h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi,

your works are really amazing! dancingbudha, have you heard of laughingbudha and its connection with nuclear explosion?

I wonder y dont v together edit a guide entry on 'is spirituality, an anthropocentric element?'

cheers,
felix

Felix,

Good to hear from you. No, i have not heard of what you speak of, or perhaps i have heard of it in a different form. Which nuclear explosion?

-- db

oh, its first nuclear test of India at Pokhran. It was referred as laughing budha by the internal military media, thence.

Best.

I have heard of the phrase "the buddha smiles" or something like that in the same connection.

But returning to your suggestion that we co-author a piece on spirituality being anthropocentric. What makes you think, especially being a scientist, that we do *anything* that is not anthropocentric?

-- db

but my love to schrodinger is not at all *anthropocentric* !!!
my fundamental question. Does the science exists only inside the frame of human centered nature?

Felix,

you will have to be more careful in your usage of english, especially when playing word games/mind games - language here gets used in remarkably subtle ways, and one can get easily lost. For e.g., do you mean your love *to* schrodinger or your love *for* schrodinger? since the first doesn't make conceptual sense, i am forced to assume you mean the second. and making assumptions by the dozen is certainly not the way to do science.

regarding your fundamental question - i am not sure i understand it.. as far as i know, anthropocentric is defined by

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an·thro·po·cen·tric
adj.

1. Regarding humans as the central element of the universe.
2. Interpreting reality exclusively in terms of human values and experience.

anthro·po·centri·cal·ly adv.
anthro·po·cen·trici·ty (-trs-t) n.
anthro·po·centrism n.

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Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.



anthropocentric

\An`thro*po*cen"tric\, a. [Gr. ? man + ? center.] Assuming man as the center or ultimate end; -- applied to theories of the universe or of any part of it, as the solar system. --Draper.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.



anthropocentric

adj : human-centered; "our anthropocentric view of the world"

Source: WordNet ® 1.6, © 1997 Princeton University

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so when you say you love schrodinger: well, you are a human speaking of another human - what could be more anthropocentric than that?

and when you talk of science - which operates using human-familiar scales as reference points, which seeks to understand our world and place ourselves in it, which seeks to understand ourselves and hopes to relieve human suffering, and is largely driven and defined by cultural values - how can it not be anthropocentric?

to further elucidate my point - do you think your interest in the oceans is not because of totally selfish reasons (i.e. because you find them beautiful?) on the other hand, do you think those of us who are trying to save the environment are doing so only because it is pretty?

i just fail to understand how it is possible that your actions are caused by anything other than your own selfish desires...

-- db