ANCIENT AND

MODERN-A
DISCUSSION
ON THE
PSYCHOLOGY
AND
PHILOSOPHY
FOR THE NEW
LEARNERS
Ancient: Do you know why the human civilization is in danger?

Modern: That’s wrong statement. We are not in any danger in this modern

age.

Ancient: I see. You’ve great confidence.

Modern: Yaw, the confidence is all that we’ve, our science and technology

has advanced to such a great level that we can exist even in most adverse

and you can say the worst conditions, in which you can’t.

Ancient: You’re right. I can’t exist. The reason is that I can live if I’m in

union with nature and the universe.

Modern: I’m amazed about these typical words-nature and universe.

Ancient: Yaw, but don’t you believe in the Big Bang and Big Crunch?

Modern: Yaw, I do. You know our scientists have found all the details

about the Big Bang.

Ancient: That’s great. We always believed in it. For us the egg is the

universe.

Modern: What, egg, what did you say; the universe is an egg? Do not be

silly.

Ancient: Well, you’re made up of electrons and thus the atoms and

molecules, isn’t it.

Modern: Yaw, but how can you correlate egg, atom and human with

nature and the universe?

Ancient: Can egg exist without atoms?

Modern: No.

Ancient: Can atom exist without egg?

Modern: I beg your pardon. Are you joking?

Ancient: No. you see the egg represent the nature and the atom represents

the universe.

Modern: It’s illogical. You said that the egg is the universe and now you

say that the atom is the universe.

Ancient: Yaw, it may seem illogical. All right, can universe exist without

an atom?

Modern: Yaw, it can.

Ancient: At the same time, can the universe exist without an egg?

Modern: Yaw, it can. Now, it seems funnier than a joke.

Ancient: Yaw, the universe can exist without nature.

Modern: It seems a horrible to feel that the universe can exist without

nature, but I understand it is true.

Ancient: Now, can I claim that the atom represent universe and egg

represent the universe?

Modern: How can I allow you?

(They laugh and without it the universe cannot exist.)

Ancient: You remember we had the wheat seeds and the flour. The wheat

represents the egg.

Modern: Gosh, come on please, do not make another joke. My digestion is

very poor.

(They laugh again, but together).

Ancient: Eat the wheat sprouts. Can you tell where the seeds grow again?

Modern: My GK is very poor because it was the current affairs at my

granny’s times. (They laugh), now I can notice the gap of three generation

in a single generation. Anyway, the seed sprouts in water.

Ancient: Can the universe exist without water?

Modern: Yaw, it can.

Ancient: All right, the egg and seed have no difference.

Modern: You know there’s no psychiatrist nearby, I may get insane. (They

laugh). How can the egg and the wheat seed be same?

Ancient: Well, can the hen live without food that it eats?

Modern: No.

Ancient: So, for the hen and thus for the egg, food is life. Now, can it live

without water?

Modern: No, how can a hen live without water?

Ancient: Can water live or exist without hen or egg?

Modern: Yaw. You know this kind of talk seems childish; you’re repeating

questions as if I’m a child.

Ancient: Exactly, that’s the main problem you’ve. You never wish to

consider yourself a child. So, you can’t learn like a child. Thus, what you

know is without curiosity. You do not like repetition, revision and

improvising the words.

Modern: Yaw, I don’t like it. However, I like to revise, you’re wrong here.

Ancient: Well, you know your revision is same as repetition.

Modern: How can you say that my revision is same as the repetition?
Ancient: You said that I repeat words, isn’t it.

Modern: Yaw, I said and you do.

Ancient: Now, can you tell me if you’ve the discerning power to know if

the word is repeated or revised?

Modern: Well, I’m not sure. Can you give an example?

Ancient: You know we’ve the same word used as noun, pronoun, adjective

and other forms, meanings, feelings and various combinations and

permutations with thoughts, ideas, imaginations and other functions and

activities in our mind.

Modern: Yaw, you’re right.

Ancient: You know the slang words that we use are the most repeated

ones as well as the pet words. Each time, the repeated word has different

gestures, postures and the impression which create different meanings and

feelings for the same word. Do you get irritated if people keep on calling

you uncle?

Modern: I see. Now, I understand what you mean. The words do not

always convey what we interpret. We condition our mind for a particular

word and or a sentence. We mostly know what we have say and what we

are going to hear in its response. However, it’s a great facility isn’t it?

Ancient: No, it’s not facility; it’s a luxury of mind.

Modern: What, what did you say, luxury, a luxury of mind. What do you

mean?
Ancient: You see we mostly feel comfortable in the known thoughts, ideas,

concepts, feelings and thus the interactions. It’s luxury of petting our

mind.

Modern: Gosh, you’re a crazy person. What do you mean by saying, the

petting of mind, can you explain it?

Ancient: Yaw, why not. You see when we hear what we want to we feel

happy, and sad when we hear what we do not want to. Moreover, in most

of the cases, we keep on recalling who, when and where we had the

desired results and answers. We label it as the good memories. We, thus,

keep on recalling the good memories. It is petting our mind.

Modern: You see that’s not fair. Should we recall the sad or the bad

memories?

Ancient: What is memory?

Modern: Well, it’s the retentive power of mind, we can recall anything if

we’ve sound memory.

Ancient: Well, then why do we keep on recalling good ones, while

suppressing the bad memories?

Modern: What do you mean to say, how can we suppress bad memories?

Ancient: All right. Do you recall the martyrs, the soldiers, the others, who

have suffered for some good and or a great cause?

Modern: Yaw, indeed we do.

Ancient: Yaw, we all do it, but in our personal life we tend to escape from

the painful experiences. It increases the suffering. We try to recall the good

memories, which create comfortable feelings. However, we at the same

time feel comfortable, when we remember the sufferings of others, dying

and getting injurious on duty, isn’t it.

Modern: I see. Can you tell what can make person accept both good and

bad as same?

Ancient: Do you know what brain does?

Modern: Yaw; it does what it has to. It functions, operates and makes our

body work, isn’t it.

Ancient: Yaw, that’s what you believe. You know, it does its duty. We

remember our great people, who have done their duty.

Modern: I see. So, it means our memory need to be duty oriented not

desire oriented, if we do petting of our mind, it won’t perform its duty and

thus in return we are conditioned to escape from our duties.

Ancients: Yaw, while at the same time we learn to follow our desires. It’s

the conditioning of brain or mind.

Modern: Well, now I understand it is similar to brain wash, the

conditioning. In any case, what do say about duty, isn’t conditioning of

mind?

Ancient: You know mind can be made reactive in a certain way; we mostly

do it by pleasure and pain. The duty makes us go beyond the pleasure.

Modern: Well, you see any bad or evil person performs the antisocial

works as if duty, so you’re wrong in this case.

Ancient: Yaw, mostly it appears. We’re not talking about the Psychology.

It’s philosophy that enables person to discern and decide about what is

right and wrong. This right and wrong is the universal concept, but in
psychology, one believes right or wrong based on likes and dislikes, thus

the pleasure and pain. Your opinion is based on the lower mentality the

biological and the psychological, however I’m talking about the

philosophy that has a concern for the ethics and the value system helping

one to learn, while following it, rather than conditioning to accept right or

wrong psychology as one is conditioned, isn’t it.

Modern: I see. It seems right to me. Do you believe that we do not need the

theory of conditioning?

Ancient: No, we need it, but for the animals and other kinds of life of

lower level of intellect. We need it biologically as we do not differ from the

lower level of life in this matter. However, we use it for the higher

purposes.

Modern: All right, what’re the higher purposes?

Ancient: You see when we follow the ethics and value systems

philosophically we usually fail, is not it.

Modern: Yaw, we do. It gives pains and sorrows.

Ancient: Right, we use the theory of conditioning for it. We’ve to learn

about how to Use psychology to support philosophy.

Modern: You know many people use it for so called philosophical aims.

Ancient: You’ve the fixed idea. The philosophy tells what ought to be done

and what not ought to be done for all, not just for some group of people or

a community. That’s another concept.

Modern: Are you escaping from my point just by saying that it’s another

concept or idea?
Ancient: No, you seem to assume. These assumptions in the society

constitute the sociological concepts and ideas, which many people try to

propagate as the philosophy and use the emotions and thoughts of the

community as if to attain the sociological objectives by projecting it as the

philosophical ones, isn’t’ it.

Modern: Yaw, you’re right. Then, how can we use psychology for the

philosophical objectives?

Ancient: We allow one to decide according to the system that is same for

all. Now, we should leave this discussion until me meet next.

Modern: Yaw, I agree that we do have the universal value system that’s

same or common for all. We’ll continue it in our next discussion. Thanks!

Ancient: You’re welcome.

(It ends the discussion.).