Online Library of Liberty - The Philosophy and Theology of Averroes

Kannu

Perhaps you may want to file this away till you have some spare time and are interested in philosophy and law and religion. 

Ibn Rusd or Averroes as he was known in the west is one of humanities great Heros. An intellectual giant. Polymath. Jurist. Philosopher. Medicine. Arts. A man like Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo  Buonarroti. A true renaissance man. 

He argued against the stultifying and suffocating embrace of religion son. Wrote copiously. Amazing man and amazing philosophy. 

Classic example of how history repeats himself. He analysed the Greeks to fight the Muslim fundos. Then he was forgotten in Muslim lands but the Jews and Christians used his work to fight their fight in Europe. Early last century he was rediscovered by the Muslims and he is being used to fight against the spreading fundamentalism like salafism and Wahhabism. 

Fascinating. At a lecture in London about him, one of the speakers said that the Islamic societies in British universities are full of the most close minded Muslims ever. When you go there son, observe them closely. It's those close minds that ibn rusd fought against. 

Love

Baba 

Online Library of Liberty - The Philosophy and Theology of Averroes
http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=77&layout=html

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Table of Contents

The Gaekwad Studies in Religion and Philosophy: XI.

THE PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY OF AVERROES

Printed by Manibhai Mathurbhai Gupta at the “Arya-Sudharak” Printing Press, Raopura, Baroda, and Published by A. G. Widgery, the College, Baroda 1-1-1921

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DEDICATION to Dr. AZIMUDDIN AHMAD

Sir,

It was at your feet that I first learned to appreciate historical and literary research, and the following pages constitute the earliest fruits of that literary labour of mine the impetus for which I am proud to have received from you. I crave your indulgence for my taking the liberty of dedicating the same to your revered name, with the hope that it will not fail to attract the same generous sympathy from you as you have always shown to your pupil.

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PREFACE

It was as a Fellow of the Seminar for the Comparative Study of Religions at the College, Baroda, that the present work was begun. The subject was taken up in the first place as a parallel study to that contained in a paper in the Indian Philosophical Review, Volume II, July 1918, pp. 24-32 entitled “Maimonides and the Attainment of Religious Truth.” But as I proceeded with my investigation I thought it might be best to let Averroes speak for himself. For this reason I have here translated certain treatises of Averroes, as edited in the Arabic text by D. H. Muller in “Philosophie und Theologie von Averroes.” Munich 1859. I am confident that the book will prove an interesting one and will explain itself to the reader without any introduction on my part.

Though owing to my appointment at Hyderabad I resigned my position at Baroda soon after commencing this work I wish here to express my thanks to Professor Alban G. Widgery of Baroda for his constant sympathy with and encouragement for my work in and out of the Seminar. He has also kindly accepted the book for inclusion in the Gaekwad Studies in Religion and Philosophy. I am indebted to him for a complete revision of the manuscript and for the onerous work of seeing the book through the press. I am also indebted to my brother Mutazid Wali ur Rehman, b.a. for valuable help in rendering many obscure passages.

Mohammad Jamil ur Rehman

Over the hump for oil demand

Kannu
Here's a fascinating economic tipping point for you son. The world you will grow up in will be different from what I grew up in. Energy will not be that important.
This will have serious geopolitical and economic not to mention social implications. Here's something to chew over, what will you do to take advantage of this? Short some stocks? Buy something? Which ones? Which markets? Which countries?
Love
Baba

I saw this article when using the Financial Times app and thought you might be interested:
Financial Times,
Over the hump for oil demand
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By Christof Ruehl
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Energy intensity is falling as the world is using less oil, gas and coal and other fuels to deliver each additional dollar of GDP, says BP’s Christof Ruehl
Read the full article at: http://on.ft.com/1d23Wq6

A Liberal Decalogue: Bertrand Russell's 10 Commandments of Teaching

Here's another amazing man pontificating on education. I'm proud to call myself as a liberal. The traditional liberal. Not the idiotic thing that the Americans have made it into. And we come from a long line of teachers kannu. Your father is a Professor. Your grandparents are professors. My grandfather was a professor. And so it goes back generations. Who knows you may also become one. It's one of the most rewarding of professions son. Not only you get paid to learn, you are constantly on a journey of exploration. 

But even if you become a corporate member or setup your own business, you will still need to teach. These principles are worth knowing and following. 

Love

Baba

A Liberal Decalogue: Bertrand Russell's 10 Commandments of Teaching | Brain Pickings
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/05/02/a-liberal-decalogue-bertrand-russell/

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by Maria Popova

“Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.”

British philosopher, mathematician, historian, and social critic Bertrand Russell endures as one of the most intellectually diverse and influential thinkers in modern history, his philosophy of religion in particular having shaped the work of such modern atheism champions as Christopher Hitchens,Daniel Dennett, and Richard Dawkins. From the third volume of The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell: 1944-1969 comes this remarkable micro-manifesto, entitled A Liberal Decalogue — a vision for responsibilities of a teacher, in which Russell touches on a number of recurring themes from pickings past — the purpose of education, the value of uncertainty, the importance of critical thinking, the gift of intelligent criticism, and more.

Decoding the great Indian real estate ponzi scheme

Kannu

Real estate is a horrible industry to be in. Supply is constrained. Governments take an unhealthy interest in it. People need housing. It's a strange place. 

So remember you will always need a place to live. Get an average house. Pay it off as soon as you can like we did. And invest in other industries which are more productive. 

Love

Baba

Decoding the great Indian real estate ponzi scheme - Firstpost
http://www.firstpost.com/economy/decoding-the-great-indian-real-estate-ponzi-scheme-804277.html

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A headline can sometimes tell you the complete story. The May 20, 2013, Hindi edition of the Business Standard had one such headline. “Intehan ho gayi intezar ki, aayi na kuch khabar ghar bar ki (Its been a long time waiting, and there is still no news of the house),” went the headline.

The headline was a play on the hit Amitabh Bachchan-Kishore Kumar song “Intehan ho gayi intezar ki, aayi na kuch khabar mere yaar ki (Its been a long time waiting, and there is still no news of my love) ,” from the movie Sharabi.
The story which appeared in the English edition of Business Standard as well with a rather drab headline ‘Supply blues persist in realty sector’, basically made two points:

Perceptive Travel - Rolf Potts in Rishakesh

Frankly son, if somebody gets all mystical and says crap like tantric sex, just smile at them. Lovemaking is simple. You have to be a touchy feely person. What happens before and after is perhaps more important than the actual act. Cuddling after is just a great thing. Take time to learn about your partner's likes and dislikes son. Learn to use all the senses, touch, smell, sight, hearing. Everything. And self control and discipline. You have more fun if your partner has more fun :)

Keep in shape. Engage with your partner. Laugh often and frequently son in and out of bed. And ignore advise like peeing in short bursts :)

Have fun son and stay safe. 

Perceptive Travel - Rolf Potts in Rishakesh
http://www.perceptivetravel.com/issues/1205/potts.html

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Tantric masters are reputed to be able to have sex for hours at a time. In a quirky ashram in the sacred Indian city of Rishikesh, Rolf Potts takes a crash course in this mystic Eastern discipline.

I. The Girl

You spot The Girl on your first afternoon in Rishikesh. She is long-limbed and graceful, and she walks carefully along the path, as if not to disturb the dirt beneath her bare feet. She wears loose cotton pants, and tiny bells in her hair. She is smiling. Her stomach is browned and taut; the tiny hairs on her arms are bleached from the sun. When she spots a cow in her path, she stops to stroke its neck and whisper into its ear. You watch, and you wish you were that cow.

You think to yourself: If I have come here to learn Tantric sex, I want that woman to be my partner.

II. The Holy Place

Rishikesh straddles the Ganges just below the point where the sacred river comes roaring out from the mountains. The water here is clean and cold: In the morning, Hindu pilgrims tip offerings of fresh milk from the riverside ghats; in the afternoon, helmeted tourists — Indian and foreign alike — bump through the current in rubber whitewater rafts. Monkeys chatter in the trees along the shore.

As in other holy places in India, the dread-locked sadhus near the river do a steady side-business posing for tourist photographs. Middle-aged Indian men stroll the alleys, offering you marijuana in the same chirpy, unconcerned voice one might use in offering snack pellets to a pet gerbil. Kids here tug on your sleeve and ask you for ballpoint pens. You did not initially come here to learn Tantric sex. Rather, you stopped here en route to the Himalayas, on the recommendation of a yoga-obsessed friend. You are not much into yoga, but one charm of travel is that it frees you to be a dilettante. Just as you tried scuba diving in Thailand and windsurfing in Galilee, you intend to try yoga in Rishikesh and decide later if you really want to make it an active part of your life. Advertisements for yogis are pasted everywhere in Rishikesh, and you sometimes stop to read them. Your favorite comes from a certain Swami Vivekananda. “I mix the rational understanding of the West with the mystical approach of the East,” his flyer states. “I will not bother you with religious nonsense, weird rituals, dogmas, or superstitions.” The true selling point, however, is printed at the bottom. It says: “SUNDAYS: A step-by-step approach to the oral secret tradition of the Tantric schools of India and Tibet.” You don’t know a lot about Tantra, but you’re pretty sure it’s a technique that allows you to have sex for hours and hours at a stretch. You elect to remain in Rishikesh until Sunday and pay Swami Vivekananda’s ashram a visit.

Nathan Heller: Is College Moving Online?

A long read son. Whilst it won't impact you or perhaps even Diya, a significant change is coming to higher tertiary education. The Gutenberg bible was the start. When the link between 1-2-1 teaching and learning was broken. When the bible in local languages was made available, it didn't need a priest / teacher to teach religion or education. Slowly life is changing. 

You don't have to be in a classroom to learn. But you personally have to have a degree as that is a qualification. A union card if you will. You heard the discussion over the weekend son. One needs to be at the top university. Oxford and Cambridge are it. Then LSE and others. Or if you want to study in Harvard or MIT. 

But you will face the students who have studied online. As potential employees, customers, tax payers and shareholders. Their behaviour and economic incentives will be slightly if significantly different. The trick is to know and recognise this difference son. 

Love

Baba

Nathan Heller: Is College Moving Online? : The New Yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/05/20/130520fa_fact_heller?currentPage=all

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Gregory Nagy, a professor of classical Greek literature at Harvard, is a gentle academic of the sort who, asked about the future, will begin speaking of Homer and the battles of the distant past. At seventy, he has owlish eyes, a flared Hungarian nose, and a tendency to gesture broadly with the flat palms of his hands. He wears the crisp white shirts and dark blazers that have replaced tweed as the raiment of the academic caste. His hair, also white, often looks manhandled by the Boston wind. Where some scholars are gnomic in style, Nagy piles his sentences high with thin-sliced exposition. (“There are about ten passages—and by passages I simply mean a selected text, and these passages are meant for close reading, and sometimes I’ll be referring to these passages as texts, or focus passages, but you’ll know I mean the same thing—and each one of these requires close reading!”) When he speaks outside the lecture hall, he smothers friends and students with a stew of blandishment and praise. “Thank you, Wonderful Kevin!” he might say. Or: “The Great Claudia put it so well.” Seen in the wild, he could be taken for an antique-shop proprietor: a man both brimming with solicitous enthusiasm and fretting that the customers are getting, maybe, just a bit too close to his prized Louis XVI chair.

Nagy has published no best-sellers. He is not a regular face on TV. Since 1978, though, he has taught a class called “Concepts of the Hero in Classical Greek Civilization,” and the course, a survey of poetry, tragedy, and Platonic dialogues, has made him a campus fixture. Because Nagy’s zest for Homeric texts is boundless, because his lectures reflect decades of refinement, and because the course is thought to offer a soft grading curve (its nickname on campus is Heroes for Zeroes), it has traditionally filled Room 105, in Emerson Hall, one of Harvard’s largest classroom spaces. Its enrollment has regularly climbed into the hundreds.

Happy Mother's Day! History's most inspiring letters of motherly advice

Diya, Kannu

This is a fascinating collection of letters written by mothers to their children. Worth reading. Fathers write to share lessons, women write to share emotions. I think. I might be wrong but there you go. 

Some of the letters are very very thought provoking. Can you imagine writing to your children? 

Love

Baba

Happy Mother's Day! History's most inspiring letters of motherly advice, the surprising science of motivation, Raymond Chandler on writing, and more
http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=13eb080d8a315477042e0d5b1&id=e67d9ee454&e=372289f5d3

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Last year, we celebrated Father’s Day with an omnibus of history’s finest letters of fatherly advice, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, Jackson Pollock, and Neil Armstrong. Later adding to them was more timeless epistolary advice from notable dads like Ted Hughes, Sherwood Anderson, Richard Dawkins, and Charles Dickens.

It’s only fitting to honor Mother’s Day with a similarly spirited selection of history’s finest motherly advice, spanning nearly half a millennium of poignant and prescient counsel from notable moms.

From Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters (public library), which also gave us the author’s surprising report card, comes this remarkable 1969 missive she penned aboard an airplane for her daughter Linda to revisit later in life:

Dear Linda,

I am in the middle of a flight to St. Louis to give a reading. I was reading a New Yorker story that made me think of my mother and all alone in the seat I whispered to her “I know, Mother, I know.” (Found a pen!) And I thought of you – someday flying somewhere all alone and me dead perhaps and you wishing to speak to me. And I want to speak back. (Linda, maybe it won’t be flying, maybe it will be at your own kitchen table drinking tea some afternoon when you are 40. Anytime.) – I want to say back.

1st I love you.

2. You never let me down.

3. I know. I was there once. I too, was 40 with a dead mother who I needed still… .

This is my message to the 40 year old Linda. No matter what happens you were always my bobolink, my special Linda Gray. Life is not easy. It is awfully lonely. I know that. Now you too know it – wherever you are, Linda, talking to me. But I’ve had a good life – I wrote unhappy – but I lived to the hilt. You too, Linda – Live to the HILT! To the top. I love you 40 year old, Linda, and I love what you do, what you find, what you are!—Be your own woman. Belong to those you love. Talk to my poems, and talk to your heart – I’m in both: if you need me. I lied, Linda. I did love my mother and she loved me. She never held me but I miss her, so that I have to deny I ever loved her – or she me! Silly Anne! So there!

XOXOXO

Mom

Radhabinod Pal

You won't hear about pal son. Not easily. But strangely enough, the judges who write dissenting opinions are perhaps more erudite, more brilliant, more principled than the judges who write the majority opinion. I've read several opinions in the Indian, British and american supreme courts and that's what comes across firmly. 

Justice Pal was one person like this. Brilliant man. When you get a chance son. Read his 250k word judgement. Reason, clarity and thought and logic. That's where civilisation differs from the religious law idiots who run after sharia or Hindu or Christian law. Know this son, anybody who demands religious laws is a bigot and a discriminatory illiterate arsehole. It's our duty to fight against these morons. 

But back to Pal. He fought against the idea that history is written by the victors. See? Reason. The Americans think that they were innocent but nope. There's another book out which talks about how the american soldiers created a wave of rape after landing in France. So while USA does great things, it's not totally innocent either. Life and history aren't that clear cut. 

Love

Baba. 

Radhabinod Pal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radhabinod_Pal

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Justice Radha Binod Pal (27 January 1886 – 10 January 1967) was an Indianjurist. He was the Indian member appointed to the International Military Tribunal for the Far East’s trials of Japanese war crimes committed during thesecond World War. Among all the judges of the tribunal, he was the only one who submitted a judgment which insisted all defendants were not guilty. TheYasukuni Shrine and the Kyoto Ryozen Gokoku Shrine has monuments specially dedicated to Justice Pal.

The Lost Lessons of “Black Hawk Down”

Kannu

A good military lesson for the Americans and the British actually. 

Besides that historical lesson, what parallels do I draw? 

Shit happens. It will always happen. People will die and lose jobs and typhoons will happen. 

The point is to hold your nerve. Victory is in the mind son. And technology isn't the panacea. I fix organisations. It's very little to do with technology. It's all in the mind. People need to change behaviours. 

We keep on forgetting the lessons of the past son. Smart people learn from the mistakes of others. 

Love

Baba

The Lost Lessons of “Black Hawk Down”
http://warontherocks.com/2013/10/the-lost-lessons-of-black-hawk-down/

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The Lost Lessons of "Black Hawk Down"

Today marks the 20^th anniversary of The Battle of Mogadishu, the American operation in Somalia later immortalized by Mark Bowden’s seminal non-fiction book “Black Hawk Down” and dramatized in Ridley Scott’s exhilarating but slightly less non-fictional movie of the same name. On October 3, 1993, 160 U.S. Army Rangers and other special operations forces launched what was supposed to be a routine raid to capture two lieutenants of Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Aideed. But when two MH-60L helicopters providing fire support were shot down, the operation became a desperate search and rescue mission in which U.S. forces were besieged overnight by thousands of heavily armed Somali militiamen. Fourteen hours after the operation’s start, eighteen Americans were dead, 84 were wounded, and one pilot was missing.

The incredible valor and drama of Task Force Ranger’s ordeal over those two days has, unfortunately, tended to draw attention away from the broader campaign to capture Aideed, whom U.S. and international forces had been hunting since the previous June, when Aideed’s Somali National Alliance ambushed and mutilated 24 Pakistani peacekeepers . This manhunt was part of a broader operation which – along with the “Black Hawk Down” battle itself – carries important tactical, operational, and strategic lessons. As debates rage about intervention in Syria and the renewed threat posed by Somali-based al-Shabaab, the 20^th anniversary of the most dramatic U.S. military operation between Vietnam and  Afghanistan offers an important opportunity to revisit those lessons, which remain relevant two decades later.

Lesson One: Technology Does Not Guarantee Success

Voynich manuscript

Kannu

Books exert a strange fascination over me. Old books even more. We have a small collection of rare and antiquarian books, some of which are about 300 years old. 

It's the same kind of feeling I get when I'm slowly rubbing the glyphs on a Mexican pyramid or an Egyptian tomb. The feeling of walking and talking with the ancients. It's almost a mystical feeling. Once one of my bosses asked me where I got my ideas from? I told him the old quote. If you want a new idea, read an old book. People who read history widely son are able to draw on the wisdom and experiences of the ancients. We learn by our experiences and by the experiences of others. You cannot just rely on your experiences. No time and why make mistakes. Hence books help you avoid mistakes at the least and at the best know how to take advantage. 

Imagine this manuscript. If you get a chance, pop into the British library and see their display of rare books. Blows your mind. 

Love

Baba

Voynich manuscript - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Voynich_manuscript

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The , described as “the world’s most mysterious manuscript”,^[3] is a work which dates to the early 15th century (1404–1438), possibly from northern Italy.^[1][2] It is named after the book dealer Wilfrid Voynich, who purchased it in 1912.

Some pages are missing, but there are now about 240 vellum pages, most with illustrations. Much of the manuscript resembles herbal manuscripts of the 1500s, seeming to present illustrations and information about plants and their possible uses for medical purposes. However, most of the plants do not match known species, and the manuscript’s script and language remain unknown. Possibly some form of ciphertext, the Voynich manuscript has been studied by many professional and amateur cryptographers, including American and British codebreakers from both World War I and World War II.^[4] It has defied all decipherment attempts, becoming a famous case of historical cryptology. The mystery surrounding it has excited the popular imagination, making the manuscript a subject of both fanciful theories and novels. None of the many speculative solutions proposed over the last hundred years has yet been independently verified.^[5]

The Voynich manuscript was donated to Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library in 1969, where it is catalogued under call number MS 408 and called a “Cipher Manuscript”.^[6][7]