Sri Aurobindo, Modern Science, and Alfred North Whitehead

'The Doctrine of the Subtle Worlds: Sri Aurobindo's Cosmology, Modern Science, and the Metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead' by rjon on Thu 15 Feb 2007 11:11 PM PST Permanent Link

This is an unusually long article for SCIY. It's copyrighted by Eric M. Weiss, and was his dissertation for his Ph.D. at CIIS, the California Institute of Integral Studies, with a concentration in Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness. I'm taking the liberty of posting it here because, in my opinion, it's one of the most thorough and insightful treatments of the core concern of SCIY; the multiple & interpenetrating relationships between science, culture, and consciousness, placed within the contextual framework of Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga. - Warning: This is challenging material, but I believe working through it and contemplating its implications is well worth the effort. - My deepest appreciation goes to Dr. Eric Weiss for his extraordinary and groundbreaking work. ~ ron

THE DOCTRINE OF THE SUBTLE WORLDS SRI AUROBINDO’S COSMOLOGY, MODERN SCIENCE, AND THE METAPHYSICS OF ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD By Eric M. Weiss. A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the California Institute of Integral Studies in Partial Fulfillment of The Requirements for the Degree of Doctor Of Philosophy with a concentration in Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness California Institute of Integral Studies DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to the one, infinite, eternal Divine Beingthat each of us is,and in whom all of us live, move, and have our being. May the iron cage of the dark ages be dissolved. May the light of the Divine shine on and through human beings.May the biosphere on Earth, and all the realms of the universe be illuminated by that light.May all beings find their way home.May all beings enjoy eternal bliss. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My profound thanks go out to all of these people, and to the many other teachers and friends who have accompanied me on this phase of my journey.

ABSTRACT This dissertation advances the Doctrine of the Subtle Worlds, which holds that the physical world is a small cross-section of the real world, and that the real world is composed of several different, separate but partially overlapping realms of being, each with its own unique characteristics, and each inhabited by various beings such as angels, demons, and disincarnate human beings. This Doctrine was held by all premodern civilizations, and has, in modern times, been advanced in Theosophy and in the cosmology of Sri Aurobindo. This dissertation introduces the doctrine, explores its presentation in Sri Aurobindo, and then uses elements of Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy of science and elements of his later metaphysical scheme to first outline Whitehead’s revolutionary understanding of time, space and matter, and then, in terms of that understanding, to demonstrate a meaningful relationship between the Doctrine of the Subtle Worlds and the world as it is understood by modern science.