Irrelevance of History

I was a poor student of history, and a good student of science and maths. This might have some bearing on what I now want to say.

It started over a dinner discussion on ethics, morality, parenting, education. Then he said something like..." Learning history is of foremost and necessary value for true education" . Considering that I grew up with very little and distorted historical perspective, and still have vociferous 'reasonable' opinions on everything from society, environment, politics, ethics, and history, that I value, I had to immediately oppose his stance...

What I write now originated over that dinner, together with google searches and wikipedia browsings, pickled in my head over last several days.

The basic argument is rooted in properties of stationary, ergodic processes for stochastic systems...I know, I know, it sounds complex, pretentious(blame the stats guys), but I can explain it on the basis of how and where I encountered it. In astrophysics, if we assume (reasonably) that star ensembles are stochastic( random), and stationary (average ensemble properties do not change with time or location), then observing star ensembles, of different ages (ie snapshot properties) allows you to decipher mean evolutionary properties of stars (time history) - and this is termed ergodicity. Our understanding of stellar evolution is based on such a statistical assumption, which was later verified in studies of star clusters (coeval systems - ie born at the same time). That is, it is unnecessary to watch stars live over their several billion year histories to figure out how they must have, and will continue to live - studying a sample reveals it, well enough.

I now propose that one can use a similar statistical hypothesis for human ensembles. We humans might be characterised as random (stochastic)processes, whose gross behaviors have not been changed or effected with either time or location (stationary). Such an assumption contends that innate human tendencies (such as survival, greed..) which guide how we evolve as a human race, have neither learnt from history nor changed with geographic location i.e. culturally - assuming averages over large enough time or space. Thus, the historical information of societies is embedded in a snapshot look at a cross section of current societies, making 'learning history(LH)' irrelevant.

I would like to argue further that LH has done more harm than good, since history is not just recorded by 'conquerors' but has inspired countless 'future conquerors' with their 'Veni, Vidi, Vici' - justifying, and glorifying distorted ambitions with mindless accumulation of territories, wealth, power. Recording history over millennia has neither taught us to build better societies, nor live more compassionately, equitably. History has been a way of propogating hate, differences, divides and using it to justify repressive behaviours. Citing historical events by Aurangazeb as been a standard excuse for justifying Babri Masjid or post Godhra genocide.

History serves the class whose histories get recorded, and historians who are employed to record it. It also serves dinner discussions of an intellectual class far removed from the struggles of the working class - the latter have neither leisure nor interest in a history irrelevant to their lives.

What we require, is to have a set of moral principles , guided by philosophical discussions to set down a set of ethical codes of conduct. This would then frame the 'learning' within which we operate as conscious, critical, open, rational, societies that 'live in the moment' based on their democratic and evolving beliefs. The only small way that history should participate is via the influence of culture. Cultures are histories imbibed, digested and expressed as organic, transformative effects in living societies.

Food for further thought on ergodicity and human ensemble can be found here.

Trading Science

Last night, a senior scientist was overheard advising a junior colleague "Don't sell yourself short", in a discussion on scientific exchanges, research funding, and generally you-scratch-my-back and I'll-scratch-yours. I lost the rest of the conversation, since I was struck that neither paused on the part "don't sell yourself"-it was "selling short" that was the issue. The message was clear, SELL- but not for less. Optimize profits, evaluate personal gains, learn the ropes, climb the ladder. We are a nation of the free now, free to choose our bidders with care, scout the market, hunt.

Most scientific research, at least in academic institutions, here and abroad, is based largely on finding funding- funding for equipment, facilities, conferences, travel, student support and sundry - this is just how the game is played. In a climate of application based research, industrial alliances, scientific research is dictated by need, the need of the providers-so, the goal is to become a part of a market driven, fashionable funded, operation. Market is driven by profits, usually profits for those that have enough funding to invest in future prospects of further profits with research projects, proposals, swaying and setting trends in entire communities of scientists, thinkers. Higher thought is now guided by who is paying our elite to think, not about relevance of this thought for the benefit of society as a whole, or even driven by a curiosity to know more. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not propounding that all work have social relevance, or even higher moralistic goals-in fact, I firmly believe that there is space for diversity, of people, desires, and dreams. However, diversity is no longer the call of the day-markets choose mono-trends, drive mono-dreams, sold enmass in media through identical advertisements in all the multitudes of television channels. And it is this consumerism driven happiness-dream that drives most searches for funding - supplementing salary, affording happiness luxuries, traveling abroad - a sign of status symbol.

And then, when times are good, like now, the researchers run out enough man power, people, students, to assist with larger scale output, fuelled by a need/greed for more and more funding. This then sets off an entire other chain reaction, of how to attract more students, publish more papers, have more office/lab space...again a repetition of the more, more, more mantra by our most elite.

But what does all this really achieve, for us as a people? Will there be less bomb blasts, fewer communal riots, cleaner water to drink, fresher air to breathe, further dissemination of the scientific thought and process to strata lower down, a trickling down of our profits to those who are also part of us, our 'democracy'? Who will think, when all thought is already sold-and not short?