Karnataka Government's 'Improper Use of Magic' Office

[updated Dec 9]
The 'secular' states of Karnataka and Maharashtra in India (both ruled by so-called secular parties that were decimated in the recent assembly elections in several other states for their unprecedented corruption and misrule) have drafted an 'anti-superstition' bill. Here's the text of the bill, and a factual critique of the bill that exposes the government plan for what it is: a lousy, unscientific, and politically motivated plan that gives a beleaguered government the right to wantonly interfere in the affairs of any religious group and attack personal liberty, as long as the groups and persons of interest belong to a dharmic faith (like Hinduism), and prosecute them legally, as convenient.

The tragi-comic part of the bill is that these "rational" governments have pretty much recognized the historicity and authenticity of claims of a person that he, and he alone, was (and will ever be) the recipient of a one-time wireless download of divine literary material from a male-only god atop a mountain, which contradicts the prior claims of another person that he was the only (male) progeny of the same god and a human mom, conceived immaculately, and who died and will come back to life at a suitable time. Note that history-centric faiths like Islam and Christianity cease to exist if such superstitions are not accepted into evidence as historically observed and verified data. Hypothetically, if Rama is considered to be a natural human being by Hindus, who then use the Ramayana solely for its ethical and dharmic teachings, Hinduism would continue to flourish. But if Islam and Christianity likewise assumed 'son of God' and 'Koran as word of God' to be useful myth built around non-supernatural human beings, and similarly treat the text they generated as human-generated moral teachings for a peaceful and prosperous life, it invalidates the very basis of their religion in its current form!

To summarize, these truth-claims of History-Centric faiths are superstition that have to be accepted as historical fact by everybody, else they die. Rajiv Malhotra's 'Being Different', among other things, contrasts the top-down History-centric thought systems versus the ground-up dharmic thought systems, and scientifically analyzes the implications, in-depth. This book is now available in Hindi as well. 


Let the full details of this debate be made public, and let the hypocrisy that defines 'secularism' in India be exposed to its gullible public - that a secular government has used superstition to go on a witch-hunt and decide what is superstition and what isn't. Now where have we read of such a crazy scenario before?

Read the critique posted above and then the description below posted from http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Improper_Use_of_Magic_Office.
 

" The Office is responsible for investigating offences under the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery and the International Confederation of Wizards Statute of Secrecy. The Decree prohibits an underage wizard or witch from performing magic, while the Statute of Secrecy prohibits wizards and witches from performing magic in the presence of Muggles or in a Muggle-inhabited area. 

On receiving intelligence reports of a violation of the Decree, a note is sent to the offender detailing actions that will be taken by the Office. First-time offenders are usually let off with a warning while extreme cases may be referred to the Wizengamot. Thus, it appears that the Improper Use of Magic Office deals with offences that are more regulatory in nature than criminal, ... penalties can still be harsh.
Also, this is where the Animagus registration is posted, and that all Animagi must register with all their distinguishing features and traits noted, in order for them not to abuse their abilities. The registry is open to public viewing. Failing to register will receive a sentence in Azkaban.

Contact with Harry Potter

The Improper Use of Magic Office came into contact with Harry Potter repeatedly during his childhood. He received a warning letter from them when Dobby, ..... years later, Harry received notice of expulsion from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry after he used a Patronus Charm against threatening Dementors .... The letter informed him that his wand would be destroyed by Ministry officials and he would be detained until Court notice; this appears to be the standard procedure.... 
It is suggested that the Improper Use of Magic Office attends Wizengamot Court services,... It is presumed that this department has several positions and that they remained loyal to the Ministry even when Cornelius Fudge denied Lord Voldemort had risen again. 

.... it was highly unusual procedure for a case of underage use of magic. The hearing was held in Courtroom Ten below the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry of Magic. Incidentally, it was the same courtroom Harry had previously visited via the Pensieve. It was a horribly intimidating room with a chair that self-locks when the defendant sits down..."


Substitute
'Hindu Gurus' for Harry Potter,
'Yoga and dharmic institutions' for Hogwarts
'Secular Indian gov' for 'Improper Use of Magic Office''Secularist/Monotheist goon squads' for 'Dementors',
etc.
and re-read the description above. 

Of course, who 'he who must not be named' maps to in real-world India is left as an exercise to the reader. Clue: person turned 666 yesterday. Oops, mea culpa.

Transcendental Bullshitting

Work in progress .. 

Update 3: Heavily edited for brevity and added Mrs. Ghose to the list, December 19, 2014.

Update 2: November 29, 2013.

There are different types of ignorance.

(source: farnamstreetblog.com)

Belonging to the first category, to paraphrase Mark Twain, are "thousands of bullshitters who live and die undiscovered - either by themselves or by others." But the focus of this post is on the BSers from the second category: those who recognize their ignorance, and profit from it.

Part-1 (October 2, 2013)
Last week, I've heard two dharmic thinkers make an important and related point. The first one was on facebook, and the second one was a tweet.

 

The first category can be debated, while the latter can only be exposed. It is sensible to avoid debating with certain kinds of people: The ones not bright enough to dazzle you with brilliance, yet stupid enough to try and baffle you with bullshit.


Part-2 (Update 1: November 11, 2013)

If I assumed in Part-1 that only India's secular minions were afflicted by this disease, I was wrong. The rot starts at the top. After observing several tweet samples of eminent historians, secular sadhus, newspaper chief editors, some simple ideas around the 'art of bullshitting' began to crystallize.

Step 1. You have to discover your cognitive limitations and deficiencies way before anyone else does. Now our Indian Rishis too, informally speaking, advise this, so far so good. For example, if you are constantly discovering evidence that contradicts virtually everything that you postulated would happen, you are on the right track. Kinda like George Costanza of Seinfeld. If I recall correctly, Rajiv ji once pointed out that those who support and enrich the discredited 'Aryan Invasion Theory' tend to do so on the premise that if "X" can happen, then "X" must have happened. Thus, if there are a zillion possibilities, you are moronic enough to conclude that the world must have followed that one path that you like and will profit from the most. Now along comes an inconvenient evidence "Y" that contradicts your pet theory "X". You must be able recognize this inconvenient truth much before anybody else in order to continue to profit from "X".

Step 2. Exploit the vital secret (that only you truly understand the full depth of your own ignorance in the matter) to your advantage, and to such an extent that it stuns your opponent into frozen disbelief. Thus if fact 'Y' contradicts pet theory 'X' then you calmly state that the fact 'Y' cannot have happened! In other words you have achieved a transcendental state of Zen-like denial, a higher state of avidya and maya, if you will. You've realized that given your mediocrity, you are going to be a lifelong bullshitter at best, but rather than quit, you transcend the depression of this discovery by turning it into a commercial weapon of mass obfuscation. Think Deepak Chopra. This way you are always one step ahead of the others on the "learning" curve and you get to ride the gravy train.

If you examine the body of work of the Indian sepoy writers of history, they have built an entire genre of hi-fi work: historical fiction. Like the legend of 'Phantom, the Ghost Who Walks', and the 'Lord of the Rings', and 'Hogwarts', their stories are largely consistent, but only after the initial fabrication. Eventually of course, if you take away that foundational BS from hi-fi works, you are left with that kind of stark nudity that only exposed ignorance creates. Nevertheless, to top the merit list of idiocracy over decades requires a collective effort. Behind every prize idiot sepoy who wins a western award as payoff is an ecosystem that nurtured him or her. Which leads us to step 3.

Step 3. Spread ignorance. The ability of two transcendental bullshitters to recognize each other in a room full of strangers is uncanny. The world is full of such examples. If this is not Quantum Entanglement, what is? This is where dharmic peoples, who focus on individual karma, and taking responsibility for ones own actions, invariably fall short. Pooling resources to achieve collective stupidity requires not just a keen antenna for spotting a fellow BSer, but also discipline: Two gems must find each other and sacrifice their Ahankaar by giving up to each other the secret of their individual ignorance in the cause of greater profit. The collective is far more lucrative than the gain from individual idiocies. Sepoys Sibal, Shashi, Siddharth, Sagarika, and Sen are in the payroll precisely for their force multiplier value. Like Potemkin villages, the goal is to design a robust BS network of plausible concoctions with built-in redundancies. If Nehru the incompetent is exposed, then Nehru the secularist comes alive to combat, and if he is felled, Nehru the scientific rationalist is ready for battle. It's like a Chakravyuha of multilayer BS to befuddle fact-driven Abhimanyus.

This much is clear: It is mutually beneficial to debate those who still have enough conviction left to respect facts, even if we disagree with their world view, but the incorrigible can only be exposed.

History Centrism: Contradiction Networks

What is a contradiction network? Google generates a limited number of results for this phrase, none of which match how we plan to use this fairly simple concept in the latest installment of our ongoing research into the effects of History Centrism, a definitive phrase introduced by Rajiv Malhotra in his recent book "Being Different: An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism".  First, we provide a brief recap of the work done so far (feel free to endorse or challenge/improve this work by providing substantiated corrections via counter-examples, etc, to help take this research forward).

Recap
We present a deterministic analytical model of a History-Centric Thought System (HCTS) that among other things, stipulates membership and non-membership criteria (Part 1). This model also helps in making a statement about the stability of membership (Part 2) as well as predict how the duality implied by HCTS drives its interaction with non-members, including non HC groups and alternative HC groups (Part 3). We then comment on how the Western HCTS shapes the overall 'master narrative', i.e. the monoculture of Western Universalism (Part 4). 

We now analyze how and why the membership based on a HCTS protects the claims listed in its historical prior P. To motivate this, we present another implication of the Separation Theorem stated in Part-1.

Implication: A HCTS is a closed and static system
Proof: Given the unique and non-reproducible historical claims of the prior, it follows that no (extraneous) event or discovery at any point in time can dynamically induce an amendment in the definition and rules of membership since doing so would result in a new HCTS that invalidates prior P.

What are the consequences of this implication? 
a. Since the HTCS was non-existent before time(s) T, the unique point(s) on the time-axis at which the event(s) cited in prior P occurred, any event in the universe that occurred prior to T that contradicts the claims of P is deemed not to occurred and hence ignored.

b. Any scientific theory proposed after time T that if accepted would contradict prior P, is rejected. Such rejection proactively applies to any such future discovery. If a theory is confirmed (and becomes a 'law') via newly observed data, thereby rendering parts of P fictitious, then such implications are ignored. This includes any future scientific evidence that uncover past facts (via carbon dating, archeology, etc).

In general, empirical and scientific contradictions that result from prior P are not resolved but ignored (by resorting to self-referential justifications based on the prior P if necessary).

Contradiction Networks

Over a period of time, such a response by the HCTS results in an accumulation of contradictions leading to many members disowning membership. Such a situation can be conceptually represented by a contradiction network or a contradiction graph, a construct for systematically identifying the sequence of implications underlying a mass of contradictions. Mounting scientific evidence that contradicts prior P results in this contradiction network becoming both denser and larger. Consequently, rather than trying to improve the quality of life of its adherents, the HCTS management is forced to spend a large proportion of its time and resources trying to decipher and defend this maze of contradictions. This may lead to:

- defending against criminal and civil lawsuits around the world,

- proposing and funding support for literature that promotes prior-friendly alternatives and pseudo-scientific theories to refute contradicting claims,

- penalizing members, and in general discouraging dissent by stipulating an infinite posterior penalty for infringements (e.g. "eternal hell")

- silencing opposition via:
   i)  counter-claims of contradiction against competing HCTS,
   ii) reflect back claims of human right violations, superstition, and discrimination against non HCTS, and
  iii) penalties against wavering members.

- obfuscating (but not eliminating) the duality implied by the core HC model by adding additional unverifiable layers of HC thought as well as useful metaphysics and practical methods derived from the inner sciences digested from non-HCTS systems. We elaborate on this particular aspect in the next post.