Exams Over With

I am so relieved to get home today. I had five hours of exams today and four hours of train travel to get to the study centre and back! Great to have them over with. My first exam was for PTR110 Structure, Thought and Reality and was so much simpler than I was expecting. Two questions, Q1 was a short answer of around five hundred words on Foucault's Power and Knowledge relationship and Q2 was an essay of around 2000 words on what consequences will flow on from thinking of globalisation and the War on Terror as socially produced concepts. Two hours for this exam and finished it in 1.5. Easy. Next exam was for PAC10 An Introduction to Asia and was in three sections. Even easier! this exam was for three hours and I had quite a bit of time left over. I must admit though that after hand writing more than 6000 words in one day I'm a little tired.

I had some good news from Griffith as well. some of you may know that I've had a little trouble with them of late but today I received my marks back from my new tutor and I received a HD. I couldn't be more pleased.

Those of you from PHI110 I have to appologise for not posting much today, the exams killed all my time and energy.

Kazakhstan Human Rights Abuses

I thought it was about time I pasted this on my blog. Some Vaisnava devotees in Kazakhstan have been being persucuted solely because of their religious affiliation for many years. We never seriously thought it would go this far with numerous Human Rights orginisations observing and wide spread condemnation from Europen Governments such as the British and the French.

On November 21, however, the Kazakhstan Government decided that they would 'take back' the land that these devotees have established a farm on. What's worse is that the houses were demolished while people, predominantley women and children, were still inside. All media and Human Rights observers were banned from the area and were threatened with force and violence if they did not comply. All photographic material was confiscated.

During this 'procedure' there were no officials present which is required under Kazakhstan law and no one is willing to take responsibility for the actions. Not a single police officer or demolition worker would wear their name tag or identify themselves either. The leader of the operation, the Hakim, even said to one of the Human Rights observers

'If I see you here again, I will personally crush Your eyes, even though I am the Hakim.'

I'm going to post the few videos that are available in my humble attampt to make this issue more widely known.

This is part of the demolition and police response.

There's still more if you care to look. Click HERE to see.

Tabla in Udaipur

As some of you already know, I'm off to India in April for some further extensive Tabla classes. My Guruji, Suresh Kumara Prajapati, lives in Udaipur and I thought I'd post some old pictures of Udaipur for those of you who have been before.

This is the City Palace -

This is the entry gate into the City Palace looking up from where Jagmandir is -

This is view from what is now the clock tower looking towards the City Palace. The temple in the foreground is Jagmandir and the smaller one off to the left is the Radha Krishna Mandir -

This is a view looking towards what is now the clock tower from the market -

This is a view of Jagmandir looking from the City Palace side -

This is a view of Jagmandir looking up from the market place. I'm not sure what the temple on the left is -

Jagmandir is also known as Jagdisha Mandir not to be confused with jagmandir island in the lake.

The Qualia Dilemma

I'm feeling a little less creative for this weeks Philosophy Blog War having been writing too many essays of late. This week I'm going to post a 'dilemma' and see if anyone can help me out with it. Remember to VOTE FOR ME.

Imagine a series of women, all called Mary, who have been afflicted from birth with a weird physiological condition—if they see colours they will die. (Maybe it is a curse.) They are given goggles that convert all colours into black-and-white images. They are given televisions and bedrooms and offices and laboratories in which everything is black-and-white, so they can take off their goggles (provided they wear black-and-white cover-alls).

Some of these women become fascinated by colour vision, precisely because they have not experienced it yet. They hope that their physiological condition will eventually be cured, and then they will see colours for themselves; but in the meantime they decide to study everything that has been written about colours. They collect and read virtually everything that has been written, not only about the science of wavelengths of light, but also about how retinas and brains respond to different patterns of stimulation from different wavelengths of light, about what poets and art critics say about colours, and so on.

Collectively, the Marys come to know everything relevant, anything that anyone could possibly tell anyone, about colours, and about what people say about colours, and about what goes on in people's brains when they think about colours, and when they experience colour vision. If one of the Marys has a ‘blind spot’, some relevant physical fact that she is somehow unable to know because it is about herself, then one of the other Marys can generally be counted on to have the knowledge, of that first Mary, which that first Mary lacks. The Marys also have helpful friends. For any scientific discovery that can be put into words (even if it is something that could only have been discovered by people with colour vision), this discovery is recorded in language, is found out by friends of the Marys, and then is communicated to them—in black and white.

Then one day, one of the Marys develops a cure for their condition. She gives herself the antidote, takes off the goggles, leaves her rooms, and sees red for the first time. Her brain undergoes various changes in response to the new stimulation, and she says, ‘Wow, so that's what it is like to see red! That is what people with colour vision have been experiencing. That is what we Marys have been missing out on.’ She tells the other Marys that the experience is great.

The other Marys have been watching their black-and-white video monitors, which have shown them exactly what went on in the first Mary's brain when she first saw red. Then the second Mary takes off her goggles and sees red, and all the remaining Marys watch their black and white screens again, to see what happens in the brain of Mary II. More or less the same thing happens in her brain as in Mary I's brain, and she too exclaims: ‘Gosh, so that's what it's like to see red!’

When we get to the nineteenth Mary, she knows almost exactly what is going to happen in her brain when she sees red for the first time. She takes off the goggles, and what happens in her brain is just what she predicted would happen. Her brain goes into a series of states almost exactly as she knew it would. The few unpredictable physical differences are definitely not ones that would cause her to say ‘Wow!’ or ‘Gosh!’

Virtually everything physical that happens, after Mary XIX takes off the goggles, is something that she already knew would happen when she took off the goggles. She gains no significant new knowledge about what physical properties are instantiated in the physical world. Yet she too, like the others before her, says, ‘Wow, so that's what it's like to see red!’—just as she expected she would. (Bigelow & Pargetter 2006, pp. 356-357).

Now these are my questions.

1. Does Mary gain 'new' knowledge?
2. What is 'new'?
3. What is the knowledge?
   
4. Since Mary already knew of all the material properties She was going to experience is the knowledge immaterial?
5. If the knowledge is 'new' and and not physical what is it?
6. Finally, how would a materialist or a non-dualist reconcile their views in light of such Qualia?
   

Of course you can just post your own thoughts into the matter as well

And

Remember to VOTE FOR ME!



References

Bigelow, J & Pargetter, R 2006, 'Re-acquaintance With Qualia', in The Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Vol 84, No 3, pp. 353-378).

Failed Streaming Media

Looks like the links in the last post are down again. Go to THIS PAGE for track one and THIS PAGE for track two. DISREGARD THIS (I Think) THE LINKS BELOW ARE WORKING AGAIN. I POSTED THE FILES ON ANOTHER SERVER AND THEY SEEM TO BE WORKING OKAY.

Streaming Rehersal for Ben and Craig

Last night's rehersal went well and I ripped the two recordings off of the Mini Disk player without a hassle. There are a few places on the recording where it skips though. Maybe you paused it Ben? I'm just not sure. Craig, the sitar didn't come through very loud at all. The Microphone was far to close to the tabla and it dominates the recording. The santoor is clear but also soft. I'm fairly happy with the tabla sound but it gets a bit monotonous being so loud. I should have played more solo. Overall, not bad. Lets just hope you can get that multi track mixer for the concert Craig so we can limit the volume of the tabla and/or increase the volume of the two lead instruments, specifically the sitar. Track one is in Kherava and Bhajani Tala while track two is in Bhajani tala and Kherava.

Track One -

Track Two -





Bloody free internet hosting services. I posted some m3u files on my web page linking to the audio but the free hosting server appears to change the file names every once in a while. The above players should now work. Third time lucky hey!

Does anyone know of a FREE site, like YouTube, that I can post audio clips on? My web space with my service provider is only 10mb so I can't even fit one of these files on there. Just post a comment if they stop working again

Ustad Ahmed Jan Thirakwa

I also thought I'd post this video that I found of probably my favourite tablaji - Ustad Ahmed Jan Thirakwa. I am of the same tabla gharana as ustadji. Enjoy.

Ravi Shankar, Alla Rakha - Rag Charukeshi

This is also the Late Ustad Allah Rakha Khan Sahib with Panditji Ravi Shankar in Jhap tala but Panditji is also playing sitar in raga Charukeshi. Enjoy.

Ravi Shankar, Alla Rakha - Tabla Solo in Jhaptal

This one's for all you tablaji's out there. I'm quite a fan of the late Ustad Allah Rakah Khan Sahib and I hope you all enjoy this jhap tala with Panditji Ravi Shankar.

Fast Food Nation

I'm a fan of the book Fast Food Nation and while I live in Australia and our farming and processing practices are slightly different I just had to post this LINK for any Americans who may be reading.

Hi All

Hi all.
I won't be submitting an entry for the Philosophy Blog War this week; too much Uni work to do. To keep you all interested though have a look at THIS article about an abattoir in India.....disgusting!
Also, in America this week the Frito-Lay company unveiled a new range of crisps...vege crisps. Now I thought this wasn't such a bad idea however Frito-Lay CEO Al Carey voiced his.....um....concern. He stated 'God help us all, would you look at these flavors, weren't Sun Chips healthy enough for you, you goddamn hippie bastards?' If that wasn't enough he described his company's product to his share holders as 'some shit that's made from beets'. and furthered that with 'I hope you're all happy now that you have your precious beet chips with the recommended daily serving of fruit, or vegetables, or whatever the hell a 'beet' is'. I'm sure his share holders would have left having new found confidence in their company's new product. Here's a picture of what their delivery van will probably look like for the new product.

Prosthetic Cow!

I stumbled across this picture by Chris Kidd in the Courier Mail on Wednesday (November 1, p. 25) and wondered what was going on. Apparently in an Australian first a prosthetic leg has been fitted to a cow. I was quite pleased when I saw this thinking that we Australians are becoming more compassionate. However dear reader, I was wrong. Upon reading the article it seems that the cow was only fitted with the prosthetic leg so its owner can keep on making money off its milk and I suppose its calves. Its a shame that we treat animals as mere commodities and the owner of poor Theresa shown above would have just as easily killed her had she not been able to effectively produce more milk for his business.