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Image details : Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell by Lady Ottoline Morrell vintage snapshot print, late 1924 3 1/4 in. x 2 3/4 in. (83 mm x 70 mm) image size Source : National Portrait Gallery, London

What Russell told Lady Ottoline Morrell about Wittgenstein made a deep and lasting impression on my mind.

Ranajit, please expand some more on your impression... I am curious as to what changed in your world-view?

Qamar Rehmani This happened about forty years back and I am quoting partly from my memory. My friend D. Vijayendra (probably the brother or nephew of the Kanchi Sankaracharya) was greatly interested in Wittgenstein and he managed to infect me with his enthusiasm. The letter to Lady Ottoline Morrell runs as follows; ... "Wittgenstein came to see me – we were both cross from the heat – I showed him a crucial part of what I have been writing. He said it was all wrong, not realizing the difficulties – that he had tried my view and knew it wouldn’t work. I couldn’t understand his objection – in fact he was very inarticulate – but I feel in my bones that he must be right, and that he has seen something that I have missed." If I remember correctly Wittgenstein had maintained that 'there is nothing in the world except asserted propositions' and Russell had called him a 'fool' but in the letter, retracted from his position. This letter is now in the net and I was greatly impressed by the intellectual honesty of Russell. But I find Wittgenstein harder to grasp than Russell.

It is a pity that I have lost contact with D. Vijayendra. He was an electronic engineer from IIT KGP. He fell in love with a Bengali girl but was refused. He was also close to the family of Dr. B. D. Nagchaudhuri (Scientific Adviser the Ministry of Defence) but turned down many lucrative job offers and joined the Naxalites. At times he would come to IIT concealing his identity and I tried my best to help him. He was also very close to Prof. Farrouki who also used to help him. Prof. Farrouki was a very kind and amiable person. Later he became the VC of Aligarh Muslim University but could not continue for long.

Qamar Rehmani If you accept that 'there is nothing in the world except asserted propositions', nothing remains as 'truth'.

I think Russell's exact words about Wittgenstein were; 'our German engineer is a fool'.

Ranajit Pal ...re. Dr. B.D. Nag Chowdhury ...what a coincidence ! Uncle Nag and my late father were friends and scientific colleagues from the late 50s ..through the 60s . Among other things , the two of them were participants on a Scientific Discussion on A.I.R. Calcutta in early 1961. Some years later I remember Uncle Nag dropping in for dinner at our place in Cochin . This was in mid 1969 . At the time he'd been Member of the Planning Commission for over 2 years ...

Ranjith Thomas Vijayendra was a class-fellow of Dr. Nagchaodhuri's son at IIT. I used to discuss Wittgenstein's Tractatus with him although I probably did not understand it fully. Wittgenstein later abandoned it. Vijayendra used to address Mrs. Dipali Nagchowdhri as 'Ma'. She was a great musician who had trained under Faiyaz Khan Shaheb of Agra.

Ranajit ..I remember Uncle Nag telling me about his son ..who by then had passed out of IIT and had gone on to the US for his Masters' ..I think it was in Electronic Engineering . His son was thus about 3 or 4 years older than me ..And yes , I later heard that his wife Dipali was an exceptional classical singer ..

Ranajit...i've never met either Uncle Nag's wife or his son .. Uncle Nag, I must say , had quite a presence ...speaking slowly and deliberately , in measured tones and in impeccable English ...pausing every now and then to light and puff away at his pipe.... I suppose you know that his Ph.D guide was none other than E.O.Lawrence ..? My own father , a plant geneticist , had done his Ph.D , some years earlier than Uncle Nag , under a Dr. R. Ruggles Gates ...

@ Ranjith Thomas: He came from a very rich family. He was our teacher at Calcutta University. What was your father's name?

Father's name was Dr.K.T.Jacob. He was HOD Botany Dept. at the Bose Institute from circa 1941 to 1960 . The physicist Dr. D.M. Bose , was his direct boss throughout this period. BTW you must have noticed that among the most striking aspects of Uncle Nag were : his deep voice ..flawless diction ...and superb choice of words ..

Ranajit, Russell and Wittgenstein were two giants of the Mind and you have immersed yourself deep in their musings. I have read just a little but think that Russell’s philosophy grounded truth in scientific positivism, which holds to this day for Science… But Bertrand Russell, one of the founding architects of 20th century analytical philosophy ceded a deeper level of truth to Professor Ludwig Joseph Johann Wittgenstein, onetime Chairman of Cambridge University’s Moral Science Club, who opined on memory: “I see us still, sitting at that table. But have I really the same visual image - or one of those that I had then? Do I also certainly see the table and my friend from the same point of view as then, and not see myself?” For my longer note see: http://tinyurl.com/russell-wittgenstein-thoughts

Ranajit, Wittgenstein opened our eyes to new thinking about truth. In a social setting we’re consummate story tellers. We tweak our stories so that they become better stories. We bend the facts so that the facts appeal to the group. Because we are social animals, our memory of the past is constantly being revised to fit social pressures. The power of this phenomenon was demonstrated in a new Science paper. The neuroscientists were interested in how the opinion of other people can alter our personal memories, even over a relatively short period of time. The experiment: a few dozen people watched an eyewitness style documentary about a police arrest in groups of five. Three days later, the subjects returned to the lab and completed a memory test about the documentary. Four days after that, they were brought back once again and asked a variety of questions about the short movie while inside a brain scanner. This time, though, the subjects were shown the answers given by other people in their film-viewing group. Unbeknownst to the subjects, these wee false answers to the very questions that the subjects had previously answered correctly and confidently. Remarkably, this false feedback altered the responses of the participants, leading nearly 70 percent to conform to the group and give an incorrect answer. They had revised their stories in light of the social pressure. The question, of course, is whether their memory of the film had actually undergone a change. To find out, the researchers invited the subjects back to the lab one last time to take the memory test, telling them that the answers they had previously been given were not those of their fellow film watchers, but randomly generated by a computer. More than 40 percent remained erroneous, implying that the subjects were relying on false memories implanted by the earlier session. They had come to believe their own BS! Here’s where the fMRI data proved useful. By comparing the differences in brain activity between the persistent false memories and the temporary errors of “social compliance” the scientists were able to detect the neural causes of the misremembering. The main trigger seemed to be a strong co-activation between two brain areas: the hippocampus and the amygdala. The hippocampus is known to play a role in long-term memory formation, while the amygdala is an emotional center in the brain. According to the scientists, the co-activation of these areas can sometimes result in the replacement of an accurate memory with a false one, provided the false memory has a social component. This suggests that feedback of others has the ability to strongly shape our remembered experience. We are all performers, twisting our stories for strangers. http://www.weizmann.ac.il/neurobiology/labs/dudai/uploads/files/Science-2011-Edelson-108-11.pdf

Simply brilliant Qamar Rehmani ! A relevant and compelling comment + interesting link. Thanks.

@Ranjith Thomas: Very interesting that your father was the HOD of Bose Institute and was under D. M. Bose (nephew of Sir J. C. Bose) who was also our teacher. There is a story popular in Bose Institute circles that one of his students had brought a cloud chamber photo showing an electron-like particle showing opposite charge and D.M. Bose discarded his student's photo as a mistake. Had he been aware of the possibility of the existence of oppositely charged electrons or positrons he and his student could have been claimants of a Nobel Prize.

Now...thats incredible !

Prof. D. M. Bose had very sharp features and had a flawless diction but appeared to be rather haughty.

Qamar Rehmani Some of Wittgenstein's ideas are echoes of the sayings of the great Buddhist philosophers and also impacts upon the concept of 'sacrosanct wisdom'.

Ranajit ...thanks very much . I had no idea that they had come so close to discovering the positron ! The one thing I remember is father telling me that Dr. Bose asked him to go and invite Dr. B.C. Roy for the Sir J.C. Bose Centenary Celebrations in 1958 , saying there was a 'delicacy' in his going to invite Dr. Roy ..Father did so , and I think Dr. Roy came ..as did Panditji and Dr. Humayun Kabir ..and several other scientific greats of the time viz. Dr. Satyen Bose , Uncle Nag , Father Santapau and Dr. J.B.S. Haldane.. The 'delicacy' Dr. Bose was referring to was Dr. B.C. Roy's being cast off by Sir Nil Ratan Sircar when the former had the 'temerity' to ask for the hand of Sir Nil Ratan's beautiful oldest daughter ...who later married Dr. D.M. Bose . Dr. Bose's eldest son Sunando Bose took over from my father as HOD Botany Dept. circa April 1960 . The I last saw of the Bose's was circa Dec 1966 , when my parents and I called on them at their exquisite director's quarters in Bose Institute.

@ Ranjith Thomas Thanks for sharing! I did not exactly know the 'delicate relation' part but I was very close to Prof. J. P Neogy, Minto Professor of economics, Calcutta university, who gave me some hints. Apart from Father Santapau I knew all the others. Prof. Neogy told me how he had ordered an inquiry regarding Humayun Kabir's MA examination papers after he was astonished to find the very high marks he was given. He suspected that Kabir must be the son of a high-up who had manipulated all this. But after re-examination, he not only endorsed the previous markings but increased the marks in some papers. I heard Kabir speak during the Science Congress at Calcutta (1969-70). Prof. Neogy also told me about the BA examination papers of Bankim Chandra Chatterji which he had himself seen.