Thursday 30 August 2012

INDIAN ROLE MODELS - A COMMENT




 Hi Ajithan, 

Very good set of articles. I enjoyed reading them. Lot of original thinking and lucid write-up. 

I especially liked the one of intuition. There is a fair amount of research going on currently in cognitive psychology on this subject. I've done a couple of studies in this area. If you wish to, could send some references about the current thinking in this line of research. I think you would enjoy reading about "dual process" theories of cognition, that tries to link tacit-associative mode of perception and judgement with conscious-analytic mode. Recent studies in this area try to theorize and test on how these two modes are not necessarily at tension with each other, but rather, are constitutive of one another. [Akin to what Poincare once said: logic is the instrument of demonstration; and intuition, the instrument of invention. Demonstration and invention often co-evolve.] 

Sunday 19 August 2012

MYNAHS ON THE PROWL


Ground feeding birds under the realm of opportunists
     


      Woke up in the morning listening to bird chirps, chuckles, gurgles and coos.Lying on the bed I fancied our Hibiscus tree studded with birds of blue, red, yellow, white and so on. After couple of minutes,finally making up my mind,picked myself up to reach the balcony and to my surprise, and slight disappointment, all I could see is a tree of noisy bunch of purplish brown birds, the Common Mynah1. The incident, though it wasn’t possible then to perceive ample scale of the phenomenon- phenomenon of Common Mynahs taking over other ground feeding birds, stayed on me as an image, a notion.

The Common Mynah 
       

Friday 17 August 2012

GREYED OUT OF MIND?-AN INTERESTING COMMENT



Rajesh Srivastava,

   I saw this site quite accidentally and exited to read this article. I noticed in your profile that you are still an undergraduate student. The language and presentation shows maturity of a senior research scholar. I wish to appreciate you for your natural brilliance and erudition.

I am not a man of science. My interests are in yoga and mysticism. I don’t know whether you are interested in it or not -probably not, because it needs an age and experience to enter in these kind of thoughts. 

As per our yoga tradition which is an integral part of Eastern mysticism we have four levels of mental existence. Jagrat, svapna,sushubti and durya. I may compare them with the modern psychological terms conscious, subconscious, unconscious and collective unconscious. Well, actually there is sharp difference between these eastern concepts and western terms. Western psychology assumes these states as structures and we think them as functional modes.

Saturday 11 August 2012

DEFENDING DIAMOND-2





\\Kumaarasami perumal

Your arguments and language of expression is really good. You have the skill to narrate things brilliantly. But I want to clear myself. Western academic world is very vibrant one. It is funded by their corporate sector in a grand manner to collect and process various data from all over the world for their trade purpose.This large quantity of data inevitably produces theories. 



You can observe this, at every five year period we can see a new theory emerging and dominating the entire thought in every field of knowledge and people are carried away by it. In the past few years we read a lot about thinkers like Claude levi strauss, Theodor W. Adorno, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida …Their theories were discussed with great enthusiasm for few years all over the world and suddenly they lost their importance. New theories arrived and replaced them. 

Friday 10 August 2012

DEFENDING DIAMOND-1



 
         I came across a comment recently, by Mr.Kumaarasami Perumal, on my blog, saying that my article on foreign vegetables(What would make Gandhi's salad bowl?) is inspired by Jared Diamond and talks only in geological terms and is least concerned in political issues. I have come across many criticisms with similar views on Jared Diamond's theory and addressing it as simplistic and inadequate to explain what he intends to.