Parables & Arguments

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Jesus Christ is renowned for his parables...there is a whole book listing his parables...like:

"And he discoursed largely to them in parables, and said: Behold, there went forth a sower to sow; and as he sowed, some fell by the road-side, and the fowl came and devoured it.

Another fell upon the rock, where there was not much soil; and immediately it sprung up, because there was no depth of earth. But when the sun was risen, it burned, and, because it had no root, it withered away. And another fell among the thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked it. And another fell into good earth, and gave fruits, this a hundred, another sixty, and another thirty. He who hath ears to hear, let him hear. And his disciples approached, saying to him,

Why dost thou speak to them in parables ?

He replied and said to them, Because unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of heaven, but unto them it is not given."

...Gospel of Matthew

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Ramakrishna Paramahamsa also reveled in parables...like:

"A weary pedestrian finds a magnificent tree in the forest and sits under its shade. He fondly wishes in his heart for a luxurious bed so he can lie down on it. And a bed appears from nowhere. Lying on it wondering, he wishes for a damsel to knead his aching legs; and a damsel materializes. And then a sumptuous dish of sweets. And that too appears. And he wonders what would happen if a tiger comes and attacks him. And sure, it does...

...that tree was a wish-fulfilling kalpataru..."

...Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa 

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...And then there are folks immensely fond of arguments like our Vedantins.

There are about ten major Upanishads in our scriptures. And hundreds of minor ones. Their texts are beautiful but haphazard.

In order to codify and clarify them, Badarayana Vyasa came up with his 555 briefest Brahmasutras (aphorisms) which are even more elliptical than the Upanishads, like this inaugural one:

1. "Then therefore the enquiry into Brahman" (athaa tho brahma jijnasa)

In order to amplify and elaborate these concise Sutras, Shankara, Ramanuja et. al. wrote extensive glosses (Sutra Bhashyas) on them, each arguing according to his own lights, prejudices and dogmas.

The main quarrel between them is whether the word "atman" (self) occurring in a particular context in a particular Upanishad is to be interpreted as "jivatman" (lower self) or "Paramatman" (Highest Self).

...waste of time....

Heated quarrels followed and prejudices multiplied...Shaivites vs Vaishnavites vs Madhvas...and their dozens of subsects.

And they procreated a plethora of profound pseudo-vedantic pundits claiming to explain the simplest of facts in perverse ways like:

Q: "Why can't a diver submerged under water speak?"

A: "Because Fire is the Deity of Speech and water is inimical to fire" :)

They brought disrepute to a glorious subject; like: "silly vedanta" (metta vedantam)

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Of course we physicists too argue. But our arguments are not in thin vedantic air but settled by stark experiments.

If a theory nicely explains 99 experiments but utterly fails to explain one, it has to be dust-binned and a new theory found. 

It is like a batsman hitting 99 and then getting bowled...(our Pankaj Roy of the 1960s was famous for that :)

He has to quit.

Feynman says that the business of experimenters is to stretch and disprove the prevailing theory; and the business of theorists is to invent a newer one.

One of the greatest predictions invented by a theorist was meant to disprove a rival's theory, but ended up proving it:

Fresnel proposed that light travels as waves and invented his beautiful theory. Poisson immediately pointed out that Fresnel's theory leads to the absurd conclusion that there ought to be a bright spot at the center of the dark shadow of an opaque coin.

And Arago did that experiment and, lo and behold!, discovered that bright spot. 

That beauty spot it is called "Poisson Spot"; not Fresnel's nor Arago's :)

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Mathematicians too argue. There was this Zeno who invented paradoxes like:

 "Achilles can never overtake the tortoise" and "An arrow in motion is always at rest" 

The resolution of Zeno's paradoxes led to the discovery of the continuous infinity and calculus.

JL Synge wrote a booklet titled: "Kendelman's Krim", which features a lion, an orc, a kea, and a carpenter, all of them discussing "infinity".

Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" is full of animals fond of arguments. But his arguments are verbal calisthenics like:

"Have some more tea"

"But I have had none so far"

"You can always have more than nothing, but not less than nothing"

....Lewis Carroll was the mathematician, Charles Dodgson, in real life :)

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"Women cannot receive even the most palpably judicious suggestion without arguing it; that is, married women"

....Mark Twain

https://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2010/09/perverse-arguments.html?m=0

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