Science, Art, Litt, Science based Art & Science Communication

Some Qs. people asked me and my replies to them - Part 6

Q: What is more important, empathy or patriotism? I tend to empathize with innocents irrespective of their county.

Krishna: You are right when you empathize with innocents irrespective of their country.

As a person of science I can never support artificial boundaries created by human beings ( although people think these are made for convenience’s sake, they make you do all sorts of inconvenient things). Science is universal in nature and science and its universality comes first to me.

Next I am a human being and empathize with other living beings.

To be frank patriotism is boundary-bound and narrows your mind. “your country, mother land, state, city, house, we, I, me and myself” denote narrow mindedness. You kill your ‘enemy’, a living being, in the name of patriotism. You do all sorts of irrational things ( selections based on local and non-local criteria, selfish trade barriers, protectionism, etc. etc.) because of it.

The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?

You're not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who says it or does it.

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

To me, it seems a dreadful indignity to have a human being controlled by geography.

Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.

Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them!- Albert Einstein

Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.

Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles.

You'll never have a quiet and peaceful world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.

Every man who has shown the world the way to beauty, to true culture, has been a rebel, a 'universal' without patriotism, without home, who has found his people everywhere.

Quotes source: Patriotism Quotes

YOU ARE MY IMAGE IN THE MIRROR

Q:What is your primary source of happiness? Krishna : My mind! Mind is what makes you happy or sorrow, not any outside source.
A mind that can analyze everything critically can realize reality exactly as it is and make you strong from within. When you are strong from within, you can never be in a state of misery.

Q: Why do some people wear black threads on their ankles?

Krishna : Tying Black threads around your ankles, or wrists, or neck to ward off evil is just a superstition based ritual.

There isn’t anything called “Buri Nazar” or ‘evil eye’.

If somebody ‘seeing you and admiring your beauty or success’ can cause harm to you, their best wishes can do good to you too. Both are highly unrealistic.

If you lose control over your life, you try to depend on all sorts of external support. It just shows in what state your mind is.

When several factors decide outcomes, they follow the interplay of scientific rules and routes and exactly fit into the reaction realities. You have to register this in your mind to come out of the misery you are in. Watch it coolly and try to understand it. How a person survives a health condition or a catastrophe or a bad situation depends on the sum total outcomes of scientific factors occurring simultaneously. Other outside things have no effect whatsoever on it. Any connections you make between rituals/superstitions and the outcomes depend on your perceptions and experiences. A positive outcome either to you or others makes you stick with them. A negative result will make you attack them. But the net result doesn't depend on anything that is not related to it! And these unrelated factors are your beliefs, rituals, superstitions and myths.

Your unrealistic wishes of bending Scientific rules with magical powers will never come true! Your ‘advisers’ will make money using your fears and tying the magical black threads. That’s all!

Science's rules are unyielding, they will not be bent in any way fo...

Q: What doesn't impress you?

Krishna : A person’s money, celebrity status, irrational beliefs, loose talk, gossip, laziness that hinders a person’s mental growth, hypocricy, inhuman nature.

Q: Do any animals other than humans believe in supernatural things like God, ghosts, etc.?
Krishna : Hmmm! If things don’t exist in the first place, how can any animal ‘imagine’ them? Imagination about STRANGE THINGS like ghosts belong to human mind. And this human mind can imagine even animals can imagine those things and ‘interpret their behaviour’ in the way that suits it’s imagination.
Some of my seniors conducted research on animals during eclipses and found nothing unusual about their behaviour like people imagine and explain.
Imagine whatever you want. But don’t imagine that animals too can imagine what you can.

Q: What makes people unlucky? Are you unlucky?

Q: Do you consider yourself unlucky? Why?

Krishna: Never! I fail only when my efforts are not up to the mark.

True scientists don't believe in luck! They are go-getters and think only well planned hard work will yield good results. While lazy people believe in it and escapists blame 'bad' luck when they lost control over their lives and the situation they are in.

What is 'luck' according to science

Q; Would you rather be the smartest with a group of not so smart or be an average in a group of smartest?
Krishna : You can never be average in a group of smartest. You learn from the smartest and become very smart. So I already chose the smartest group and stuck with it.

Q:Today my mother told me not to eat anything from 5 pm to 8:45 pm (today’s eclipse duration) because eating food in that duration can make me ill for 3 months. She also told me to take a bath immediately after the eclipse has finished. Is it all true?

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/healt...

Krishna: No! Not according to science.

I eat during eclipses, go out and watch them, do whatever I want to do, and don’t take a bath after all this celestial drama. My parents and even grand parents never followed these rituals suggested by your mother!

And nothing bad has happened to any of our family members because of this.

If you want to follow superstitions, it is up to you. But coming out of that rut is the best thing to do. And science assures you, you will be alright despite disobeying your mother.

(The link you provided has a cunning write-up. The writer cleverly puts both views before you - the superstitious beliefs and the scientific one. But after telling all the superstitious beliefs, he or she just added a small sentence at the end of the para that according to science there is ‘no evidence’. The short sentence at the end doesn’t impress people. Those who fear eclipses will read the entire para and think all that is true. Their fear makes them blind to the last sentence.

The short last sentence is the fact! But the way the writer put it made it very insignificant! What a mess!)

Q: Does the Buddhist concept of non-existence of permanent soul disprove the Vedantic concept of existence of permanent soul? Which concept is true?

Krishna: Searching for truth? Search for evidence first. Forget about beliefs and opinions.

And I can view it and tell only from scientists’ point of view. Here it is…

Soul?! What is it according to science and scientists?

Q: Why is astrology an insane path when in search of the truth? Krishna : Yes, it is. Because it doesn’t revel truth in any way. On the contrary, it misleads people, Read here why:

Q: Is there something called luck? Does it really cause miracles?

Krishna: Luck? What is it?

What others call luck, true scientists call chance of finding something while searching for it vigorously and whole-heartedly using all your capabilities, keen observation and knowledge and grabbing the chance when the opportunity presents itself to you.

When our efforts are not up to the mark, where our skills are not fully presented and therefore fail to achieve the desired result, we often attribute it to 'bad luck'. When something happens according to our expectations, we sometimes attribute it to 'good luck'. But realistically there is no such thing as luck. It just is your perception of the situation you are in!

What is 'luck' according to science

Q: How humans developed the dominating attitude over other species over the course of time?

Krishna: By using more evolved features of their brain! They subjugated the less evolved ones and made them their slaves to carry them and their goods, dance to their tunes (in circus), to protect them and their property and even making them give milk, eggs and meat in the quantities and qualities the human beings wanted.

Q: "Anybody can become a genius, but most people don't want to be." What do you think about this?
Krishna : I realize each person has a different definition for genius. Like somebody pointed out ‘becoming rich’ is considered as a mark of genius by some! If that is taken into account, at least 95% of the people want to become rich.

My definition is different. It deals with mind matters minus money ones. When my definition is included, only small fraction of people can make their mind work hard to become geniuses.

Because hard work of the mind is difficult, several people avoid it. Minds are strange. They avoid difficult things and go for the easiest ones.

Again, like somebody pointed out, a genius mind always looks for challenges. But I don’t agree that ‘this could lead to a serious depression if the mind is not fed with such challenges’. For a genius mind, it is not difficult to find challenges and beat them too. It is a thrill you get addicted to and get high on it.

But you should have a mind set to go the adventerous way.

Yes, anybody can become a genius of my definition, but most people don't want to be!

Q:How humans developed the dominating attitude over other species over the course of time? Krishna : By using more evolved features of their brain! They subjugated the less evolved ones and made them their slaves to carry them and their goods, dance to their tunes (in circus), to protect them and their property and even making them give milk, eggs and meat in the quantities and qualities the human beings wanted.

Q: How is the advancement of science a threat to the existence of religions?
Krishna : Well, if religion says Earth or Sun was created by God some 6000 years ago or human beings were created as they ‘re now on a single day, science has evidence to show that it ‘s not true. It is there for every one to see and comprehend. If you ‘re not made blind, deaf and mind-imprisoned through faith or fear, you would realize what a scientific fact is. You will understand that all that’s written in ancient times is melting away now like scripts written on water.

Science in itself is a spiritual journey. Unraveling the mysteries of the universe and trying to know the truth and meaning of our existence. Unlike religion, science is on the pursuit of truth without any fear, illusions, preconceived notions and beliefs. Unlike what several people think, science deals with moral ( derived from reasoning related to...empirical evidence) issues too and can be a good guide to life's journey through the checkerboard of blacks and whites.

Religious People who quote scientists to support their thought process, I noticed, quote from earlier century scientists and their words which reflect the situation they were in when science hasn’t developed much. These words were made redundant with the advancement of science.

Our consciousness is the outcome of our neural activity. There isn’t anything very special about it like religious people think.

People say science cannot solve all the problems and doesn't answer all the questions human minds pose. True! But think about this: This universe started with a Big Bang ( according to one theory - which is not yet proved!) some 14 Billion years ago. But science is just a few hundred years old. It is still in its infancy. It has to learn a lot, study a lot, think a lot, experiment a lot and then only it can come up with all the answers we are seeking right now. How can you expect a child to solve all the problems of his ancestors? And answer the questions posed by his great, great, great, great grand fathers? Is it appropriate to even expect such a thing? I don't think so. We should be amazed at how we have been able to get so far in understanding the things in this universe despite our inadequacies! Science is doing its best with the limited resources it has to both answer the questions and solve the problems. As the time goes by, I am pretty sure, it will succeed more and more. Please have patience! And let me assure you when science answers these Qs, they will not be silly stories like “God of Gaps” ones but religion-shattering true facts.

Q: What do you see as the main difference between a successful, and an unsuccessful decision? How much does luck versus skill have to do with it?

Krishna: Skill 100% and luck 0%.

In one , researchers asked people who identified as lucky and as unlucky to read a newspaper. On one half page of a newspaper, they wrote in large letters: “Tell the experimenter you have seen this and win £250.” The people who said they were lucky were more likely to see the ad, researchers wrote, and the “unlucky” people seemed to demonstrate more anxiety, which detracted from their powers of observation. The success of any person has to do with being open to new experiences and observing opportunities as they present themselves. Successful people maximise chance opportunities, do their educated guesswork, persist in the face of failure, employ various psychological techniques to cope with, and often even thrive upon the failures that come their way. They have lots of grit and determination.

Q: How can I deal with clever people?
Krishna: By being honest and sincere, you can gain their trust. By being smart you can gain their appreciation too.

Q: Were you once liberal, but feel yourself becoming more conservative as you get older?
Krishna : On the contrary, I was born and brought up in a conservative society - though my parents and grand-parents were not conservative - but became more and more liberal as I grew up and with higher education and critical thinking, I changed all my thoughts and acts. I am a completely new person now!

Q: What are some of the most controversial or unpopular opinions we have about India and Indians? Krishna :

Most Indians think that their culture and traditions are science based. They even think the mythological stories they learn from their parents and elders ‘re lodged in science! People here believe we are a very happy bunch of people practicing ancient customs that have roots in modern science!

Wait a minute. What did I say? 'Practicing ancient customs that have roots in modern science?' Are we Time Travellers using Time Machines? Does time go backwards from future to past? How is this possible? Before someone asks me the favourite question of teenagers, "Are you crazy?” I want to clarify that I am only repeating what our politicians here say. Yes, our leaders too love science and feel our ancestors are ahead of times and know all things scientific we are using now!

And so people ask questions like

‘What is the science behind Ramayan and Mahabharath?’

‘What is the science behind wearing toe rings?’

‘What is the science behind our superstitions?’

“What is the science behind our ghost stories?’

Don’t believe me? Go search on quora for the questions that start with ‘’What is the science behind…’’ . I myself have answered several of these questions.

There ‘s no ‘real science’ when our customs and traditions originated. And they ‘re not ‘’based on modern day science’’. They are just culture based. Get that right, my fellow citizens.

My scientist friends from other parts of the world teaze me because of our fascination for scientific culture and traditions!

Love Science, not its impostors!

Q: What is the most 'non-Indian' thing about you? Krishna: I don’t follow any superstitions.
I don’t bribe, no matter how difficult it is to get the work done. I patiently wait.

I don’t follow the beliefs and traditions people around me follow.

I am very punctual.

I am not a fan of any movie star or musician. I don’t endorse celebrity culture.

I give respect to people based on their mentality, not age.

My love for people doesn’t end at the boundary of any city, state, region or country (my outlook is universal in nature).

I don’t support ‘chalta hai attitude’.

I never took selfies. Never post my pictures on social media for people to like.

I don’t watch TV (except for 30 minute news programmes) or movies in theatres.

I don’t support caste system. I don’t even know the castes of my neighbours and best friends of several years.

My only guide and guru is science.

I am a critical thinker.

Q: Do you think atheism would have never started if religion was implemented by mankind in a flawless way?

Krishna: Religion cannot be flawless because it is based on ‘primitive’ human imagination and interpretation and perception of human experiences.

For anything to develop or evolve, it takes time. It cannot be done overnight. Human intelligence took time to evolve too. In the initial stages of this evolution, people founded religions with their primitive understanding of the world. Science came later with the evolution of human mind and the consequent knowledge development.

Religion ‘without flaws’ should be based on facts and reality. Then it becomes science, not religion. Scientific understanding has flaws too but it resorts to self -correcting mechanisms to avoid or delete the flaws.

If religion follows the same procedure, it leads to atheism.

But when we have science, why do some people still stick to religion with all its flaws and primitiveness? Why can't they abandon untested and untried imaginative stories that have no evidence?

Science or no science, human mentality follows its own course when people refuse to abandon fear and develop courageous and realistic outlook.

Q: What is your most interesting experience with ghosts that are not scary or threatening?

Krishna: Ghosts are not scary and threatening because they don’t exist in the first place according to science.

Science and the paranormal

Interesting experience? Yes, when people hallucinate about them and think all that is true and believe imaginatives stories others tell and get scared and discuss about them non-stop! You can’t stop wondering about strange human mentality! :)

Q: Why do people believe in God and some superstitious thoughts?

Krishna: Some People need external emotional support and constant affirmation that somebody is taking care of them if they cannot stand on their own mental strength.

These people interpret all that positive that is happening in their lives is because of their belief and work even more confidently to gain success. It is some sort of placebo effect.

If we can understand that, we can tolerate it as well as long as it doesn’t harm or hurt anybody.

However, superstitions harm us like hell. Like this…

People harm themselves, people around and the societies they live in with their irrational beliefs. Like this…

Bathinda shocker: Woman kills grandchildren in bid to ward off evil spirits

Parents allow exorcist to kill daughter, rape body. Wanted to appease god for gold

https://in.yahoo.com/news/parent...

How To Get a Vaccine Religious Exemption

Baby death: Parents convicted over vegetable milk diet: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-eu...

Women throws coins into engine of a plane for good luck and safe journey but in fact endangering the lives of people on board!

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/2...

Endangering others ‘ lives: Superstitions don't have any science behind them!

So we will have to fight them, without any doubt or exceptions.

Q: Have you ever seen God or a ghost?

Krishna: No, I haven’t!

Ghosts don’t exist according to science. But some people hallucinate them under various circumstances. How? Like this…

Science and the paranormal

Likewise some people ‘‘feel God”. But feelings are not evidence. Anecdotal evidence is very poor evidence. It depends on how you interpret things that happen around you.

Science and Spirituality

Q; How would life be without religion and discrimination that currently prevailed in the society? Krishna: It would be much, much better provided people understand and realize how they can stand on their own mental strengths and tremendously benefit from the knowledge science provides.

Science and Spirituality

Q: What are some things that educated people should know to be false but accept as true anyway?
Krishna : This answer of mine is more relevant to this part of the world:

Pseudo-science.
I have seen even PhDs in science, scientists and professors accepting some of it!
I was shocked to read some answers even here on Quora given by these highly qualified people using pseudo-science. Their accepting and saying that our ancient sacred texts have origins in modern science.

Several of my scientist friends in the West tease me because of this.
I hang my head in shame.

Q: Why is religion a barrier?

Krishna: If you read articles like this…

How To Get a Vaccine Religious Exemption

If you read real stories of children or animals getting sacrificed because of religious beliefs, your blood boils. Yes, extreme religion is a great barrier to progress.

Q: What made you change your mind about a long held belief? For instance, beliefs about other people, other genders or other cultures.

Krishna : My scientific understanding of the universe and the universal and true picture it depicted changed me as a person completely.

Science and Spirituality

Q: When will Indians learn to respect scientists, farmers and soldiers instead of worshipping fake filmy stars?

Krishna: When the media projects the right picture. And when people make it do that.

We are marching for science on April 14th.

marchforscience

We called a press meeting. Just six journalists belonging to not so well known news papers turned up.

Rest of the Fourth Estate people were covering an upcoming actress’s strip tease drama. Actually it was her personal grudge that she was not given roles in the movies and rejection of her MAA membership.

Actress Sri Reddy strips to protest sexual abuse of women in the Te...

All the news papers here reported the actress’ antics on the front pages. Not many reported the most important things - March for Science events that energize science advocates from multiple spheres to create tangible change and call for greater accountability of public officials to enact evidence-based policy that serves all communities - even on the last pages of their editions.

The actress became an overnight sensation.

Scientists became microbes!

Journalists I contacted to demand reasons for their behaviour said, the semi nude pictures of a lady sell their papers. Scientists’ lectures can’t .

Now people who are buying the news papers decide what you want and what you don’t want in your news papers.

Aren’t we all responsible for all this mess in our societies?

Q: Why do different people believe in different versions of the truth?

Krishna : According to science there can be only one fact given that the conditions in which it is searched, observed and perceived are the same. That fact is evidence based and established by following strict scientific methods and methodology. These methodologies are agreed by scientists to ‘control’ human frailties like confirmation biases, personalized opinions, misconceptions, baseless beliefs, ideologies, flawed perceptions based on their experiences in different conditions and many such things that influence human thought process.

But if you are not a person of science, you get into an illusionary world. In a world where people clutch at all kinds of straws to make some sense of the madness around them, truth can never be found. Instead of analyzing, examining and understanding why something happens and how it should be handled realisitically, people try shortcuts by bringing unknown and untested factors to interpret things! These beliefs divide people because each person will have a different set of experiences and those in turn influence their explanations and the resultant beliefs based on their mental makeup and situations and not on one truth. That's how different beliefs - both religious and non-religious - originated.

Science and Spirituality

Q: How do i predict my future?

Krishna: By deciding what you want to be, getting firmly resolved to do get there and working hard to reach your goal post. There is no other way.

If you think astrology can predict your future, you are mislead by someone. Period!

Why Astrology is Pseudo-science

Q: Which part of the body is the soul located at?

Krishna: There is no evidence of the presence of a soul in the living body. It just is your imagination

Soul?! What is it according to science and scientists?

Q: Have the theists coined the term atheism? Is the term correct, considering that atheists are called so as they don't believe in any God-related ‘-ism’?

Krishna: The word atheism originated several centuries back. What people meant then by atheism is absence of belief in the existence of deities.

From a science point of view…

Science haven’t solved this Q of creator yet. Till now we haven’t seen the evidence for the existence of a Creator. Therefore, an atheist scientist should be 99% atheist and the remaining 1% we treat as ‘an open mindedness’ to consider any evidence provided by somebody or this physical world. Scientists can’t completely shut the door like that on theism like non-scientific atheists do. Like Carl Sagan said ‘absence of evidence is not evidence of absence’. This is an ‘unsolved Q that needs lots of time’.

According to vedas, it seems, the creator of this universe is an entity that cannot be present and visible in this universe. This entity stays outside of universe creating and controlling it and is beyond our senses. So, the vedas say, we cannot find him in the physical parameters of this universe! So, you cannot have evidence of the creator of this universe in this universe.

Therefore, you have to simply believe in this entity if you want to! What a situation? But then, it just becomes your imagination that somebody or something created this universe. And in a very scientific way! So that entity, if it really exists, has to be scientifically minded - and why - it could as well be a scientist too!

Some scientists even light- heartedly say that this universe we live in is just a simulation of higher intelligent beings and that we are all part of a 'robot game'! In that case we were created by some intelligent aliens from another universe for experiment, and stationed on the earth to see how we evolve, just like we do with robots!

Some scientists propose that this universe can come into existence on its own without any creator.

According to them coming into existence of this Universe is a logical and mathematical necessity. The equations and laws of the universe are so compelling that they forced the formation of a universe for them to describe.

This video explains it more clearly…

Until science grows more (through widening of scientific knowledge) to answer most of these questions, we will have to live in an uncertain situation.

Until ‘evidence’ is provided, science cannot become theistic.

Atheists are of two types - those who are completely atheistic and totally shut off their minds and those that keep the doors of their mind still open to consider any evidence provided even if they are atheistic.

Theists are those who blindly believe in a creator whether there is evidence or not.

Q: Why is astrology an insane path when in search of the truth?

Krishna : Yes, it is. Because it doesn’t revel truth in any way. On the contrary, it misleads people. Read here why:

Why Astrology is Pseudo-science

Q: How does someone make me believe in astrology?

Krishna: Shall I try the opposite one, because that is the best way? Read this article…

Why Astrology is Pseudo-science

Q: Why does somebody feel like bad luck is chasing them?

Krishna: When you lose confidence in yourself, you commit mistakes while attempting something and find yourself losing all the time. And blame it on bad luck. It is an escape route!

Some Qs. people asked me and my replies to them - Part 6

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