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Oct 10
Traditional Western thought has consistently modelled those world-views which have generated ontological gaps that runs across the whole domain of existence. For example, human and other organisms, in spite of the fact that they share the same cosmic niche, are considered to be literally worlds apart. This dualism is one of the fundamental, often, tacit tenets of Western metaphysics, epistemology and ethics. Dualist conceptions of human beings themselves are rooted in this deep-seated anthropocentrism. This dominant world-view has assimilated evolutionary theory and historicised this ontological gap. All — religious or secular — teleological perspectives construe the variety of life-forms as the result of a process leading to the advent of humankind. Homo sapiens is not seen as a stage in an indefinte flux of change, but as an end, the glorious result of a history of trial and error. Is there any difference between this view and that of creationism? This dichotomy between human and non-humans was extended often to other races, often treated as slaves and even women were not exactly placed in the same category as evolved humans — this was especially the case with many nineteenth century Darwinians. Social differences within Europe itself were classified in this line of thought. (Bouissac:1991). In the context of a discussion on Matter, it is important to note the specific historical-philosophical climate of Europe during the sixteenth-seventeenth centuries, within which the Scientific Revolution took place. It is also worth our while to recall some basic presuppositions, essentially Western, which dominate our times, summarised as follows:
Oct 10
Today, in science the basic oneness of the universe is clear. It has given rise to many unified field theories (such as symmetry, gauge symmetry, and supersymmtery, gravity and supergravity, strings and superstrings), suggesting that the constituents of matter are interconnected, interrelated and interdependent. The basic phenomenon may be understood not in terms of any isolated entities, but only as integrated parts of the whole. For example, space-time and energy are seen to be inseparable aspects of a single reality, as are energy and matter, wave and particle. Without going into each theory, and not being competent to do so, one may yet say that the physical universe is proving to be a seamless texture of inseparable events and entities, organised in accordance with a universal principle that specifies itself in innumerable forms. These may then be deduced from it, once it has been discovered. Moreover, coherence, elegance, and symmetry, the criteria of beauty and truth sought by the mathematician and the theoretical physicist, seem now to be within the reach even of the experimentalist (Gandhi:1990).
Oct 08
N. Mukunda: Quantum Theory, Elementary Particles Limits to Divisibility
Academic, NonDualism, Quantum Mechanics
In any effort to compare or bring together ancient insights and current scientific knowledge, there is always the question: what do we hope to achieve or learn from the exercise, if it is to go beyond recounting interesting stories to one another? There is always the problem of communication across disciplines and specialisations. Within science itself this is well-known, but the difficulties are even greater in the present situation. In any case, in matters of detail and recently acquired knowledge of nature through experiment, it is quite unreasonable to look for exact parallels in past thinking. Questions about the nature of matter and the structure of the cosmos have been raised since time immemorial. And in answer there has always been a great deal of speculation based to some extent on experience but also largely on pictorial thinking. We may view this as the first stage in coming to terms with the physical universe. One can generally think of four motivating factors behind speculative thinking:
