Blog – Ashish Dalela

17 Mar

The Arithmetic of Concepts

Hence, there is no further division of happiness 1and they have 16In all religious philosophies, God is the original person, Who creates all else. If we were to count things, then God would represent 1. In Vedic philosophy, additionally, all that is created is also a part of God, Who is then described as the complete truth. In effect, since God is the complete truth, everything that follows is a partial truth. Similarly, since God is the original truth, everything that follows is a relative truth compared to the original truth. The partial truth represents a fraction of God, and the relative truth represents an order or succession among the fractions, which can be counted as 1, 2, 3, etc. Two ideas—(1) that God is the origin, and (2) God is the whole truth—can thus be used to construct a theory of natural numbers and fractions, which this post discusses. Once this foundation is established, then we also talk about other types such as complex and irrational numbers. This post discusses how a new understanding of numbers can be built based on God’s existence.

03 Mar

Did We Land on the Moon?

According to a Gallup poll, about 6% of Americans believe that man never went to the moon; they endorse conspiracy theories in which these landings were supposedly staged in a studio. This post is not about such conspiracy theories. I will discuss why we cannot go to the moon, although we can have the experience of going to the moon, based on a fractal space in which there is a ‘moon’ within earth (because the whole is represented in the part), but it is not the real moon. I will discuss how fractal space is evidenced in Sāńkhya when space is described as a tree rather than a box. Since modern science treats space as a box rather than a tree, we can interpret the arrival on the earthly moon to be the arrival on the real moon—assuming such a journey is undertaken. Thus, regardless of whether the moon landings were staged or not, we cannot go to the real moon, but we could go to the moon within the earth space. To understand the real moon, we will have to revise the model of space from a box into a tree.

03 Mar

Happiness is a Choice

I used to think that happiness is caused by other people, situations, and things. If only they would just behave, I would be happy. As silly as it sounds, it is indeed a deep-seated belief in each one of us. I have now realized that happiness is a cause rather than an effect. When I am unhappy I gravitate toward the useless things—e.g. news, economics, entertainment—hoping that these things will make me happy but they make me feel worse. When I’m happy I gravitate toward writing, teaching, and meditation, which make me happier. Thus, my unhappiness brings more unhappiness, and my happiness increases my happiness. Under happiness, I have an optimistic view of the world; when I’m unhappy the same things are seen pessimistically. Therefore, I now hope not to get happiness, but to choose happiness. This post shares some insights on this choice.