Bhakti Madhava Puri
Dear Panchan Pramanik,
My response:
No philosopher in his right mind would deny the existence of the material world, although there are some misguided ones who would try to convince others that it is all an illusion. We are certainly not denying the existence of the material world. And the scriptures do not deny its existence either.
If you have a material conception of reality, you can see only matter. Then what about those who have a spiritual conception of reality? What do they see? Just as the materialist sees matter, the spiritually awakened soul sees God. There is no difficulty for the devotee to see his Lord everywhere. As it is described in the scriptures: “atmavan manyate jagat” - as you are, so you see the world. As the supreme Lord Krishna states in the Gita, “bhaktya mam abhijananti” – “I can be known by devotion.” Thus there is no problem in seeing God for one who is properly qualified and purified of the material conception of life.
Aurobindo and Vivekananda may not be Unicorns, but they are certainly Monists – reducing everything to one, like the single horn of the unicorn. We reject the monist viewpoint of reality as abstractly one-sided. Rather, we find the teachings of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu to be more rational. He taught the principle of “achintya bedha bedha tattva” - difference and non-difference together. Monist philosophers are under a misconception, for they cannot explain how differentiated personalities and varieties come from non-differentiated impersonal substance.
We are not interested in reading Aurobindo and Vivekananda. If you want to present a particular viewpoint of theirs we are interested in arguing their ideas. In fact, we find their message to be fundamentally lacking in proper understanding and substance. Since this list is dedicated to discussion of the relation of science to religion, unless you have a specific point in reference to a philosopher or rishi, general prosylitizing of sectarian preferences will not be posted here to avoid divergence from our main topic of concern. I have already mentioned in this post, that if the aforementioned gentlemen accept the theory of evolution then we are showing that they, along with materialistic scientists, are misguided in their understanding of scientific evidence, scriptural conclusions and ontological reality.
Finally, your claim that "religion was always against science" shows a complete lack of any understanding of what has transpired in this list, and a complete lack of knowledge of the history of science, or of the Vedas. If this is what you have to show for your enlightenment by Aurobindo and Vivekananda, then you show them to be extremely poor teachers.
Re: Reality: Is it Personal or Impersonal or both?
Dear Panchan Pramanik, You sent this list an interesting challenge to some of the points in my post on the above mentioned topic in the subject line.
07/02/2010 by Bhakti Madhava Puri - 2 posts - 1 authors
You agree with Dr Shanta that cells are conscious.
[By the way I have heard that Shri Aurobindo and Mother did a lot of work on the consciousness of cells. This was way before the present discussions started. I wonder why their work is not mentioned so far. Shri Aurobindo was a also 'PRAKHAR' Vedanti.]
I wonder if you also agree with Dr Shanta when he says with great confidence that the knowledge of Biology accumulated over the last hundred or more years should be thrown into the dust bin?
I wonder if the discovery of the structure of DNA and its replication, followed by the formulation of 'CENTRAL DOGMA' move Biology forward or backward.
I wonder if the limitations of CENTRAL DOGMA itself could have been meaningfully discovered without the help of that DOGMA?
I have no difficulty in thinking that cells are conscious.
I am curious to know how this 'fact' affects the way Biology research is or will be or should be carried out. As far as i am aware, experimental procedures that suggest that cells behave as if they are conscious are no different from the ones that are done to determine their other properties.
In physics, the arrivals of RELATIVITY and even QUANTUM MECHANICS have not led any one to suggest that NEWTON should be thrown into dust bin.
I was puzzled by your last comment that seemed to say that you as a chemist, do not think that QM is necessary for understanding protein chemistry! I must have missed something because, as you must know, QM seems to pervade chemistry more intimately than consciousness.
I have no expertise in any field under discussion.
The questions I am asking arise from reading the interesting mails
regards,
kumar bhatt
Digest of emails received between June 1 to June 8, 2016.
Dear Friends, A digest of emails received between June 1 to June 8, 2016 is being appended herewith. Thanking you, Bhaktivijnana Muni ...
09/06/2016 by Bhakti Vijnana Muni, PhD - 1 posts - 1 authors
RE: [Sadhu Sanga] Paper Refuting Darwinism Published in Journal ' Communicative & Integrative Biology'
Dear Colleagues,I quite agree with Prof. Hanin and also others view that Darwinism does,nt have any scientific basis.It is based only on hypothetical ...
23/10/2015 by krishnamisra - 144 posts - 50 authors
Don Salmon
I just looked up Rosen's book. The first reviewer almost has it: "Physics has little to say about life.'
More accurate: "physics has nothing to say about life" in fact, physics has nothing to say about matter - it only can measure an abstraction from our sensory experience (eddington knew this quite well - all they have are "pointer readings" - Whitehead said it more poetically, "Apart from experience there is nothingness, bare nothingness"
Quantum coherence is hardly more than a conclusion based on measurements about processes of something of which modern scientists from physicists to those in my field, psychology, have absolutely no knowledge. None. Zero.
That is, as scientists (of the quantitative kind) they have no knowledge. If the scientists' knowledge were all we had of the universe, the universe would not exist.
As sentient beings, of course they have Knowledge. The big problem is they don't know it.
On Mon, Oct 19, 2015 at 7:59 PM, Don Salmon <donsa...@gmail.com> wrote:
quantum coherence? = life? I don't think so!If you take away the material universe, you still have Life, but no matter, and I wouldn't imagine that the subtle planes worry much about physicists' quantum imaginings!But we can meet tonight in a lucid dream and check it out.
Re: [Sadhu Sanga]
Srinavasa,. What you say seems plausible. Knowing one's limitations is the key. In the history of philosophy we see this emphasized by Socrates, Plato ...
24 May by pjetli - 15 posts - 9 authors
pjetli
Srinavasa,
What you say seems plausible. Knowing one's limitations is the key. In the history of philosophy we see this emphasized by Socrates, Plato and Kant among others. However, most of the discussion in this forum is about going beyond the limit of human knowledge and big claims are made about the existence of God and consciousness and their causal role. This is what Kant would call dielectic illusion, that is claims to knowledge of something that is beyond the abilities of humans to know. To justify such knowledge the only recourse is to appeal to some sort of divine interference. And it always amuses me how we know that God made humans superior so that only they can know this, yet every life form is necessary for the survival of the planet. In any case I see a paradox that even you might have to face. If you are going to claim that there is a God and this God is the final cause of everything or that there is a universal consciousness and it is supervenient over the physical, then how do we acquire knowledge of this since it is beyond the capacity of humans to know this as we hear repeatedly.
Priyedarshi
Don Salmon
Dr. Rao: You may wish to look at Christof Koch's ideas on panpsychism (consciousness as universal, pervading the universe). Whether or not you agree, at least now, with one of the world's leading scientists on board, one cannot dismiss outright the possibility of consciousness being, as Sri Aurobindo wrote, "the fundamental thing in the universe."
On Tue, May 23, 2017 at 7:46 AM, Srinivasa Rao Kankipati <ksra...@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Mr Vasavada, I went through your reply to Mr Bob and find it very fresh and interesting. I like your bottom-up approach rather than the top-down one. But I would like to hear your own interpretation of what "consciousness' is. Then we can settle whether it is so universal as you hypothesise. According to our ordinary understanding of consciousness, matter is abundant in the universe, life is not so abundant but still plenty, and consciousness is a faculty available in living beings in a minuscule percentage and seems to be somewhat developed in humans. Matter is a necessary condition for life but not sufficient, and life is a necessary condition for consciousness but not sufficient. For Vedantists to talk of universality of consciousness is a big flight of their own consciousness, but not true, I think.- Dr K Srinivasa Rao, Hyderabad, camp Cupertino.
Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Platonic Idea of the Good.
Bruno, Again, thanks for your detailed response. I agree with you on truth. I think the truth condition should actually be dropped and could be replaced ...
27 Apr by pjetli - 24 posts - 8 authors
RE: [Sadhu Sanga] back to Thomas Nagel, "Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False" (2012)
" Hegel put himself outside this tradition." A recent book, "Hegel's India" brings into focus his tryst with Indian philosophy giving rise to the speculation ...
16 Apr by me - 392 posts - 54 authors
Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Response to your question on Bohm's theory.
Thanks Bruno for appreciation and positive assessment. You have raised enough anticipation in this forum about your theory which, let's hope, will be ...
29 May by me - 57 posts - 19 authors
Re: [Sadhu Sanga] What is Hawking's Mind of God?
An apposite connection to Whitehead, Tusar. In fact, the central content of the essay you link, along with the quote from Wittgenstein, has been ...
15 Jun by chris - 78 posts - 20 authors
RE: Sadhu Sanga forum.
Dear Tushar,. Thanks for your e-mail. I have very high respect but very limited knowledge about Sri Aurobindo. Last year on our trip to south India we ...
29 May by vasavada - 8 posts - 6 authors
Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Advaita, Consciousness and Quantum Physics.
Dear Tusar, On 07 Jun 2017, at 18:33, Tusar Nath Mohapatra wrote: Thanks for your considered reply. It appears that what I am asking for coincides ...
9 Jun by marchal - 47 posts - 14 authors
Tushar and others RE: [Sadhu Sanga] cosmic mind.
I agree. There is no scientific definition of cosmic mind, Tao or Brahman. In fact Rishis describe Brahman as “Neti Neti' ( Not this, Not this)!
13 Jun by vasavada - 6 posts - 5 authors
Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Re: Consciousness and matter.
The metaphysical basis for Integral Health — the nature of reality Dr. Soumitra Basu [In Chapter V of The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo introduces a ...
25 Apr by me - 46 posts - 14 authors
Events and announcements.
Seven Day ICPR Workshop on Studies in Consciousness in the Light of Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy (With special Emphasis on the Upanishads) 19th ...
9 Jun by me - 3 posts - 2 authors
Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Physics and qualiap.
Dear Jo,. Today, I read some pages from your book via Google Books and found it quite interesting. The fact that you have been able to formulate such ...
16 Jun by me - 1 posts - 1 authors
