Tag: philosophy

Scientific Lifestyle is Satyagraha

In Sanskrit, the word Satyagraha (सत्याग्रह) is made of two parts: ‘Satya’ (सत्या) means truth. ‘Āgraha‘ (आग्रह) means insistence. In this blog, my aim is to connect the scientific thought process to the concept of Satyagraha.

At the beginning of this year, I posted a doodle on three ways to make India more scientific. It drew quite a bit of attention across various platforms, including the one you are reading this message on.

In that doodle, I mentioned three points on how to inculcate a scientific viewpoint among us:

  1. Speaking about science in our mother tongue. This means using our household language as a medium for scientific discussion.
  2. Encouraging people to ask questions. It goes without saying that the bedrock of our exploration is curiosity, and the primary prerequisite for curiosity is asking questions and trying to figure out the answers.
  3. Projecting scientific thinking as a lifestyle.

It is the third point that is central to our discussion. So, what do we mean by projecting scientific thinking as a lifestyle? It means we should be able to incorporate scientific thought processes into our everyday lives. For example, utilizing simple mathematical and statistical thinking to understand the affairs of the world. Adopting it as a lifestyle also means making it a part of ourselves, such that it becomes an automatic way of looking at the world. This means it should become second nature for us to use a scientific viewpoint when observing our external world, especially when we have to make decisions. We have to actively seek scientific information and try to understand how it connects to our lives. The source of scientific information becomes important, and we should critically evaluate the source before we adopt it into our lives.

This also brings us to the point of how to utilize scientific thinking without compromising our humility and compassion. Just because we are equipped with scientific thinking, it does not mean that we should be condescending. This is where patience, humility and compassion have a role to play. The ability to understand others’ viewpoints and then respond scientifically is one of the most important aspects of our scientific education. Even when we criticize someone’s viewpoint, our critique will hold value only if we try to refute it from a scientific perspective. Many complex issues do not have straightforward solutions. This does not mean that there is no solution at all, but to arrive at a solution, we need to understand the problem in detail. This understanding is essentially how we develop an appreciation for somebody else’s viewpoint. We should be patient enough to hear others’ perspectives and then evaluate them with as much information as is available. This is a gradually learned process.

Another hallmark of scientific thinking is the willingness to change our viewpoints in light of new data that proves our old data wrong. This ability to self-correct is probably one of the greatest strengths of scientific thinking, and it is this trait that we must cultivate in our lives.

What is important for fostering scientific thinking is knowing how to utilize it in our everyday lives and trying to explore what the actual truth is. Indian philosophical roots have a word for the pursuit and/or insistence of truth. It is called Satyagraha. Although people in India associate Satyagraha with the anti-colonial movement, its deeper philosophical meaning connects well to the pursuit of science and scientific thinking. Like all tools and thought processes, it is vital for us to ensure scientific thinking is utilized in the proper context and in a humane way. Rational thought from an Indian philosophy has a lesson for us: pursue the truth with intent. Science, after all, is Satyagraha (सत्याग्रह).

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When Chandra’s paper got rejected

Sometimes, referee reports can be frustrating, especially if your paper gets rejected and criticized without justification. This is not a new thing in scientific discourse, and even accomplished researchers like S. Chandrasekhar had to face such rejections. As Chandra notes in the winter of 1956:

“The frustration of these months was due also to the fact that the Royal Society rejected my second paper on turbulence with a most discourteous referee’s report. I withdrew the paper, but continued the correspondence with the referee. The referee withdrew some of his more blatant remarks; but the whole incident was an unhappy interlude. I went specially to Washington to talk to von Neumann; and corresponded also with Heisenberg.” (Chandrasekhar, 2010, p. 38)

When a paper gets rejected, what is important is to seek feedback from people who are knowledgeable and courteous. Chandra had friends such as von Neumann and Heisenberg to seek input. One cannot get better than this.  

Source:  Chandrasekhar, S. 2010. A Scientific Autobiography: S. Chandrasekhar: With Selected Correspondence. (posthumously published)

C1, C2 and life…

Dear Young People,

Below is a brief lesson that I share with those who ask me for career advice. I hope it will be useful to you.

Category 1 (C1): Honesty, humility, discipline, effort and compassion

is as important as

Category 2 (C2): Irreverence, creativity, drive, communication and risk-taking.

In this era, C1 may look boring and sound cynical, but C1 can give you as much of a competitive advantage as C2, especially in the long run.

Importantly, C1 will build your character. C1 is probably the best way to build self-confidence, and hence self-respect.

This is not to underplay C2, which is equally important. Just that C1 and C2 are not zero-sums.

C1 and C2 are incomplete lists, and you can always expand them and keep referring to them for directions in life.

Best Wishes,
from a fellow student

Chandra quotes Virginia Woolf

The well-known astrophysicist, S. Chandrasekhar, liked the writings of Virgina Woolf. In her words, he found a unique channel to philosophize his own work, as he did in 1957:

‘By accident, I found the following quotation from Virginia Wolff (Woolf) which expressed very accurately my attitude to my work of the past years. This quotation ends my Rumford Lecture.

“There is a square. There is an oblong. The players take the square and place it upon the oblong. They place it very accurately. They make a perfect dwelling place. The structure is now visible. What was inchoate is here stated. We are not so various or so mean. We have made oblongs and stood them upon squares. This is our triumph. This is our consolation.”’ (Chandrasekhar, 2010, p. 41)

Source:  Chandrasekhar, S. 2010. A Scientific Autobiography: S. Chandrasekhar: With Selected Correspondence. (posthumously published)

Note: The source spells Woolf as Wolff

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DeWitt is a ‘de-influencer’?

The Indian Express recently reported that “Author Helen DeWitt’s refusal to accept the prestigious Windham-Campbell Prize is a reminder that in a noisy world, the most imaginative stance may well be to let the book stand on its own.”

To quote: “DeWitt’s refusal, like Ferrante’s silence, is a reminder that in a noisy world, the most imaginative stance may well be to let the book stand on its own.” This kind of thinking and action is rare nowadays. Good to see this still persists. Perhaps, such people should be called ‘de-influencers’.

I have to add that DeWitt is already an established name in her field. By established, I mean, by name and perhaps by income too.

2 questions:

1) It may be relatively easier for a person of fame to reject further recognition. Will an upcoming writer (or equivalent in other fields) be able to do this?

2) The same person in a different situation may have reacted differently, and a different person in the same situation, too. In the human context, do we fully understand what an incentive is?