I can't explain it to you if you've never studied science, especially
quantum mechanics. About the closest you could get is to understand the
story about the blind men who describe an elephant.
Blind men and an elephant
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Blind Men Appraising an Elephant by Ohara Donshu, Edo Period (early 19th
century), Brooklyn Museum
The story of the blind men and an elephant originated in the Indian
subcontinent from where it has widely diffused. It is a story of a group
of blind men (or men in the dark) who touch an elephant to learn what it
is like. Each one feels a different part, but only one part, such as the
side or the tusk. They then compare notes and learn that they are in
complete disagreement.
It is a parable that has crossed between many religious traditions and
is part of Jain, Buddhist, Sufi, Hindu and Bahá’í lore. The tale later
became well known in Europe, with 19th century American poet John
Godfrey Saxe creating his own version as a poem.[1] The story has been
published in many books for adults and children, and interpreted in a
variety of ways.
Contents
1 The story
2 Jain
3 Buddhist
4 Sufi Muslim
5 Hindu
6 John Godfrey Saxe
7 Modern treatments
8 See also
9 References
10 External links
The story
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In various versions of the tale, a group of blind men (or men in the
dark) touch an elephant to learn what it is like. Each one feels a
different part, but only one part, such as the side or the tusk. They
then compare notes and learn that they are in complete disagreement. The
stories differ primarily in how the elephant's body parts are described,
how violent the conflict becomes and how (or if) the conflict among the
men and their perspectives is resolved.
The blind men and the elephant
(wall relief in Northeast Thailand)
In some versions, they stop talking, start listening and collaborate to
"see" the full elephant. When a sighted man walks by and sees the entire
elephant all at once, the blind men also learn they are all blind. While
one's subjective experience is true, it may not be the totality of
truth. If the sighted man was deaf, he would not hear the elephant bellow.
It has been used to illustrate a range of truths and fallacies; broadly,
the parable implies that one's subjective experience can be true, but
that such experience is inherently limited by its failure to account for
other truths or a totality of truth. At various times the parable has
provided insight into the relativism, opaqueness or inexpressible nature
of truth, the behavior of experts in fields where there is a deficit or
inaccessibility of information, the need for communication, and respect
for different perspectives.
Jain
A Jain version of the story says that six blind men were asked to
determine what an elephant looked like by feeling different parts of the
elephant's body. The blind man who feels a leg says the elephant is like
a pillar; the one who feels the tail says the elephant is like a rope;
the one who feels the trunk says the elephant is like a tree branch; the
one who feels the ear says the elephant is like a hand fan; the one who
feels the belly says the elephant is like a wall; and the one who feels
the tusk says the elephant is like a solid pipe.
A king explains to them:
All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it
differently is because each one of you touched the different part of the
elephant. So, actually the elephant has all the features you mentioned.[2]
The ancient Jain texts often explain the concepts of anekāntvāda and
syādvāda with the parable of the blind men and an elephant
(Andhgajanyāyah), which addresses the manifold nature of truth.[3] This
parable resolves the conflict, and is used to illustrate the principle
of living in harmony with people who have different belief systems, and
that truth can be stated in different ways (in Jain beliefs often said
to be seven versions). This is known as the Syadvada, Anekantvada, or
the theory of Manifold Predications.[2]
Two of the many references to this parable are found in
Tattvarthaslokavatika of Vidyanandi (9th century) and Syādvādamanjari of
Ācārya Mallisena (13th century). Mallisena uses the parable to argue
that immature people deny various aspects of truth; deluded by the
aspects they do understand, they deny the aspects they don't understand.
"Due to extreme delusion produced on account of a partial viewpoint, the
immature deny one aspect and try to establish another. This is the maxim
of the blind (men) and the elephant."[4] Mallisena also cites the
parable when noting the importance of considering all viewpoints in
obtaining a full picture of reality. "It is impossible to properly
understand an entity consisting of infinite properties without the
method of modal description consisting of all viewpoints, since it will
otherwise lead to a situation of seizing mere sprouts (i.e., a
superficial, inadequate cognition), on the maxim of the blind (men) and
the elephant."[5]
Buddhist
Blind monks examining an elephant, an ukiyo-e print by Hanabusa Itchō
(1652–1724).
The Buddha twice uses the simile of blind men led astray. In the Canki
Sutta he describes a row of blind men holding on to each other as an
example of those who follow an old text that has passed down from
generation to generation.[6] In the Udana (68–69)[7] he uses the
elephant parable to describe sectarian quarrels. A king has the blind
men of the capital brought to the palace, where an elephant is brought
in and they are asked to describe it.
When the blind men had each felt a part of the elephant, the king
went to each of them and said to each: 'Well, blind man, have you seen
the elephant? Tell me, what sort of thing is an elephant?'
The men assert the elephant is either like a pot (the blind man who felt
the elephant's head), a winnowing basket (ear), a plowshare (tusk), a
plow (trunk), a granary (body), a pillar (foot), a mortar (back), a
pestle (tail) or a brush (tip of the tail).
The men cannot agree with one another and come to blows over the
question of what it is like and their dispute delights the king. The
Buddha ends the story by comparing the blind men to preachers and
scholars who are blind and ignorant and hold to their own views: "Just
so are these preachers and scholars holding various views blind and
unseeing.... In their ignorance they are by nature quarrelsome,
wrangling, and disputatious, each maintaining reality is thus and thus."
The Buddha then speaks the following verse:
O how they cling and wrangle, some who claim
For preacher and monk the honored name!
For, quarreling, each to his view they cling.
Such folk see only one side of a thing.[8]
Sufi Muslim
The Persian Sufi poet Sanai of Ghazni (currently, Afghanistan) presented
this teaching story in his The Walled Garden of Truth.[9]
Rumi, the 13th Century Persian poet and teacher of Sufism, included it
in his Masnavi. In his retelling, "The Elephant in the Dark", some
Hindus bring an elephant to be exhibited in a dark room. A number of men
touch and feel the elephant in the dark and, depending upon where they
touch it, they believe the elephant to be like a water spout (trunk), a
fan (ear), a pillar (leg) and a throne (back). Rumi uses this story as
an example of the limits of individual perception:
The sensual eye is just like the palm of the hand. The palm has not
the means of covering the whole of the beast.[10]
Rumi does not present a resolution to the conflict in his version, but
states:
The eye of the Sea is one thing and the foam another. Let the foam
go, and gaze with the eye of the Sea. Day and night foam-flecks are
flung from the sea: oh amazing! You behold the foam but not the Sea. We
are like boats dashing together; our eyes are darkened, yet we are in
clear water.[10]
Rumi ends his poem by stating "If each had a candle and they went in
together the differences would disappear." [11]
Hindu
Question book-new.svg
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Ramakrishna Paramahamsa used this parable to discourage dogmatism:[12]
A number of blind men came to an elephant. Somebody told them that
it was an elephant. The blind men asked, ‘What is the elephant like?’
and they began to touch its body. One of them said: 'It is like a
pillar.' This blind man had only touched its leg. Another man said, ‘The
elephant is like a husking basket.’ This person had only touched its
ears. Similarly, he who touched its trunk or its belly talked of it
differently. In the same way, he who has seen the Lord in a particular
way limits the Lord to that alone and thinks that He is nothing else.
John Godfrey Saxe
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One of the most famous versions of the 19th century was the poem "The
Blind Men and the Elephant" by John Godfrey Saxe (1816–1887).
And so these men of Hindustan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right
And all were in the wrong.
The poem begins:
It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind[13]
They conclude that the elephant is like a wall, snake, spear, tree, fan
or rope, depending upon where they touch. They have a heated debate that
does not come to physical violence. But in Saxe's version, the conflict
is never resolved.
Moral:
So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!
Natalie Merchant sang this poem in full on her Leave Your Sleep album
(Disc 1, track 13).
Modern treatments
The story is seen as a metaphor in many disciplines, being pressed into
service as an analogy in fields well beyond the traditional. In physics,
it has been seen as an analogy for the wave–particle duality.[14] In
biology, the way the blind men hold onto different parts of the elephant
has been seen as a good analogy for the Polyclonal B cell response.[15]
"Blind men and elephant", from Martha Adelaide Holton & Charles Madison
Curry, Holton-Curry readers, 1914.
The fable is one of a number of tales that cast light on the response of
hearers or readers to the story itself. Idries Shah has commented on
this element of self-reference in the many interpretations of the story,
and its function as a teaching story:
...people address themselves to this story in one or more [...]
interpretations. They then accept or reject them. Now they can feel
happy; they have arrived at an opinion about the matter. According to
their conditioning they produce the answer. Now look at their answers.
Some will say that this is a fascinating and touching allegory of the
presence of God. Others will say that it is showing people how stupid
mankind can be. Some say it is anti-scholastic. Others that it is just a
tale copied by Rumi from Sanai – and so on.[16]
Shah adapted the tale in his book The Dermis Probe. This version begins
with a conference of scientists, from different fields of expertise,
presenting their conflicting conclusions on the material upon which a
camera is focused. As the camera slowly zooms out it gradually becomes
clear that the material under examination is the hide of an African
elephant. The words 'The Parts Are Greater Than The Whole' then appear
on the screen. This retelling formed the script for a short four-minute
film by the animator Richard Williams. The film was chosen as an
Outstanding Film of the Year and was exhibited at the London and New
York film festivals.[17]
The story enjoys a continuing appeal, as shown by the number of
illustrated children's books of the fable; there is one for instance by
Paul Galdone and another, Seven Blind Mice, by Ed Young (1992).
In the title cartoon of one of his books, cartoonist Sam Gross
postulated that one of the blind men, encountering a pile of the
elephant's fewmets, concluded that "An elephant is soft and mushy."
An elephant joke inverts the story in the following way:
Six blind elephants were discussing what men were like. After
arguing they decided to find one and determine what it was like by
direct experience. The first blind elephant felt the man and declared,
'Men are flat.' After the other blind elephants felt the man, they agreed.
Moral:
"We have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself,
but nature exposed to our method of questioning." - Werner Heisenberg
See also
Portal icon Novels portal
Anekantavada
Dispersed knowledge
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, an 1884 satirical novella
Hasty generalization
Rashomon effect
Syncretism
The blind leading the blind
Unreliable narrator
References
Martin Gardner (1 September 1995). Famous Poems from Bygone Days.
Courier Dover Publications. p. 124. ISBN 978-0-486-28623-5. Retrieved
2012-08-25.
"Elephant and the blind men". Jain Stories. JainWorld.com. Retrieved
2006-08-29.
Hughes, Marilynn (2005). The voice of Prophets. Volume 2 of 12.
Morrisville, North Carolina: Lulu.com. pp. 590–591. ISBN 1-4116-5121-9.
Mallisena, Syādvādamanjari, 14:103–104. Dhruva, A.B. (1933) pp. 9–10.
Mallisena, Syādvādamanjari, 19:75–77. Dhruva, A.B. (1933) pp. 23–25.
Accesstoinsight.org
Katinkahesselink.net
Wang, Randy. "The Blind Men and the Elephant". Retrieved 2006-08-29.
Included in Idries Shah, Tales of the Dervishes ISBN 0-900860-47-2
Octagon Press 1993.
Arberry, A.J. (2004-05-09). "71 – The Elephant in the dark, on the
reconciliation of contrarieties". Rumi – Tales from Masnavi. Retrieved
2006-08-29.
For an adaptation of Rumi's poem, see this song version by David Wilcox
here.
Gupta, Mahendranath (11 March 1883). "Chapter V – Vaishnavism and
sectarianism – harmony of religions". Kathamrita. Vol. II. ISBN
81-88343-01-3.
Saxe, John Godfrey. "Wikisource link to The Blind Men and the Elephant".
The poems of John Godfrey Saxe. Wikisource. Wikisource link [scan]
For example, Quantum theory by David Bohm, p. 26. Retrieved 2010-03-03.
See for instance The lymph node in HIV pathogenesis by Michael M.
Lederman and Leonid Margolis, Seminars in Immunology, Volume 20, Issue
3, June 2008, pp. 187–195
Shah, Idries. "The Teaching Story: Observations on the Folklore of Our
"Modern" Thought". Retrieved 2010-03-05.
Octagon Press page for The Dermis Probe, with preview of story
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Blind men and an elephant.
Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi. "Wikisource link to Book III". Masnavi
I Ma'navi. Trans. Edward Henry Whinfield. Wikisource.
Story of the Blind Men and the Elephant from
www.spiritual-education.org
All of Saxe's Poems including original printing of The Blindman and
the Elephant Free to read and full text search.
Buddhist Version as found in Jainism and Buddhism. Udana hosted by
the University of Princeton
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi's version as translated by A.J. Arberry
Jainist Version hosted by Jainworld
John Godfrey Saxe's version hosted at Rice University
Categories:
Elephants in Indian cultureFictional elephantsFablesOral
traditionIndian literatureIndian folkloreIndian short
storiesParablesSufi literaturePersian literatureWisdom literaturePali
Buddhist textsStorytellingEpistemologyPerceptionRelativismInductive
fallaciesInformal fallaciesBeliefRealityIllusionsBlindnessMetaphors
referring to elephants
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