History and Philosophy of Science 2 Lecture 1ckraju.net/hps2-aiu/hps2-aiu-lecture-1.pdf · History...

History andPhilosophy ofScience 2Lecture 1

C. K. Raju

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Introduction

History

Consequences of thefalse history

Philosophy of science

Normative philosophy

Philosophy ofmathematics

History and Philosophy of Science 2Lecture 1

C. K. Raju

AlBukhary International University, Malaysia,[email protected]

web:http://ckraju.net

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Introduction

Philosophy of mathematics

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The syllabus

I The syllabus for the course is uploaded at

I http:

//ckraju.net/hps2-aiu/HPS-2-syllabus.pdf

I This is a continuation of the HPS-1 course. (Thepresentations for your course are now in a subdirectoryhttp://ckraju.net/hps-aiu/Trimester-2-2013/.)

I Some changes in the syllabus have to be made, for theHPS-2 course, since this course is now 15 weeks insteadof 12.

I We can go at a slower pace, or include more topics.(What do you want?)

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The syllabus

I http:

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The syllabus

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The syllabus

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The syllabus

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I The aim is to go deeper into topics that were justtouched upon in HPS-1.

I So, feel free to suggest changes, depending on what youare interested to learn more about.

I However, at the end of the course, you should be ableto defend your opinions on your own.

I In the following recap, please identify topics you areunsure about.

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History of scienceThe stock story

I We learnt the stock history of science on which

I all original science was first done by Greeks

I then by Europeans after the renaissance.

I The rest of the world mostly copied.

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History of scienceThe counter story

I We learnt that the present-day history of science wasconcocted by the church to claim that all science wasdone by Christians and their friends (the pre-ChristianGreeks).

I The church had a policy (since Orosius, 5th c.) to usefalse history to glorify itself and belittle others.

I This false history was amplified during the Crusades toinclude the friends of the church (pre-Christian Greeks)

I While Greeks were glorified, Muslims were belittled asmere keepers of Greek knowledge.

I The term “renaissance” (re-awakening) was coined toconnect Europe after Crusades to pre-Christian Greece(linked to Egypt), and claim that this “Greek”knowledge was a Christian inheritance.

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How the concocted history developedInquisition and racism

I During the Inquisition, Europeans were too frightenedto acknowledge non-Christian sources. They blankedthem out.

I (E.g., Copernicus who copied astronomy from IbnShatir and Nasiruddin Tusi)

I (or Newton and Leibniz who copied the calculus fromMadhava of Sangamgrama from India)

I Afterwards, racist and colonial historians built on thisfalse history to give all credit to Europeans and blankout Egypt and all others.

I (This is on the back-cover of Is Science Western inOrigin?. Has anyone not read it yet? If so, please readit.)

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Wikipedia history

I The net result is present-day Wikipedia history

I which glorifies the West

I and belittles others.

I Difficult to correct Wikipedia history, since it forces theuse of only secondary sources

I and only accepts Western sources as reliable.

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Wikipedia history

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Wikipedia history

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Wikipedia history

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What can you do?Learn how to fight Wikipedia history

I I would like you to form a few Wikipedia action groups.

I All groups should understand what is a “citationneeded”, how to cite secondary sources, what is RS, etc.

I Understand what is a “sock puppet”, “mock puppet”etc. How a user can be blocked.

I Understand how IP tracking is used to identify you.

I See what topics need change, and how they should bechanged. (But don’t make any changes withoutpreparation and discussion. Just prepare your sourcesand arguments.)

I Wikipedia will keep a record of all your changes.

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Education and false history

I False history was used to initiate colonial education assuperior.

I This was used to capture the colonised mind, but thatsystem of education is copied uncritically to this day(even after independence).

I The colonial system copied the church education system(the only education system Europe knew in 1830’s).

I The church education started during the Crusades (11thc.); it was designed to produce missionaries to convertMuslims.

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Church educationMeta-superstitions

I A good missionary had to persuade critics.

I This was done by tricks.

I False history was used to claim their own superiority.

I Hence, any difference was interpreted as a sign of theirown superiority.

I The were taught to accept only “their” authorities asreliable. So no way to settle a difference of opinionexcept to agree with them.

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Colonial education

I The colonially educated have the same beliefs:

I they are taught to think the West is superior, and that

I only Western authorities are reliable.

I This made them loyal to the West, giving the West“soft power”.

I Did you learn something different in school?

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Colonial education

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Colonial education

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Colonial education

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Colonial education

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Same as Wikipedia trick

I You will recognize this as the Wikipedia trick.

I Use only secondary sources (i.e. quote authority)

I Only Western authorities are reliable (i.e., quote only“our” authorities).

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How to break this “soft power”?How to correct false history?

I To break this “soft power” of the West

I or correct false history

I you need to go by commonsense, and evidence (primarysources)

I and also learn the basics of philosophy of science

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Evidence not enoughTrick of saving the story

I Evidence not enough.

I Key lesson: any story/theory can be saved for anylength of time by piling on the hypotheses (i.e. tellingmore stories)

I This is exactly like the technique of defending one lie bytelling a thousand more, but with some refinements.

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Saving the Copernicus story

I E.g., story: Copernicus made a revolutionary changefrom geocentric to heliocentric astronomy

I Evidence: many other people earlier built heliocentricmodels, especially Nasiruddin Tusi and Ibn Shatir.

I Copernicus’ model is identical to Ibn Shatir’s.

I Add to the story: Copernicus did not know about IbnShatir, he made an “independent rediscovery”.

I More evidence: A Greek translation of Ibn Shatir’s bookwas in the Vatican library. Copernicus visited it.

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Saving the Copernicus storycontd

I (New trick: shift the onus of proof). Produce evidencethat he saw the book in the library.

I Answer: Is that the standard of proof you use forstudents? Why do you need a different standard ofproof for Copernicus?

I Copernicus was a great man!

I How do you know, that assumes that the story is right.

I Anyway, here is some new evidence: Copernicus justtransliterated Tusi’s notation.

I New story: that was just a coincidence, ...

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Why philosophy of science?Applying the principles

I The criterion of refutability helps to identify when abelief is not refutable by any conceivable evidence,hence unscientific, and a matter of faith.

I The criterion of simplicity helps us to identify when aspecial standard of proof is being used to hang onunreasonably to a belief

I or when hypotheses (or stories) are being accumulated.

I Finally, when in doubt, the principle of “maximumlikelihood” helps us to choose what is more probablycorrect.

I However, science is always subject to revision.(“Science means never having to say you are sure”.)

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A new kind of trick

I Let us now see a new kind of trick:

I how a bad philosophy of science is used to support afalse history.

I This will help you to understand a new thing.

I Colonial education, being a continuation of churcheducation, it is likely to have religious biases.

I These religious biases are present even in present-day(Western) mathematics and science as taught in ourschools and colleges.

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A new kind of trick

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A new kind of trick

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A new kind of trick

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A new kind of trick

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Or the same old one?

I In a way this is a continuation of the same old trick,which is to strike a pose of superiority

I ”any difference is a sign of our own superiority”

I ”if there is a difference of opinion, our authorities areright”.

I However, this trick is now being applied to philosophyitself to argue that certain beliefs about mathematicsand science are the only right one’s.

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Justifying present-day philosophy of math

I The justification goes as follows.

I Euclid used a philosophy of deductive proof in theElements.

I Other people did mathematics differently.

I Therefore, others were inferior and did not knowmathematics, and

I we are superior, and our way of doing math is superior.

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Rouse Ball quote

I This is stated explicitly by Rouse Ball

I The history of mathematics cannot withcertainty be traced back to any school orperiod before that of the. . . Greeks. . . .Though all early races. . . knew something ofnumeration yet the rules. . . were neitherdeduced from nor did they form part of anyscience.1

1W. W. Rouse Ball, A Short Account of the History of Mathematics,Dover, New York, 1960, pp. 1–2, emphasis mine.

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Rouse Ball quote

I This is stated explicitly by Rouse BallI The history of mathematics cannot with

certainty be traced back to any school orperiod before that of the. . . Greeks. . . .Though all early races. . . knew something ofnumeration yet the rules. . . were neitherdeduced from nor did they form part of anyscience.1

1W. W. Rouse Ball, A Short Account of the History of Mathematics,Dover, New York, 1960, pp. 1–2, emphasis mine.

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Case of calculus

I A similar argument is used to justify the present way ofteaching calculus.

I Europeans gave “rigorous” deductive proofs in calculususing limits (Newton did not, but claimed the same)

I This was different from the way that others did math

I Therefore we are superior, and everyone should imitateus.

I The case of calculus being more complicated, let usreturn to Euclid.

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Case of calculus

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Case of calculus

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Case of calculus

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Case of calculus

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Back to Euclid

I Regarding Rouse Ball’s statement, several questionsarise.

I Did Euclid exist?

I What exactly is the philosophy of deductive proof? Wasthe Elements written to demonstrate the philosophy ofdeductive proof?

I Why is deductive proof “superior” to empirical proof?

I Less obvious: is deductive proof connected to Christiantheology?

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Back to Euclid

I Did Euclid exist?

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Back to Euclid

I Did Euclid exist?

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Back to Euclid

I Did Euclid exist?

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Back to Euclid

I Did Euclid exist?

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Did Euclid exist?

I You already know the Wikipedia trick

I For every early Greek, the story goes that “he wasextraordinarily great”, “but we know little about him”

I The “little that we know about him” supposedly comesfrom a 5th c. commentator 800 years after the fact (inEuclid’s case this is Proclus)

I This suppresses the fact that the actual knowledge wehave of the comment comes from another 800-1000years later (i.e., from the 13th c. or later).

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Did Euclid exist?

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Did Euclid exist?

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Did Euclid exist?

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Is Euclid’s existence important?

I But why is it important whether or not Euclid existed?

I Because the claim that the Elements is about deductiveproof (“irrefragable demonstration”) comes from thevery same “Proclus passage” from which we learn about“Euclid”.

I Recall that the “Proclus passage” is a forgery, since itrefers to a citation of the Elements by “Archimedes”,and this isolated citation is known to be a later-dayinterpolation.

I But, if that passage is false, then there is no longer anyhistorical basis for the claim that the Elements is aboutdeductive proof.

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What is deductive proof?Why is it superior?

I Deductive proof is a proof which refers only to axiomsand what can be logically derived from those axioms. Itis not allowed to refer to the empirical world (what wecan see, touch, hear, taste or feel).

I The claim is that deductive proof is perfect andinfallible while empirical proof is fallible.

I Empirical proof is fallible, one might mistake a rope fora snake or vice versa, but the mistake can soon becorrected.

I How do we know deductive proof is infallible? And howdo we know that the Elements was written to show thiskind of proof?

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Was the Elements about deductive proof?

I Since the fake story of Euclid cannot be the reason tobelieve in the motive for writing the Elements,

I we must examine the book itself.

I Alas! The very first proposition of the book uses anempirical proof. (See Euclid and Jesus for details,already explained earlier.)

I The 4th proposition (side-angle-side theorem) also usesan empirical proof.

I That 4th proposition is essential to the whole book(including the “Pythagorean theorem”).

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What this tells us

I This tells us two things.

I The Elements was not about deductive proofs.

I Deductive proofs are fallible, since the very firstproposition of the Elements was wrongly believed to bea valid deductive proof,

I and this incorrect belief persisted for centuries (muchlonger than any mistake between rope and snake canpossibly persist).

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What this tells us

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What this tells us

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What this tells us

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Who needed deductive proofs?

I Books are written in response to social circumstances.

I Prior to the Crusades who needed to provide“irrefragable demonstration”, when, and why?

I During the Crusades, the church had this need, since itwanted to persuade Muslims.

I That was also the time when the Elements first came toEurope.

I The book was just reinterpreted to suit the purposes ofthe church.

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Christian rational theology

I During the Crusades, the church started a new theology

I This is called Christian rational theology (attributed toThomas Aquinas and his schoolmen).

I It reinterpreted Islamic rational theology (aql-i-kalam),wrongly reinterpreted aql as reason, and glorifiedreason.

I Deduction actually connects to this church metaphysicsof reason, but I will not go into more details on thathere.

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Bias against other systems

I What we can clearly see is that this denigration ofempirical proofs teaches a bias against other beliefs

I such as Islam (which accepts tajurba)

I or Nyaya, Buddhism or Jainism (all of which accept thepratyaksa or empirically manifest as the first means ofproof).

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Answers to questions

I Anyway, we have the broad answers to the questions weraised.

I Did Euclid exist? No.

I What exactly is the philosophy of deductive proof?Already explained. Deductive proof does not allowempirical observations.

I Was the Elements written to demonstrate thephilosophy of deductive proof? No, because its first andfourth propositions use empirical proofs in an essentialway.

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Answers to questionscontd

I Why is deductive proof “superior” to empirical proof?The claim is that deductive proof is infallible, but wehave just seen that in practice this is false. Anelementary proof in the very first proposition of theElements was mistaken to be a valid deductive proof byWestern scholars for centuries.

I Is deductive proof connected to Christian theology?Yes, it is connected to Christian rational theology, butall the details of that are outside this syllabus. However,rejecting empirical proofs as inferior teaches a biasagainst other systems.

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Immediate conclusion

I So, Euclid did not exist, the Elements is not aboutdeductive proof,

I and even elementary deductive proofs may be fallible, asin the first proposition of the Elements.

I Teaching that metaphysical (deductive) proofs aresuperior to physical (empirical) proofs introduces areligious bias.

I So, why should you continue doing mathematics as it isdone in the West?

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