Sachchidananda as the originator of quantum mechanics

Re: Re: Mantric Poetry (SA & postmodernism?) by RY Deshpande on Sat 10 Feb 2007 06:15 AM PST Profile Permanent Link

Hi Ron, There is universality in the speech of a Rishi and it has always the strengthening freshness which does not age with time. Because it has the power to put us directly in contact with the realities of existence, which have their own relations in reality, it can be all-embracing. The genuine quest of the mind for the truth of the things, philosophical, scientific, deeper emotional, and even of the will of the physical, finds its fulfilment in it. That is the power of Savitri also, the power that can transform our dull suffering mortality into the beauty and wonder of the spirit. Therefore the relevance of these utterances to contemporary issues should not come as a surprise.

Regarding the possibility of obtaining insights from Sri Aurobindo into the problems of physics, such as Zero Point Field, I think we should have an independent discussion. Surely, these insights will be available—coz they have the power to put us in contact with the reality that exists behind them. However, as a physicist such insights will be of no avail to me if I should fail to take them to the laboratory.

I think we should meticulously avoid the danger of slipping into the Grecian kind of speculative explorations or discussions. I will be more of a Bohr than an Einstein. The strong pillar of the physical sciences has been empirical rationalism and walking away from it will be straying into the marshy-foggy places. That is why I detest all talk about quantum mechanics coming from sachchidananda. Can we really say anything about it? and what about the tests? Give me the laboratory-based criteria to verify such concepts and I will accept them; not until then. Empirical rationalism may have severe limitations, but if it is an authentic quest for truth, it will prove to be rewarding also. But then all human occupations have limitations and one way out is a search for the true meaning of post-human destinies. RYD

Re: Re: The Zero-Point Field (Lab verifications?) RY Deshpande Fri 16 Feb 2007 07:55 AM PST

My point was rather regarding sachchidananda as the originator of quantum mechanics. Metaphysically, everything comes from sachchidananda, the Omnipresent Reality; in fact everything ought to come from sachchidananda, including good and evil, sin and virtue, the beautiful and the ugly, time and space, spirit and matter, and so on. If that is true then, what could be so special about quantum mechanics coming from sachchidananda? But that does not really explain anything, and the rational mind remains discontented. The hypothesis of sachchidananda as the originator of the quantum mechanics will be special for a scientist only if it can provide lab-based criteria and tests for its origin being in it. Otherwise the danger is our stepping into those marshy-foggy regions, the equivalent of the Valley of the Wandering Gleam.

Religion sees everything having been said or revealed in the scripture and there is no end to claims and counterclaims in that regard. I read recently an article which asserts that all the modern management principles are already present in the Quran and one has just to follow them. Possibly so. Similar will always be the discussions belonging to the speculative philosophies which may or may not have any scientific contents. I think, linking up philosophy with science or science with philosophy should always fall in the purview of empirical rationalism if it has to have any meaning for science.

To see quantum behaviour of an electron as Shiva’s dance is mixing up issues which belong to different domains—a risky business popularised by Fritjof Capra. Empirical rationalism is a precious gain and should not be frittered away by extraneous considerations. Which also is not to mean that it can abrogate all judgement to itself. Hawkins would like to tell us again and again that, in the imaginary time in which the big bang occurs, there is no need for a God to create a world. Here he is not talking science, and in fields other than science his opinion need not have any value. Similarly, we have to also guard from the opposite tendency.

But there are deeper issues—in science itself. One of them is how to get out of the Newtonian trap into which we have fallen. Can we apply our old geometrical notions of gross space and time to a world where things have become too subtle—yet material—for us to figure out.