[S3 Discussion] Anekāntavāda

[tarngerine]

the "observer effect" of wicked problems is a very old concept

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anekantavada

[tarngerine]

Jains contrast all attempts to proclaim the sole monopoly on truth with andhagajanyāyah, which can be illustrated through the parable of the "blind men and an elephant". In this story, each blind man felt a different part of an elephant (trunk, leg, ear, etc.). All the men claimed to understand and explain the true appearance of the elephant, but could only partly succeed, due to their limited perspectives.

[tarngerine]

Anekāntavāda encourages its adherents to consider the views and beliefs of their rivals and opposing parties. Proponents of anekāntavāda apply this principle to religion and philosophy, reminding themselves that any religion or philosophy—even Jainism—which clings too dogmatically to its own tenets, is committing an error based on its limited point of view.

[tarngerine]

According to Gandhi, a satyagrahi is duty bound to act according to his relative truth, but at the same time, he is also equally bound to learn from truth held by his opponent

[tarngerine]

The doctrines of anekāntavāda and syādavāda are often criticised on the grounds that they engender a degree of hesitancy and uncertainty, and may compound problems rather than solve them

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Def felt this WRT wicked problems - paralyzing. Nothing is true or right. Everything is subjective and relative. We can't solve these problems w certainty so why bother

[frnsys]

• anekāntavāda is like an early refutation of the "view from nowhere", the lack/impossibility of which is a fundamental flaw of big data
• it's also like an early version of Deleuze's rhizome, at least in that there is no privileged position of observation (well unless you're a god) and no unitary truth
• this professor of modeling systems, Scott E. Page, talks a lot about the importance of diversity in problem solving in a way similar to the blind men and the elephant story: that there is a landscape of solutions and multiple perspectives are required to see the best solution:

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According to Jain texts, a thing or object of knowledge has infinite characters (i.e., it is anekāntātmaka); each character can be analysed and grasped individually. Each individual character is called a naya.[13] Jains asserts that a naya reveals only a part of the totality, and should not be mistaken for the whole.

makes me think of machine learning feature engineering, trying to take objects/concepts and codify them into a relatively small number of dimensions

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As reality is complex, no single proposition can express the nature of reality fully. Thus "syāt" should be prefixed before each proposition giving it a conditional point of view and thus removing any dogmatism in the statement.

this is so cool - that this idea of no unitary truth must be reflected in language, this acknowledgement that speaking in generalizations/absolutes can cause people to think in that way.

something can only ever be said to be true under certain conditions, and even then it's probably provisional at best

I don't fully understand these "seven conditioned predications" but I would like to

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Nayavāda is the theory of partial standpoints or viewpoints. ... An object has infinite aspects to it, but when we describe an object in practice, we speak of only relevant aspects and ignore irrelevant ones.[20] This does not deny the other attributes, qualities, modes and other aspects; they are just irrelevant from a particular perspective

this reminds me a bit of the ugly duckling theorem; i.e. we can't categorize things without biasing certain attributes...the example there is good:

"Suppose that one is to list the attributes that plums and lawnmowers have in common in order to judge their similarity. It is easy to see that the list could be infinite: Both weigh less than 10,000 kg (and less than 10,001 kg), both did not exist 10,000,000 years ago (and 10,000,001 years ago), both cannot hear well, both can be dropped, both take up space, and so on. Likewise, the list of differences could be infinite… any two entities can be arbitrarily similar or dissimilar by changing the criterion of what counts as a relevant attribute."

it seems similar in that both talk about how we privilege certain aspects of things (e.g. race, gender, etc) that are in some sense arbitrary that we privilege them (in the grand scheme of things at least, that we privilege them has its own history/genealogy, so this isn't to say they happened "without reason")

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this whole idea of "partial reality" seems like a precursor to (as I understand it at least) Lacan/Zizek's idea of "The Real"; that there is some "true" reality out there that we only ever perceive and comprehend a small portion of (we can only ever sense it through our eyes, ears, etc); and we can never fully comprehend it

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Anekāntavāda is also different from moral relativism. It does not mean conceding that all arguments and all views are equal, but rather logic and evidence determine which views are true, in what respect and to what extent (as truth in relativism, itself). While employing anekāntavāda, the 17th century philosopher monk, Yaśovijaya Gaṇi also cautions against anābhigrahika (indiscriminate attachment to all views as being true), which is effectively a kind of misconceived relativism.

there's still an idea of "wrong" (maybe just "least true") and "less true" here

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I love the framing of intolerance of ideas as "intellectual violence" and tying it to ahiṃsā/nonviolence

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The doctrines of anekāntavāda and syādavāda are often criticised on the grounds that they engender a degree of hesitancy and uncertainty, and may compound problems rather than solve them.

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It is impossible that contradictory attributes such as being and non-being should at the same time belong to one and the same thing; just as observation teaches us that a thing cannot be hot and cold at the same moment.

this is probably a pedantic counterargument and i don't know if they had any kind of scientific understanding of temperature when this comment was made but a thing can totally be hot and cold at the same moment, it depends on who's holding it/what temperature their hand is

i would also say that a thing could be hot and cold in some sense if you don't treat them as binary categories (i.e. hot=0 or 1, cold=0 or 1) but as continuums (maybe?)

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as a side note there's a ton of really awesome ideas from eastern philosophy but I've found it very hard to come across since western philosophy is so dominant...this course is a really good tour of it all (that's where I first heard about this concept)

[michaelpace]

Anekāntavāda, the "observer effect" of wicked problems is a very old concept

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definition:
    the notion that reality is perceived differently from diverse points of view,
        and that no single point of view is the complete truth, yet taken
        together they comprise the complete truth.
    "related to pluralism and multiplicity of viewpoints, or vantage points"
    one of the most important and fundamental doctrines of jainism
        its three main principles are ahimsa, anekantavada (non-absolutism),
        aparigraha (non-possessiveness)
        "The majority of Jains reside in India. With 4–6 million followers,
        Jainism is smaller than many major world religions."
    aka the observation that objects are infinite in their qualities
        and modes of existence, so they cannot be completely grasped
        in all aspects and manifestations

parable of the blind men and the elephant
    "In this story, each blind man felt a different part of an elephant
        (trunk, leg, ear, etc.). All the men claimed to understand and
        explain the true appearance of the elephant, but could only partly
        succeed, due to their limited perspectives."

vs. moral relativism:
    anekāntavāda "does not mean conceding that all arguments and
        all views are equal, but rather logic and evidence determine
        which views are true, in what respect and to what extent"