Epistemic limits of scientific enquiry

Had attended a talk the other day by Dr. Jayant Haritsa from the CSA department, on using textual representations of Carnatic music (Music written as Sa Ri Ga Ma etc.,) to determine what is the ‘Aarohana’ and ‘Avarohana’ (the equivalent of scale in Western music) of a given Raaga or identifying the raaga itself, given another piece of music, outside the ones used to train the identification system. Among other aims than the ones given above, was to provide a ’scientific basis’ for the raagas, based on the statistics of usage of notes in various compositions, and maybe, provide a better Arohana/Avarohana for the raaga itself than the one received from tradition.

The talk was itself quite interesting and the system seems to do pretty well. In the Q&A session, a lot of concern was generated as to whether the ‘better’ Arohana/Avarohana proposed by the system would capture the ‘mood’ of the raaga, which seems to be an essential part of each raaga. Haritsa was of the opinion that as scientific researchers, we must not take things for granted and must try to question tradition using tools of science.

The essential issue, which one can generalize to things further than just music and its analysis, is the question of what is knowledge and/or Truth. More specifically in this context, one can ask the question as to what type of knowledge can we obtain using the scientific method, and whether this is the only kind which is ‘reliable’, the rest being ’subjective’  is useless in a more general context, i.e, whether Truth in all its glory is best sought out using the scientific method.

Upfront, one must understand the fundamental premise of the scientific method, even leaving out its reductionist inclinations — Nature is not random: it follows some logic, some pattern which by large number of observations and/or experiments is discovered and this knowledge (from observation/experimentation) eventually can be called Truth. This is not hard to justify: we can see patterns everywhere in Nature and can build quite accurate models of the same. The reliability of scientific knowledge depends hugely on the concept of measurement – representing natural phenomena as cardinal numbers – numbers we can use to say something about the size of the measured phenomenon. No observation or experiment can be called a success/failure if it does not produce some kind of number. For example, Haritsa’s system produces a number per candidate scale for a raaga — higher the number, more likely it is the correct scale.

Immediately, one can see phenomena that the scientific method cannot be used to investigate : Emotions, ethics, likes, dislikes, etc., etc., Not only are these immeasurable (neuroscientists may disagree!) quantities, but they are also incommensurable: a statement like makes absolutely no sense. Also, science can give no answers to statements like ‘The world is Maaya’, or ‘What we perceive is not what Is’. These statements belong to the same class of knowledge that the fundamental ‘axiom’ of science belongs to — you cannot prove or disprove them within the logical system that is built upon that axiom.

Now, music is a strange beast. It is highly patterned (scientists like to talk about its ‘mathematical’ structure), but at the same time, its main (probably only) value is in the emotion that it evokes: it is not coincidence that music is an essential part of religious worship, especially of the Bhakti variety. Therefore, no musical education is complete without a good understanding of both the patterns and the emotions (Bhaava) associated with music. Now, scientists are uncomfortable (or dismissive) about things they cannot measure, and musicians are uncomfortable (or dismissive!) of statistical analyses of their art. Therefore, it is not surprising to for each to value one of the two more. Haritsa’s and the audience’s apprehensions merely betrays their respective inclinations.

With the advent of huge computing power, a scientist’s optimism in understanding the universe has understandably increased. It is a common notion that failure of mathematical models is simply due to the ‘exclusion of some variable’ from the model. With more information/data, one can do arbitrarily well. This attitude conveniently ignores the fact that some quantities are not measurable and even if some quantitative representation is possible, they might be incommensurable. This can be seen best in sciences dealing with human tastes and values, like economics, sociology or anthropology. Subjects like econometrics, social psychology seem to be treading a fine line that distinguishes scientific knowledge from gobbledygook. For example, if one surveys 100 students asking them to rate the facilities at the hostel on a scale of 1 to 10, and we conclude that the average score is 8 and so most are satisfied (assume a score greater than 7 implies satisified), we are making two assumptions : we can add the satisfaction of 100 people and divide that number by 100, and that one student’s rating of 7 is the same as another student’s rating of 7. Though there have been arguments justifying such an approach, it is upto the individual to decide how seriously to take such surveys.

The dominant paradigm of our times is that of scientific optimism, and most appeals to emotion or morals are considered ‘woolly’ and ‘unscientific’. But one must realise that unless there is a healthy engagement with both pattern finding and moralising, the Truth can never emerge.

Review: Russell’s Education and the Social order, Aiyar’s Smoke and Mirrors

The problem with long breaks in between writing blog posts is that too many things happen and recounting everything is usually tedious.

Finished Russel’s interesting views on education, which is put forth in his inimitable style. His main purpose in

Brick in the wall!

the book is to analyse the function that education plays in the modern nation-state. He also analyses its aims and what it actually ends up achieving. The range of topics covered is large, ranging from the effects of education on individualism, on how topics like religion, nationalism, sex, class feeling, competition are put forth in an educational institution to the big debate on home vs. school and how education is handled in Communist Russia.

For a logician, he is surprisingly forgiving about facets of our personality which are not governed by reason, like emotions and the subconscious. I have not read Russell in such a forgiving, pragmatic mood!! He seems to accept the tradeoff between individualism and stability, and between control and freedom of children. He is also quite happy and expectant of the results of the ‘Communist experiment’ going on in Russia, which was common to all the left-leaning intellectuals of that time.

The book tears apart the rigid, dogmatic system of education which he himself was probably subjected to, pointing out that it expects children to accept things that are patently incorrect (like the fact that his/her own country is the best in the world, and glorifying wars) and false on the pretext that they are ‘too young’ or their ‘minds must not be sullied’. He correctly understands that the education is built to consolidate the system which it represents.

To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, there are always two kinds of people: the ones who believe that people need to be saved from themselves and others that believe that people can be at their best if encouraged. The educational system is built by the former and Russell is obviously from the latter category, which leads to quite a clash. (Jefferson used this quote in the context of American political parties. No prizes for guessing which is which!) Russell supports an education system which is quite opposite to the one which is followed even to this day: one that encourages independent thinking and asking difficult questions. He understands the needs of social stability which is fostered by the experiences that a child has in school (i.e, socialization) but discourages moral codes being propagated by falsehoods, knowing that one, it does not really work, and two, finding out that something he/she believes in is false is not really good for morality.

Overall, excellent read. This is obviously not the place to discuss the book out, but I do recommend it!

The other book that I’m almost done with is Smoke and Mirrors by journalist Pallavi Aiyar.

The whys and hows of China

One thing good about books written by journalists is that they are heavy on data and reflections and light on philosophy. Thomas Friedman is an unfortunate exception to this category. Like the title of the book says, this is about the author’s experiences in a new, foreign world and how many of the things that she believed in like democracy and freedom of expresssion were put to the test in this paradox of a nation-state. I fortunately got the last copy from Sapna in Mysore, and it is turning out to be a very interesting and highly readable buy.

Some of the major themes that the book deals with are paradox of free market liberalism in the economy and communist repression in the political arena, the pervasiveness of the State in all facets of the country, from the psychology of the individual to the running of the Shaolin temple. The success of the Communist Party in entering the minds and imaginations of the common people is quite amazingly put out in this book. She also writes with amusement about the assumptions made by the Indians and Chinese about each other and the cultural faux pas which happen when one visits a banquet hosted by the other.

Grudingly, she also acknowledges the amazing efficiency of the State in building infrastructure (one hospital in seven days, yes SEVEN days), and although economic disparities are large, the abject poverty that one finds in India is not present. The excellent social infrastructure that China possesses has even been appreciated by Amartya Sen. But she notes the underlying tensions that an oppressive regime is bound to generate which is kept in check by the Party by stupendous economic growth and new found love for religious tolerance and Confucianism (which promotes social harmony, they say! Mostly lip service, but anything to keep the people from, ironically, revolting).

She stays in a part of Beijing that has not yet been bulldozed to make way for skyscrapers and notes the huge difference in the perceptions, lifestyles of the people here.

All in all, two good additions :)

Point and counterpoint

Finished two books of essentially opposite characters, One was ‘One Straw Revolution’ and the other was ‘In defense of Globalization’ by Jagadish Bhagwati. Was interesting to read one after the other, since it covered the extremes of the globalization spectrum.

To be fair, Fukuoka was not trying to flagellate globalization as much as he was trying to point out an alternate way of life. Bhagwati, OTOH, was quite focused, as the title itself suggests.

One Straw Revolution

The book claims to be an introduction to natural farming, but is definitely far more than that. Though most of the book deals with Fukuoka’s method of ‘do-nothing farming’ (where you let nature take care of most of the work, with minimal intervention from the farmer), it also puts forward a way of life derived from the method of farming itself. Like the author says (paraphrased)

Once I realised that man knows nothing … Instead of talking about my philosophy, I tried to show the same to others by practicing agriculture.

He derives an alternate type of agriculture which uses the variety and complexity of nature to do most of the hard work, like controlling weeds, pests and manuring, with the farmer himself doing very little. Someone who knows a bit of community ecology will be fascinated by the practical usage of the same to make life easier. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, humans spend most of the energy they harvest/mine to modify ecosystems. However, given the complexity of ecosystems, this is usually a ham-handed approach which leads to other issues which need to be patched up, and so on and so forth. Fukuoka essentially tries to observe natural patterns and see how it can be used to his benefit, rather than fighting it. Of course, he builds his method around his philosophy of ‘man knows nothing’, but the method is useful even if you do not agree with his thinking. This book definitely lies in the ‘inspirational’ category and will leave the reader invigorated, if nothing else ;)

However, given modern logic of efficiency, this method is highly inefficient along the time ordinate, since gradually observing and adjusting to natural rhythms is extremely site specific (for obvious reasons) and iterative (Fukuoka himself took close to 2 decades to reach his level of expertise). NPK fertilizers and pesticides win out on this measure while losing out on practically everything else. Natural food is cheaper (those who buy from organic shops in Blore might find this shocking!), easier to grow and maintain while growing, and does not cause farmer riots all the time. Fukuoka also mentions the variety of problems farmers face when growing cash crops for a global market, especially when they are not sophisticated like corporations to hedge against the inherent risks.

In Defense of Globalization

Bhagwati is quite of the opposite character. Man can sufficiently control nature to increase welfare of all, any lapses are just because science is not yet perfected, and this implies the Western nations – given their superior science and technology – must help developing countries to grow faster. His idea to support growth is that

I noticed that the economic profile of all countries, developed or developing is pretty similar. Therefore, the obvious choice is to make the pie bigger.

As opposed to distributing the pie better. One cannot doubt that he is quite concerned with the welfare of all, just like Fukuoka, but supports globalization of trade as the best way out, in direct opposition of Fukuoka’s way out. Judging by the present scenario, Bhagwati has definitely been more influential!

Leaving aside fundamental differences in opinion, I found it quite instructive to read this book since Bhagwati makes a cogent argument about the various faults in the anti-globalization movement, most of which centre around them being more about good intentions rather than solid research. He concedes that globalization does not mean complete deregulation but needs to be ‘managed’ to cope with what he calls its ‘occasional downsides’. The problem that I have seen reading newspapers and such is that these downsides seem to be quite frequently ‘occasional’. One can hardly agree with Bhagwati that culture are environment are not affected, but rather helped by globalization, and that one should eat genetically modified foods because there is not scientific evidence that they cause any problems. There was no evidence that atmospheric pollution was bad in the 1800’s – the only lamenters being poets and artists – but no one disagrees now. Precautionary measures are something that Bhagwati dislikes saying that ‘anything and everything can be disallowed using moral arguments and this is bad for global trade’. If that is the price for precaution, so be it.

One consistent strain throughout the book is North-South relationship and how developing countries must learn from the big boys how the game is played (technology, management practices, financial aid, the whole nine yards!). USA uses 30% of the world’s energy. If everyone in India consumes like the average American, we would need to mine not only Mars but the Asteroid belt near Jupiter as well. If we concede that all cannot be Americans, then why should we follow the path of development that they did is not very clear. Our 9% growth is essentially creating brown-skinned Americans within a sea of poverty. India, like what we did with NAM, needs to chart its own path of development which is not infinitely optimistic about mining asteroids but takes a more realistic and cautious approach which increases the welfare of all.

Melkote: again!

We had been to Melkote again, but on a different mission, to discuss ways and means to rejuvenate Hosa Jeevana Dhari. For a brief introduction of the place and its people, see here. HJD had been embroiled in some internal issues and had reduced its activities to a minimal level. Now, the Koulagi family is back at the helm, and hope to do interesting things here again.

The meet was attended by around 10 people, all very experienced and focused to make life more tolerable for those that society ignores or worse, no longer tolerates. The agenda was this: HJD, started in the ’70s with a firm commitment to Sarvodaya, is now facing far stronger historical and social forces that define development and progress today. What can be its role in such a situation ?

The opening statements by everyone were concerned with issues of quantitative vs. qualitative work. Should the scale of the solution be large, or is it important to do something small, but in a more focused way was an issue which was grappled with, and a consensus was reached on the latter, given both the dominance of the present mainstream thinking as well as logistical difficulties. Considering that there are crises in all aspects of society – education, healthcare, agriculture, governance, equity, so on – Hosa Jeevana Dhari should literally try and show a hosa jeevana dhari (new way of life).

Another issue that concerned most present was the lack of examples for the younger generation to follow. If anyone reading this points toward Mukesh Ambani or Ratan Tata, please kill him (on rare occasions, her) on my behalf. Lack of role models both at home and outside at school/anywhere is making the idiot box more influential than it should be. A lack of a world view in children seems to be resulting in adults who are taught to pander their own whims without viewing their behavior from a broader perspective. For example, a liberal society today essentially means one with an unfettered market, without any qualifications or justifications. It is, therefore it is good. The moral implications are largely ignored. This is usually the case with philosophies which are administered by a clique of ‘high priests’, with a great incentive to keep people uncritical and ignorant.

HJD has had a long association with (organic) farming, and the agrarian crisis, reasons and experiences on the ground were discussed. Since it is well known that ideas have a greater chance of percolating when there is great change in society,  the participants saw the present situation as a premonition to times where alternatives will be actively sought for. Therefore, exemplars in HJD for a way of life that rests on principles radically different from the present modernity will serve the society well. All agreed that at present, intervention at a large scale is not possible, but ‘keeping the flame alive’ is what is essential. If someone comes looking for solutions, how confidently can HJD propose alternatives ? The answer lies in conviction and commitment to do the necessary groundwork to be able to propose realisitic, replicable and extant solutions, rather than just normative proposals with no material existence. The Gandhian allusion to ‘oceanic circles’ was used here (who used it in a different way), to visualise an exemplary HJD influencing melkote, and so on like ripples in the water.

Active propagation of the message of a sustainable life – one that is equitable, gender sensitive, harmonious with nature – was another aspect of the discussion. Many suggestions, including weekend workshops for urbanites, especially children and youth, Audio/Video material, books were put forward. Ideas about awareness campaigns among farmers were also thrown about. Many related their own experiences in the field, relating the difficulties they faced, and the opinion of the farmer or the urbanite which makes the present situation both difficult to change and difficult to sustain. People change their ways if they see a need for it and it helps them better their life.

Summarizing, one cannot but admit there is a crisis: people have been reduced to ‘essentially greedy’ individuals by our present system of economic organization, nature has become ‘capital’, life has boiled down to a chase for satisfying wants without any other purpose. Like one of the participants mentioned, until the European enlightenment, all civilizations had some purpose to life. Afterward, Evolution tells us that we are the product of years of random mutations of genes with no actual purpose, Bertrand Russell calls us bunch of atoms. Neither has ever been able to explain humans in their entirety, and the ‘high priest’ syndrome makes the people accept doctrines such as these uncritically.

Undoubtedly, there is a better way of looking at life. To know who we are and where we should go, we should always know where we came from. One can do worse than look at the thoughts of Gandhi and Kumarappa towards this end. Western notions of progress has lead to the highest rates of divorce and suicide in the so-called developed nations, and probably the highest density of god(con?)-men. Somehow, satisfying material wants ad infinitum does not seem to work. People somehow seem to want meaning/purpose, which modernity is not gracious with. To understand and translate and preserve for posterity alternative visions of what a civilization should be like is what HJD aims to do. To essentially create mentors and be one to society in a time when it is needed most. One wishes good luck and godspeed.

The New Industrial State: Review

Halfway through John Kenneth Galbraith’s most famous (and controversial) book, and thought of writing up the main thesis of the whole thing. There are two kinds of social analysis: one based on a set of axiomatic rules, and another is based on empirical investigation. Galbraith is of the latter category, and always seeks to undermine the former, in extremely enjoyable prose (I would put it almost at the same level as Bertrand Russell’s prose!).

I had written some time ago about how liberalisation looks at the ground level, when the gloss of Times of India / NDTV / CNBC coverage is not present. Galbraith’s main thesis is on the same lines, with obviously more content and better form. One of the intentions is to provide a candid view of the Industrial system as it existed in the ’60s, another is to undermine the ‘theology’ of conservative economics and (even contemporary) economic pedagogy.

The reason conservative economists like Hayek get irritated with Galbraith is that he is, first of all, not given to using equations for everything, and often indulges in ‘lesser’ subjects like sociology and psychology to supplement his analysis, and not purely economic theory (with its implicit preconceptions). His broad generalizations can cause his arguments to seem unfounded, but a person with first hand experience with the corporate (like most reading this) will definitely strike a chord with his reasoning and arguments.

Profit maximization, pre-eminence of capital, informed choices by a consumer, free markets, firms being subordinate to the consumer by the working of the market mechanism are some of the fundamental notions that any standard economics textbook would try to instill in a reader. However, to say that this represents reality is a matter of faith and not fact, argues Galbraith. He takes the Corporation as a case study to drive home the point.

The structure, behavior, motivation, goals of the modern corporation, when studied without the rose-colored glasses of what Samuelson or anyone else teaches, shows how divorced economics is from reality. Economists have grudgingly admitted to some points, but they refuse to face reality in the face of decades of work going to waste. Galbraith also questions two social goals that we have only recently taken for granted (He analyzed the USA, whom we faithfully copy with increasingly decreasing phase lag) : The pursuit of growth for its own sake, and development of advanced technology. To think about it for a second, growth is a fundamental necessity for any modern corporation, both to keep its stockholders happy and for money to drive further growth. Fast changing technology also, in most cases, is a corporate goal, which contributes to the former goal in no small measure nowadays. Thus, instead of the corporation responding to accepted social goals, the corporations of considerable size actively work to shape social attitudes. This is in part a result of the members of the corporation to feel that they serve some social purpose. Another is of course to ‘create’ markets, which is what planning is all about.

In places like Bangalore, where the white collared elite are no longer in a desperate search for daily bread, alternate (some would like to call it ‘higher’) goals take their place. The corporation, with its immense reach and resources provides individuals the opportunity to influence a larger mass than it would be possible to do individually. Once an individual is persuaded that the corporation can be moulded in accordance with his/her inputs ( This is definitely true, since decision making is fundamentally a group activity and some individuals are, as always, more equal than others), aligning with corporate goals is easy. You would notice that loyalty to an organization increases with amount of time spent in it, which derives from the fact that you ‘matter’. Making sure that the corporation takes care of all the needs of the employee (financial, social, psychological) is an important part of the way a corporation behaves. Once all needs are taken care of within, there will be no need for an employee to look outside.

The past two paragraphs enumerate various facets of corporate behavior, which are driven by the need to reduce unreliability of markets. Any firm will require adequate supply, predictable labor behavior and reasonably reliable consumption of its products. Without these, planning for the future is almost impossible. There is no way a corporation can plan sales targets without all these factors of production and consumption being reliable. Most large corporations are in the habit of meeting or even exceeding previously set targets. This is not possible if the consumer is left to his/her own faculties to make a buying decision and if supply of labor or raw materials are not reliable, ie, left to the working of the market mechanism. Thus, large corporations must try to control behavior of markets if they are to invest large amounts of capital, which is a given in this time and age. A Reliance can hardly invest a few thousand crores in a refinery unless it is allowed certain concessions from market behavior. BIAL wants no other airport around for the same reason. More the competitors, lesser the power of a single competitor, and lesser their capability to plan.

To be fair, there are many markets (like those of clothing, FMCGs) where influencing consumer behavior is difficult due to a large amount of choices. But Galbraith’s focus is on the large corporation, which along with other large corporations constitute an oligopoly. In a corporation, the tenet of profit maximization fails for the simple fact that if every employee looked to maximize  profit, chaos would result. Thus, instead of personal profit maximization, stockholder profit maximization is the aim. This can hardly be called acceptable behavior in conventional terms. Thus, motivations of the corporation and its employees cannot be profit maximization. Similarly, consumer can no longer be called king, since there are various devices employed to bias his/her behavior. The tenets of economics, due to their lack of recognition of power as a fundamental factor in real-life economic behavior, fail quite a few reality checks.

Due to their reliance on high technology and an organised workforce to realise the same, the power now has moved from capital to organization of people and information. Thus, the class struggles of our times are no longer between those who have capital and those who do not, but those who have skills valued by the corporation and those who do not. This essentially boils down to an Engineering degree in Bangalore’s context. Anyone familiar with Bangalore will have seen how those with lesser education, organised in various groups, vent their frustration in the form of cultural and lingual pride.

A joining letter that my friend received from Oracle had the following sentence (paraphrased): “Oracle believes the the faster the employee is assimilated into the Oracle culture, the sooner the employee will be productive”. Oracle obviously does not have many bright bulbs in its HR department, but compliments to their candidness. The only other context where I have seen ‘assimilated’ being used is by the Borg in Star Trek. Obviously, the large corporation is not very different. I had once, on another blog, used ‘The Borg’ in this sense. Intuition, combined with some touch with reality, is always an eye-opener.