Re: Heisenberg/Schrödinger and Hindu/Buddhist complementarities...actually dvaita/advaita.

[Navaratna Rajaram]

 

    Actually this problem of duality and reality is discussed much more deeply in the Brahma Sutra Bhashyas of Shankara as well as Madhva. This relates to metaphysics, not theology.

 

    Acharya Madhva's Tattva-Viveka takes it much further to go on and create a metaphysical theory of reality.

 

    Western scholars cannot see beyond Hindu-Buddhist duality because their understanding of Vedanta is limited and also because they assume that Vedanta means only Advaita. This is partly the influence of RK Mission also who reject anything that acknowledge duality, including even Sankhya.

 

    I find Buddhist thought quite limiting as metaphysics. Much is made of A.N. Whitehead's 'Process as Reality', but it is confused and falls far short of Patnajali and the Vedantic thinkers.

 

    I am giving a talk on this subject on Friday.

 

N.S. Rajaram

 

DUALITY AND REALITY: VEDANTA AND QUANTUM PHYSICS

Speaker:                                  Dr Navaratna Rajaram

Venue:                                     Indian Institute of Science, Choksi Hall

Date and Time:           6:00 PM, Friday, 3 February 2012     Tea  at 5:45 PM

ABSTRACT

            Although extraordinarily successful, quantum mechanics, after more than a century after Planck and Einstein pioneered the subject, still lacks a firm foundation. For example the idea of reality—whether it has an objective existence or just an illusion of our own making—has not been resolved and remains controversial. Recent results like Bell’s theorem and Alain Aspect’s experiment have cast further doubts on the foundations of quantum physics.

            Some of the central problems addressed by Vedanta are the same as those arising in quantum physics— duality and reality. The great medieval thinker Madhva (1238 – 1317) addressed these issues, especially of reality in a metaphysical work known as Tattva-Viveka. He asserted that “There exist two orders of reality— independent and dependent (or unmanifest and manifest).” He further noted: “The knowledge of the many through knowledge of the One, is to be understood in terms of the preeminence of the One.”  

            Madhva’s view was echoed by physicist Erwin Schrödinger, himself a committed Vedantin. He wrote: “It is quite easy to express the solution in words, thus: the plurality that we perceive is only an appearance; it is not real. Vedantic philosophy, …has sought to clarify it by a number of analogies, … [of] the many-faceted crystal which, while showing hundreds of little pictures of what is in reality a single existent object, does not really multiply the object.”

            All this indicates that a school of thought in philosophy of science that draws on Vedantic metaphysical thought that is at the same time scientifically rigorous can prove to be a fruitful area of research.

________________

Dr Navaratna Rajaram is a mathematical scientist who has written extensively on history and philosophy of science. He has lectured on this topic at several universities in the U.S. and U.K. including MIT, Universities of Manchester, Chicago and Massachusetts. He is currently working on the book Quantum Yoga and the Meaning of Reality: Science and Vedanta in pursuit of a common goal.

 

 

           

On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 8:08 AM, Hemachandra <hemacha...@gmail.com> wrote:

 

As I was reading BD, I was doing some background reading (esp regarding Heisenberg's
cnxn with Vedanta) and I came across this interesting post:

http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/PVB/Harrison/DevelQM/DevelQM.html

where there is a ref to differing Hindu-Buddhist conceptions of reality:

"Despite their radically different worldview, shortly after their publication it was shown that Matrix Mechanics and Wave Mechanics are mathematically identical. In fact, Schrödinger was one of the people who did the proof.

Despite their formal equivalence, there seems to be more than just logic involved in the interpretation of the mathematics. For example, Heisenberg wrote:

"The more I ponder the physical part of Schrðdinger's theory, the more disgusting it appears to me."

while Schrödinger wrote:

"If one has to stick to this damned quantum jumping, then I regret ever having been involved in this thing."

In the 5th century of the current era, there was a bitter argument in India between the Sankhya Hindus and the Buddhists about the nature of Universal Flux. Debates were held which lasted for days, and would attract huge crowds. According to the Buddhists:

The phenomena consist of an infinity of discrete moments following one another almost without intervals.... There is no matter at all, flashes of energy follow one another and produce the illusion of stabilized phenomena. The universe is a staccato movement.

while according to the Hindus:

The phenomena are nothing but waves or fluctuations standing out upon the background of an eternal, all-pervading undifferentiated Matter with which they are identical. The universe represents a legato movement.

Reference: F. Theodor Stcherbatsky, Buddhist Logic, Vol I, pg 83."

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[S.R.Krishnamurthy]

Dear Dr. Rajaram, 

 

While thanking you for your invitation, I must point out that your observation that Advaita, being considered as Vedanta, is because of the Ramakrishna Mission; giving the impression that the Mission is projecting one view of vedanta. I say that the Mission and not merely the R.K.Mission but all schools of philosophy upto Ramakrishna, Aurobindo, Ramana, adhere to Advaita, because That is Vedanta. The Great Madhwa and Ramanuja deviated slightly from the Advaita, not because they did not realise Advaita; but because of compassion for the masses, who could not rise to the level of understanding the Advaita; because the Vedas declared 'Naayamaatma balahinena labhyaH'.

 

The Vedas are very definite and specific that though it uses a metaphor of two birds, on which both the above seers relied, they end up referring to 'dehi' in singular and not dual, by the process of Reductio ad absurdum. So the whole universe is caused by one and only material Brahma, and all others are derivatives. The phrase, Brahma satyam jaganmithya only means that Brahma is the primary and all ohters are its derivatives. You may recall that I had pointed this to you at the end of your lecture on the above subject at the Mythic Society; which you had generously accepted.

 

Yours sinecerely,

s.r.krishna murthy.

--
निराशीर्निर्ममो भूत्वा युध्यस्व विगतज्वरः।। (भ.गी.)
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