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Articles: My Thoughts | Philosophy and Science
- Prof. Narasimham Brahmandam
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Philosophy and Science
The origin of the universe and its apparently orderly course, have been the most absorbing areas of interest for those delving into the mystery. The ancient Indian rishis as well as thinkers of the west based their thoughts on the axiomatic acceptance of a supreme supernatural power as the cause of the universe and its run. The concept of a God, as the cause of the unknown, seems to have taken root even in earliest of human beings and these great thinkers of the past only refined the idea.
Their early theories, therefore, involved God's will for the creation of the universe. They saw that life on this planet was heavily dependent on the sun from which we get light and heat. There was the air (oxygen) that was recognized as the chief supporter of life because breathing was the visible sign of life. There was the water without which living things could not survive. Then there was the earth, from which came the food that was essential for life. These four were the chief elements - fire, air, water and earth - which, they assumed, must have been the first things that God created. Indian thinkers added the Aakaas¢ (=sky, space) to the list making them the five basic elements, the panca bhuutaas. All perceivable things were supposed to be constituted by these elements. Though not included in this list, Indian thinkers identified time also as one of the first things God created. Space and time were needed to permit movement and change.
The idea of a male and female involvement in creation seems to have influenced the thoughts of the ancients to some extent. They assumed that a duo was needed for the birth of anything. The Indian rishis proposed that the Supreme Being first gave rise to nature or prakriti (looked upon as a female element) in which God (looked upon as the male element) inseminated. As a result, things in the universe came into existence. God was the father and nature, the mother of all beings. The Semitic sages thought that God created every individual form of living and nonliving things simultaneously. There was no female element associated with creation.
Nature, according to the rishis of the Upanishads, was an undifferentiated entity (avyaktam or pradhaanam) in the beginning. It was endowed with three prime characteristics, organization, variation and change. Therefore it produced, by bringing together materials of its creation and organizing them, a wide variety of things whose form changed according to circumstances. This theory, as we can see, is closer to the modern concept of an evolving universe.
About the physical universe around, the ancients drew conclusions more by intellect, imagination and intuition than by experiment. Nevertheless, sage Kan¢aada propounded that matter was made of atoms. He proposed also that two or three (or more) of them combined to form new substances with new characteristics. Philosophers of Greece also shared this view. Indian sages do not seem to have believed that God created everything in the universe at one go. In fact, some ancient schools of philosophy like Saankhya and Vaiseshika do not refer to God in their treatises. These schools are really the forerunners of the modern scientific thinking. Since we perceive only things as imaged in the mind by decoding the stimuli received through the senses, they were also convinced that our view of matter was subjective and not its true form which eludes us since our perceptions are limited by our senses. According to them, a thing is that which can be perceived.
Thereafter, they were preoccupied with life and the mystery of death. This led to the concept of a soul or self, which left the body at the time of death. The sages of the west were also of the same view. But they stopped there. They only proposed that, after death, the souls would wait for the judgment day when God would send them to heaven or hell, as they deserved. It would mean that as centuries passed by, billions of billions of departed souls would be overcrowding the universe, waiting for the judgment day. Epicurian philosophers proposed that mind and spirit were inseparable and both perished along with the body at the time of death.
Indian sages proposed rebirth of the souls in new bodies in which they would experience the reward or punishment for their past deeds more quickly without waiting long for a judgment day. But along with it was also the concept of heaven and hell for good and bad deeds. However, they were permanent establishments with a regular routine and not confined to one judgment day. Even here, it was proposed that, after experiencing heaven or hell for the ordained time, the souls would re-enter our world to take birth again. This led to the concept that the living being consisted of two things, the inert perishable body and the activating imperishable self. Since God also was imperishable, it was proposed that the self in the body must be a fragment of God. If the self in every body is a fragment of the same God, all the selves must be one indivisible God, appearing as divided in the things of the universe.
The souls in the bodies, in addition to reaping the good and bad fruits of their actions of the previous life, could also fulfill the unfinished tasks of their previous lives. By persistent effort they would purify themselves from birth to birth, acquire true knowledge and finally merge with God from whom they were presumed to have separated. This has been given as the ultimate goal of souls. An evolution of souls has thus been proposed. The soul (self or aatma) is conceived to be pure because it is a fragment of God. But it is enveloped in avidya or ignorance and binds itself to the three attributes of the mind, manas, ahamkaara and buddhi, whereby it enjoys the fruits of the actions of the body and takes interest in them. That makes it susceptible to suffer the consequences of the actions of the body in which it took interest and binds it to the cycle of births and deaths.
Because variation is the characteristic of nature, bodies made of nature are unlike one another even though the gross form of the species may be the same. At the same time it was also understood that all bodies shared the same elements of nature and were just phases of nature and not different from it. The self in all bodies was the same because it is part of the one universal God. The self was regarded as the real person and not the body. The social dictum that all men are equal is true only in respect of their souls and not bodies. Body is just an instrument through which the self gets things done. Action was possible only with nature's materials. Body would be inert without the self and the self could not do a thing without the physical body. Their co-existence is life. Life is not an entity or a thing but is a function.
Then there was speculation of where this God is situated in the body. Obviously it was thought to be a central location in the body. The prime organ entrusted with the maintenance of life was the heart. For ages, heart has been supposed to be the seat of emotions. Therefore, it was proposed that God dwells in the heart. Some have also defined the size and form of God in the body. Some have suggested that there are five overlapping ‘sheaths’ or realms in the body, namely, 1. The body of atoms and molecules, 2. The mind that looks after the activities of the body, 3. The intellect that discriminates, 4. Knowledge and 5.Bliss. The Supreme Being was supposed to be beyond all these five realms. There have been various concepts about what God is, often differing from one another. Great sages have tried to reconcile the contradictions by ingenious explanations. There is also an extreme view that God exists as a principle (or law?) and not as a thing. That principle is inherent in the universe and not separate from it. From this point of view God is the Universe. The first name of God in Vishnu Sahasra naamam is Vis¢vam which means the universe. The simile employed by the ancients is that He is like the thread running through a garland of pearls. He is the intelligence that runs the world.
The prophets and sages derived social and ethical virtues from their respective concepts of what pleases God. The practices or the codes of behaviour were originally intended for a happy and peaceful co-existence of humanity. They are temporal and have not much to do with spirituality. The sages were aware that men were not all angels. Very often their self-interest and selfishness would prompt them to defy the wise guidance of the sages. Therefore, the religions wished to ensure compliance of their dicta by strengthening the faith in the minds of people in an omnipresent God who would witness all actions done openly or secretly and an omnipotent God who would reward the obedient and punish the disobedient.
Soon it seems to have been apparent that many persons did not care about the invisible God or His far off punishment for disobeying the code given by the prophets or religious heads. The intrinsic temporal nature of the social code was weakening its bond with Spirit and God. Therefore, some religious 'heads' assumed the power to mete out punishments themselves here and now, apparently on behalf of God! Power corrupts any man and the religious heads were no exception. By their very zeal to protect religion, they began weakening and distorting it.
With the advent of experimental and objective science, the scientists began to probe into the causes of events and the laws governing causes and effects in the material world. The objective truths gathered by them were vindicated by the technologies developed based on them. Logic, which was earlier used to fortify intuition and imagination, had begun to be used to fortify observed truths. Scientists also used their imagination to develop models, and formulate theories and hypotheses. But they kept them open for verification and there was no dogma. In a sense, knowledge was democratized.
The 'protectors of religion' began to feel the sands being washed away under their feet. In the early days of science, the scientists were persecuted as 'traitors'. But the overwhelming appeal of science to reason won over more and more people. Many of the material premises, events, metaphors, explanations and arguments found in religious texts began to appear unscientific. While scientists were open to correction whenever their theories proved wrong, the religionists mostly remained impervious to the new knowledge. They held their prophets sacrosanct and would not countenance the idea that any later mortal could know more than them. ‘The prophets have said the last word. Nothing could be added to it nor deleted from it. Nor could any new knowledge be true’. They tried and are trying to stick to their ignorance and whipping up a tirade against science that it is a corruptive influence on human mind.
At present, there are two entities, matter and mind. Scientists believe that mind is just a function of matter. (Soul or self is generally supposed to be different from the two). While science is probing matter, religion and spirituality are in charge of the mind and soul. Philosophy is trying to integrate them. The ultimate goal of quest for knowledge in both fields is happiness for man. Science and technology are trying to provide material comforts that do give happiness. But mind is beset with emotions. Emotions lead to actions, which may give happiness or misery. Religion, ethics, sociology, psychology and philosophy are trying to evolve methods to give happiness to the mind. There is, thus, an apparent dichotomy between the quests for material and spiritual knowledge. They are being looked upon as two independent streams of human quest.
Since science is not yet fully equipped to probe into mind and its emotions, for the present, it appears, it can offer no guidance on human behaviour. On the other hand, it is indiscriminately placing in the hands of people, powerful gadgets that could be used by the unscrupulous to disrupt peace and harmony in our lives. This is the stick chosen by the religionists to beat science with. However, religions cannot escape from a similar blame. Blind and undiscriminating faith in religion has led to crusades and jihads, killing millions of people and destroying great works of man.
But it must be recognized that quests of both matter and spirit, are made by the same mind using the same faculty of argument and inference, imagination and intuition with which it is endowed. More knowledge about the mind and its working by both streams of quest would probably bridge the gap and give a unified knowledge. Psychology is a new discipline trying an experimental study of the mind. Knowledge of microchips is opening up a new vista of analogy to mind. Artificial intelligence projects are trying to probe into the material aspects of the thinking process. Biochemistry and neurology are also discovering some physical and chemical elements of the thinking and emotional functions of the brain. It appears that, as Indian sages have held, mind is a property of the physical brain cells. In the not too distant future, we may hope to be able to manipulate the mind and its emotions through science and technology. But the soul still eludes them.
Self seems to be some stuff different from physical matter. Like antimatter, supposed to be all around us, but cannot be detected by ordinary instruments, self also cannot be perceived by physical instruments. Perception occurs only by interaction between things of the same matter-energy which makes up the world. But the soul is not of the same stuff as the perceivable universe. Therefore, it is not well understood, especially by the scientists, since it cannot be experimented with like matter. Nor is it comprehensible through mathematics. There are, however, certain phenomena observed over the centuries which provide the basis for some concepts about the soul.
Unfortunately they are very few and far between and cannot be experimentally reproduced. A lone occurrence cannot straight away be rejected as untrue simply because it cannot be reproduced at will. They are, however, not yet fit targets of science. But logic which takes part in science can be applied to spiritual experiences also. We may keep some faith in great rishis (whose bonafides need not be suspected), at least, till science can come up with concrete information to support or refute them. Mere prejudice is not helpful.
Probably, only when science develops the means to detect the soul, will the conservative religious heads and their followers will accept the need for changing their concepts. Religions were formulated on the basis of knowledge and logic available to the sages during their time. As more knowledge accumulates, their tenets need to be modified to accommodate the new truths. Such acceptance is easier for religions and philosophies, like those of the Indian subcontinent, evolved by discussion and logic and not as the dictates of a single prophet. It may take a little longer for those dictated by a single prophet whose authority is held inviolable. If we are convinced that the universe as well as humanity is continuously evolving, and if we recognize that each generation of men is adding a bit of knowledge to that accumulated that far by earlier generations, there is no reason to think that the present generation is less informed or less intelligent than the ancients. However, the same cannot be said with certainty about wisdom. Knowledge is information. Wisdom is the ability to use it properly. Wisdom and knowledge need not necessarily co-exist.
With advances in knowledge of the macrocosm and the microcosm, the scientists are also speculating on the origin of the universe. They are working backward in time basing on the principles of nature discovered by them so far. Their hypotheses are for the present largely based partly on blowing up laboratory data to cosmic scale and partly on imagination and intuition like those of the ancients. Therefore, there is still no agreed view of the origin and evolution of the universe.
The most widely accepted hypotheses assume that, in the beginning, there was a condensed entity of great density. There were no atoms or molecules in it. They were not yet formed. It suddenly exploded and began expanding. This is called the Big Bang theory. The microcosmic science, called quantum mechanics, tells us that even the proton and neutron are made up of more fundamental wave-particles like quarks and held together by strong nuclear forces. The dividing line between particles and energy quanta has also been wearing thin with the string theory of matter and force. There are also theories that, probably, matter is created out of empty space! With the theory of indeterminability or uncertainty, we seem to have arrived at the limits of truth close to the borders of inscrutable mystery. It has become a case of knowledge increasing mystery instead of clearing it.
Indian rishis proceeded from the infinite, unmanifest, undifferentiated, Brahman ® Iisvara containing within himself many souls and affected by the three gun¢as®the five elements®the sensing of the five elements®the mind®the gross universe of matter®praan¢a (life)®the living things. Thus they proceeded from the subtle to the gross. Scientists, on the other hand are proceeding from the gross to the subtle.
Ignoring the pebbles, if we withdraw to a distance to look at the hill, the origin of the universe suggested by the Upanishads is not very different from the speculative models of the scientists of today. If we concede that the material non-living things of the world have arisen out of organization of the original indefinable entity, it stands to reason that life is also a step in the organizational evolution. Darwin introduced an element of direction, if not purpose, in the concept of evolution. It is indeed an induction of philosophy into science. We may follow his footsteps. He, however, confined his attention to the inseparable form and function of living beings. Recent scientists, like Miller, have observed an elaboration of organizational complexity in living beings in gradual stages. Careful observation will reveal organizational evolution proceeding along with the evolution of form and function. New functions were needed, new forms appropriate to the new functions came up, and organizational coordinating devices were evolved synchronously. Evolutionary changes seem to happen to serve a purpose, to achieve perfection and to attain an ultimate goal. It compels us to concede intelligence to nature or an element of intelligence prompting and goading nature. This is the basis of the concept of a God, a universal self, or a Supreme Being. There are some fundamental characteristics of particles and energy and some fundamental relationships between them which are accepted by scientists as axioms inherent in nature since they are reticent to attribute them to God for certain good reasons. But since they defy any explanation, philosophers view them as decrees of a Supreme Being. Both the philosophers and the scientists carry on their quest for truth with the same logic possessed by human brain. Therefore, there cannot be any contradiction between the two. It should be possible to carry on scientific investigations while conceding the self or soul. Any apparent contradictions are due to the inadequacy of the brain which is itself a product of nature. Ancient and modern thinkers proposed an array of concepts that are the subject of inconclusive debates. Groups of persons keep implicit faith in one or another of these concepts. Others are left in perpetual doubt and speculation.
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