, so shamed by its actions, so despairing of any peace that might terminate the dominion of the dead in favor of opportunity for the living.”

Understanding Delhi, and ‘The Delhi Walla’

January 8, 2009 in General, Personal

The article was written for The Delhi Walla

‘The Delhi Walla’ is a journalist’s blog, albeit without the drama and urgency with which journalism and journalists are often associated with today. The writing on the blog represents that prior tradition among journalists which was about subtle observation, gentle humor, as evinced in journalists’ travelogues, and in shows like BBC’s ‘From our own correspondent’.

The blog is a significant achievement. More so because reporting on cities is generally skillfully and purposefully bankrupt, formulaic and inane, an orgy of crummy descriptions of pointless people, and events, and soulless corporate jingles about places to eat, and entertain, infested almost always with a touch too colorful poorly shot photos.

With an eclectic choice of topics, a choice that is many a times dictated by the city rather than by an urge to puppeteer description in grips of pincers of prejudice, with gentle and subtle humor, Mayank shines a weak but almost always pleasant humanistic light on the myriad facets of Delhi, and the occupations, preoccupations, habits, of its residents. The wonderful aspect of the blog is that it catalogs “real life”, an all too absent commodity in newspapers, be it then a story about the need to find a ‘second home’ in a city with cramped homes that provide all too little privacy, the rather oddly structured stories on colonies (as they are called in Delhi), or the succession of charming articles on bookstores, and their proprietors. Perhaps seen hence, it is a writer’s blog. And that is probably a more accurate description of the sensibility of the blog, and the author, and explains the void comparisons to newspapers that I make above.

Understanding

One can try to ‘understand’ things of interest by disinterring things, breaking them apart skillfully – through analysis – and connecting those parts into an ‘explanation’ or simply ‘description’ conjoined by some connective tissue. It is a bit like looking at white light through a prism, with colored rainbow being the distillate. Of course more often we just describe a part of one color, and the rest is at best in penumbra. Analysis is generally purposive, and demands specificity. It struggles to contain, and cast, and organize, and too often the aim is to achieve that ‘aha’ moment. For all these reasons, the enterprise is often fraught with problems of myopia, and of force.

Another feature of the analytical method is the method of writing – it is writing through contestation. For example, the account that I provide here is often times a ‘negative’ account – describing what this blog isn’t, rather than simply focusing on what it is. The method may be insightful, if the analysis has legs, but it is seldom enjoyable.

The Delhi Walla chooses differently; he observes, describes, narrates, engages in reverie, and gently analyzes. He does it with great modesty, and some charm. His method of ‘understanding’ isn’t analytic introspection, but subtle observation that produces that warm flush of vague but liberalist accepting, even embracing, empathy, and exultation in the shared existence. It is akin to the ‘understanding’ and exultation one feels while standing on the roof of the house on a pleasant summer evening, and looking over the gullis and Mohalla.

Delhi

Delhi is an easy city to caricature – bleak, dirty, loud, and crowded. And it is certainly all that. But reality is simultaneously substantially more mundane, and textured. Likewise, people sometimes mistakenly make the inferential leap from ‘bleak’ surroundings to ‘bleak’ lives; all too often ‘bleak’ surroundings are peripheral to the fuller psychological lives lived among acquaintances, friends, relations, and more.

Delhi is a city that carries the hopes and aspirations of people living in it, the location of deaths, marriages, jobs, cars, monuments, history, politics, money, and more. One can take respite, if so is needed, in the beauty of some of its monuments, sometimes in just its familiarity, in its ‘traditions’ and ‘landmarks’, even in its oppressive heat, as Mayank occasionally does, food, conversation, and intimacy of friends and family, among other things.

The Delhi Walla

The Delhi Walla is an eclectic account of Delhi. It is an ode to the ‘passions’ of Delhi Walla – the Muslim heritage of Delhi, books, Arundhati Roy, and gay life in the city. It is an account of his questions, and more interestingly a “live” account of an unfailingly interesting life.