The story of the blind men and an elephant originated in the Indian subcontinent from where it has widely diffused. 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. Here
This is the fable as it appears at: jainworld.com
ELEPHANT AND THE BLIND MEN
“Once upon a time, there lived six blind men in a village. One day the villagers told them, “Hey, there is an elephant in the village today.”
They had no idea what an elephant is. They decided, “Even though we would not be able to see it, let us go and feel it anyway.” All of them went where the elephant was. Everyone of them touched the elephant.
“Hey, the elephant is a pillar,” said the first man who touched his leg.
“Oh, no! it is like a rope,” said the second man who touched the tail.
“Oh, no! it is like a thick branch of a tree,” said the third man who touched the trunk of the elephant.
“It is like a big hand fan” said the fourth man who touched the ear of the elephant.
“It is like a huge wall,” said the fifth man who touched the belly of the elephant.
“It is like a solid pipe,” Said the sixth man who touched the tusk of the elephant.
They began to argue about the elephant and everyone of them insisted that he was right. It looked like they were getting agitated. A wise man was passing by and he saw this. He stopped and asked them, “What is the matter?” They said, “We cannot agree to what the elephant is like.” Each one of them told what he thought the elephant was like. The wise man calmly explained to them, “All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently because each one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all those features what you all said.”
“Oh!” everyone said. There was no more fight. They felt happy that they were all right.
The moral of the story is that there may be some truth to what someone says. Sometimes we can see that truth and sometimes not because they may have different perspective which we may not agree too. So, rather than arguing like the blind men, we should say, “Maybe you have your reasons.” This way we don’t get in arguments. In Jainism, it is explained that truth can be stated in seven different ways. So, you can see how broad our religion is. It teaches us to be tolerant towards others for their viewpoints. This allows us to live in harmony with the people of different thinking. This is known as the Syadvada, Anekantvad, or the theory of Manifold Predictions.
What I hope to do with this site is to explore the myths and mythology that guide us all, in all facets of human existence. One might say that I am following the footsteps and leads of giants in the field like Thomas Bullfinch, James George Frazer, Joseph Campbell and Robert Graves, but that would be a gross over statement of my intellect and capabilities. Compared to the brilliance of these people I am a mere dilettante in the field of mythology. Hence the title of my new project. What I see of my world is like the insight of the blind man holding the tail of an elephant and trying to describe its nature. I hope though that anyone reading this will help me in my journey to understand the world around me and provide me with their own enlightenment, from their own journeys.
August 26, 2015 at 3:32 pm
I shall dance the Dance of the Dilettante. 😉
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August 26, 2015 at 5:23 pm
It is said that “to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail”. Well, I carry the hammer of mathematical modeling and as I grope blindly at the wondrous elephant you’ve presented us with here, I think of the words of John von Neumann:
“With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.”
You show great wisdom by not trying to present the truth, or even your version of it, but rather presenting us with the elephant and letting everyone come to their own truth. I look forward to finding the parameters to fit your elephants into my worldview from wiggling trunk to wagging tail and enriching my view of the universe thereby.
Congratulations on your new home and thank you once again for returning to blogging to help us all make sense of the many elephants in various rooms of our own mental houses.
Mazel Tov!
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August 27, 2015 at 7:26 am
“I shall dance the Dance of the Dilettante”
I have two left feet – but, why not?
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August 27, 2015 at 3:01 pm
bfm,
That’s ok because you always put your best foot forward.
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August 27, 2015 at 3:33 pm
Mike, blouise, slarti, bfm,
I’m so glad to find you here!
“Who are you, and what have you done with BobK?”
No, it’s really me – that’s the last non-sarcastic thing you’ll hear from me.
I have my public to consider, after all!
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August 27, 2015 at 3:53 pm
Bob K,
Did you bring your shovel? (The elephant isn’t trained yet)
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August 27, 2015 at 4:35 pm
blouise,
I always keep my shovel handy. I’m so used to shoveling it on those other blogs!
What, the elephant does it on the paper? What good would that do?
Clumping kitty litter?
Perspiring minds want to know!
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August 27, 2015 at 7:41 pm
” The wise man calmly explained to them, “All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently because each one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all those features what you all said.”
AKA -LIFE !
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August 27, 2015 at 9:34 pm
Hello to all, TC here. But I am starting out with a new call sign. Just because, you know, I’m a fan of Wolfgangus Mozartus.
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August 28, 2015 at 4:13 am
Hey gang! Nice to see ya all here!
Speaking of elephant, this elephant ain’t that elephant I dare presume!
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/inside-the-gop-clown-car-20150812
Is this TC that TC? Haha, looking forward to proving you wrong on most (all) subjects, again!
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August 28, 2015 at 8:30 am
MoreMozart,
Aww… I liked the Mystery Men reference. I guess disco is really dead now.
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August 28, 2015 at 11:33 am
po: I often wish I could just replace history with a rosy fantasy, so congratulations.
Slart: Hm, I never saw that… But after investigation, sure. Eddie Izzard seems like a nice liberal guy.
I imagine the source is the same; my parents were born and raised in Brooklyn, mob days, and it was a cultural thing to go by first name and last initial, particularly for difficult to pronounce last names. I think it is the kind of thing writers pick up on.
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August 28, 2015 at 12:18 pm
” it was a cultural thing to go by first name and last initial, particularly for difficult to pronounce last names.”
Was this convention to help distinguish them from the other team: G. Gordon Liddy, J. Edgar Hoover?
My ex wife claimed that cops and robbers all have the same mentality – it is just a matter of luck which side of the law they wind up.
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August 28, 2015 at 2:16 pm
I’m not sure. I think my parents (pregnant and married at 15, in that order), had a kind of interrupted childhood that still admired the mob and gangsters in their late 1940’s neighborhood, basically because that’s who brought in the money, the cops were corrupt and always the enemy, drugs weren’t a huge problem (cigarettes and alcohol were rampant, but legal), etc.
I think the gangsters did it as a kind of alias code, like I say “Joey B” and you know da guy I’m talkin’ ’bout, but the cops can’t prove I meant “Joseph Bugosi”. I ain’t never heard of dat guy, is that some kind of criminal wit whom I do not associate? That would also fit with the “moniker” system of nicknames. It’s the same reason they use euphemisms for murder; like “take care of that guy.” Because “We ain’t violent people, officer, I was saying we should send him a nice bottle to thank him for doin’ his civic duty.”
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August 28, 2015 at 3:12 pm
Slarti,
“I guess disco is really dead now.” Perhaps, but rest assured … the hōrāh will never die.
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August 28, 2015 at 3:49 pm
Blouise,
In the movie Mystery Men the leader of the villain gang The Disco Boys was “Tony C” (played by Eddie Izzard) the Big Bad, Casanova Frankenstein (freshly released from a mental institution because Champion City’s signature superhero—and billionaire industrialist—Captain Amazing aka Lance Hunt has run out of foes and is losing endorsements) has this exchange with Tony P, the other named Disco Boy:
As a movie for quote mining (and just plain enjoying), it is right up there with The Blue Brothers and GhostBusters (Back off, man, I’m a scientist). At least for me. I highly recommend watching it if you haven’t.
We’ve got a blind date with destiny… and it looks like she’s ordered the lobster.
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August 28, 2015 at 3:49 pm
Um…
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August 28, 2015 at 3:49 pm
Just a sec..
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August 28, 2015 at 3:50 pm
One more…
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August 28, 2015 at 3:50 pm
Sorry, wanted comment #42.
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August 28, 2015 at 4:03 pm
Slarti,,
Yes, dear, but I am starting to use my list of Jewish references in celebration of your newly discovered DNA. The hōrāh is just one of many ways to keep going in circles.
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August 28, 2015 at 4:07 pm
I just wanted an excuse to talk about Mystery Men. Besides, there’s a bunch of Jews in that movie. Which, now that I think about it, pretty much describes anything made in Hollywood.
Oy.
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August 28, 2015 at 4:28 pm
Slarti,
“To whom is oy and to whom is avoy?” (י שִֹיחַ לְמִי פְּצָעִים חִנָּם לְמִי חַכְלִלוּת עֵינָיִם:) Proverbs 23 / 29
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August 28, 2015 at 6:53 pm
Blouise,
Okay, you win. I’ve got to go work because someone kept me up talking last night. Then I apparently have to learn Hebrew. Or at least how to fake it (cf. Surely You Must Be Joking Mr. Feynman?, “Elder Brother Also Speaks”).
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August 28, 2015 at 7:14 pm
Slarti,
Why do you think you have to learn Hebrew? I didn’t to the horror of my Hebrew Teachers and my family. The secret: transliteration.
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August 28, 2015 at 7:18 pm
Mike,
To keep up with Blouise playing word games. Otherwise I’m afraid she’ll turn it up to “11” and I’ll only have a “10”.
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August 28, 2015 at 8:40 pm
Ha! It only took two posts to call up the tribal guilt complex. Now, what part of the Elephant are we looking at!?
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August 28, 2015 at 9:29 pm
I took the DNA test. There was nothing too surprising except some previously unknown eastern European heritage.
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August 28, 2015 at 10:40 pm
SwarthmoreMom,
It was a little more exciting for me since I’ve never known a blood relative. The top two lines were 43% European Jew and 25% Scandinavian (actually, they are descendants of mine in an accident that involves a time machine, a towel and something that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea, which technically hasn’t happened yet).
Mike,
Re Blouise’s last comment: see what I mean?
*sigh*
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August 28, 2015 at 11:01 pm
Slarti, Your heritage is similar to that of my husband but his was not a surprise.
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August 28, 2015 at 11:03 pm
Slarti, He has pages and pages of new relatives as I am sure you do.
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August 29, 2015 at 12:19 am
Slarti,
“It was a little more exciting for me since I’ve never known a blood relative.”
You don’t know your mother, father, grandparents, possible siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins . . . ?
Did you spring into this world unformed?
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August 29, 2015 at 12:34 am
gbk,
Adopted
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August 29, 2015 at 3:00 pm
“The top two lines were 43% European Jew and 25% Scandinavian”
Slarti,
So we could say you’re a man who’s good with money and enjoys attacking other people with axes.
See what I’ve been talking about? Two weeks a Jew and you’re already being stereotyped, by another Jew no less.
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August 29, 2015 at 3:44 pm
“So we could say you’re a man who’s good with money and enjoys attacking other people with axes. ”
Just as long as he is only attacking with the ax for the sheer joy of expressing his cultural affinity and celebrating his heritage. If he were attacking with the ax to get other peoples money – now that would be a problem.
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August 30, 2015 at 5:49 am
Hmmm … Bob K has an axe …
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August 30, 2015 at 6:32 am
bigfatmike,
I only loot and pillage for culturally and historically appropriate reasons. Or if I’m drunk.
Mike,
Big deal. I texted a friend that I could be a self-hating Jew and that a whole new world of stereotypes were open to me less than 12 hours after finding out. She said I couldn’t be Sammy Davis Junior because I had two good eyes, though.
I do have a friend who keeps a battle axe by his bed—maybe he’ll let me borrow it.
gbk,
What Blouise said. Plus I don’t have any kids.
Blouise,
Aackk! Pptthhhbbb!
How was your porch party?
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August 30, 2015 at 4:13 pm
“Hmmm … Bob K has an axe …”
Yes, but is he at least 25% Scandinavian genetically. Kauten sounds like a suspiciously Jewish last name to me.
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September 5, 2015 at 2:01 am
What happened to the blind person who discovered whether the elephant was male or female?
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September 5, 2015 at 2:40 am
Slarti,
It just kept growing. There were people sitting on the steps who I didn’t even know. Turned out to be relatives visiting my neighbor down the street. The dog, whose leash was tied to the mailbox, belonged to them. It all started with myself and the couple from next door enjoying a pitcher of sangria, sitting in the rocking chairs taking in the sunset. It ended with 16 people and a dog and a total of 12 pitchers. I only have one bottle of red and a little bit of Grand Marnier left. I guess the neighborhood has decided my mourning period is over. We did raise more than a few glasses to Tex so maybe it was an impromptu wake. They did clean up after themselves so the next morning all I had was a headache.
Oy Vey!
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September 5, 2015 at 2:54 am
Blouise,
Anyone that keeps the supplies on hand to make 12 pitchers of sangria for an impromptu party is all right by me! By the way, can I get your sangria recipe? A friend asked for mine, but I’m pretty sure the book I got it from is in storage in North Carolina.
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September 5, 2015 at 2:55 am
Pete,
They don’t want to talk about it.
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September 5, 2015 at 3:16 am
Slarti,
For red: red wine, black cherry juice, Grand Marnier and appropriate fruit
For white: white wine, apple juice, Grand Marnier
For a sweeter sangria use a sweet Italian moscato as the wine
Another favorite on the front porch was a strong iced tea, orange juice, black cherry juice, cranberry juice, vodka, and Grand Marnier … depending on the tartness of the orange juice, a bit of simple syrup may be needed and a bit of lemon or lime.
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September 5, 2015 at 5:33 am
White grape juice can also be used in white sangria
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