Causality in Science and Vedānta - A Course by Swami Paramananda Bharati

[S.Subrahmanya]

Causality in Science and Vedānta

Date : 4th June to 4th July, 2017

Time: 6:00 to 7:30 PM

Venue : TMC (Tata Memorial Club) Hall 

              Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru 560012

To attend, please register here:                     

      https://goo.gl/forms/BtJl8caYwgonTc9v2 

A brief introduction to the topic in this video here:

    https://youtu.be/NzOBh1GJCPE?t=1005

About the course: 

This 30 day course is designed to present the salient ideas of Vedānta

to an audience who have a background in Science, particularly Physics. Concepts

learnt in this course will help the participants to get a fresh perspective to carry their

research in Science forward.

No background of Vedānta will be assumed on the part of the participants. 

A familiarity with high-school and pre-university Physics will be an advantage. 

The interpretation of Quantum Mechanics according to the models of Niels Bohr 

and David Bohm will be discussed in greater detail in the course.

About Swāmī’ji: Pūjya Swāmī Paramānanda Bhāratī, in his pūrvāśrama was a Professor

of Physics at IIT Madras. Being the author of many books on Vedānta, Swāmī’ji

feels that scientists should have an exposure to Vedānta and similarly traditional scholars

of śāstras should have an exposure to Science. Swāmī’ji has taken active part in

organizing and participating in various seminars and conferences that bring together

scientists and traditionalists. 

Swāmī’ji has also established a gurukula in Kolar to preserve and propagate 

the Mādhyandina Śākhā of the Śukla-Yajurveda.

[Prabhakar C L]

thanks for the mail and information.

i like    the project but i am not there to attend.

I want to know from Swami how he is putting efforts to propagate the value and importance of VMS of SYV.. I would be thankful for response.

thanking you

Dr. C. L. Prabhakar

Director, Vedaadhyayanana Kendra, Bangalore - 78 

President, World Association for Vedic Studies (WAVES), USA, India Branch, Bangalore Chapter 

Professor of Vedas, Hindu University of America, Orlando, FL 

India Ph No: 91-80-26592489 

US Ph No: (614)583-8775 

email: clpra...@yahoo.com 

website: http://nvak.tripod.com 

"Oh Agni, give us strength to fight all our misdoings and lead us in the righteous path. We offer you salutations". -RgVeda

 

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[gobind medini]

Salutations to organizers and teachers of this proposed seminar.

One point from YouTube presentation attracted my attention. Yes, Vedanta, like some other Astika and Nastika schools, take a holistic view of the Universe. That is the ancient Indian genius.. but to say that Science view the universe in bits and pieces is not entirely correct. If science explores the quantum level, it also explores the large scale structure in a holistic manner. Gravity forces us to take a holistic view. General Relativity (GR) has already applied this view to the models of the Universe. Even the explicitly holistic Machain view is applied to derive the GR equations. Now what remains is to marry this holistic GR view to the micro view of bits and pieces (Quantum Physics). Can Vedanta give any insight here? Vedanta can treat science as its most exhaustive prakriyA in the realm of vyvahAra in finding the objective truth. This is the kind of delegation where science has full autonomy.

The presentation also briefly talked about pramANa-s. Does Vedanta's approach (it is really mImAMsA approach) of svataH-pramANa, parataH apramANa conforms to epistemology of science? Or Bauddha approach of parataH pramANa decided by the prApakatva (process of verifying evidential results and utility) comes closer to the scientific epistemology? I am sure all this will be discussed in the seminar.

g

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[gobind medini]

To correct myself.. What I called as seminar is not a seminar but a 30-day course! The focus seems to be on quantum physics and not on GR, and that explains the terminology of bits and pieces.

g

[Kalyan K]

Progress in Science and Technology is unlikely to occur with the world-negating view of advaita-vedAnta. The advaitin would treat everything apart from brahma vidya as apara vidya. Since advaita was the dominant philosophy of India during the medieval period, perhaps that is the reason why India has not seen much innovation in the field of Science during this period and most of the progress in Science had to come from Europe. 

On the other hand, in my opinion, Dvaita and VishishTha-advaita, which treat the world as real are more conducive to scientific progress, but compared to advaita, their influence has been limited. 

[Nagaraj Paturi]

 Dear Sri Kalyan K,

The topic here is the comparison between philosophical issue of causality as seen in Science and the same as seen in a philosophical school of Vedanta called Advaita Vedanta. 

There is no causality between the prevalent school of Vedanta in a country and progress of Science and Technology in that country, nor is this causality the topic of the course. 

The course is focused on Science not Technology. 

Since the causality between the prevalent school of Vedanta in a country and progress of Science and Technology in that country is not the focus of the course which is announced in the thread, this post of you is a misfit in this thread. No further discussion on these lines is allowed in this thread. 

On Fri, May 12, 2017 at 1:56 PM, Kalyan K <pk.k...@gmail.com> wrote:

Progress in Science and Technology is unlikely to occur with the world-negating view of advaita-vedAnta. The advaitin would treat everything apart from brahma vidya as apara vidya. Since advaita was the dominant philosophy of India during the medieval period, perhaps that is the reason why India has not seen much innovation in the field of Science during this period and most of the progress in Science had to come from Europe. 

On the other hand, in my opinion, Dvaita and VishishTha-advaita, which treat the world as real are more conducive to scientific progress, but compared to advaita, their influence has been limited. 

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Nagaraj Paturi

 

Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.

 

Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies

 

FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School of  Liberal Education,

 

(Pune, Maharashtra, INDIA )

 

 

 

[gobind medini]

There is a shloka in a vedAnta text called saMxepa-shArIraka (2.63):

आरम्भवाद: कणभक्षपक्ष:; सङ्घातवादस्तु भदन्तपक्ष: |

साङ्ख्यादिपक्ष: परिणामवादो; वेदान्त पक्षस्तु विवर्तवाद: ||

Arambha vAda belongs to vaisheShika school, samutpAda vAda belongs to Buddhism, pariNAma vAda belongs to schools like sA.nkhya, and vivarta vAda belongs to vedAnta.

(सङ्घातवाद may be replaced by समुत्पादवाद as a more general law of causality in Buddhism in the above verse.)

Vivarta envelops other causalities if "asat" is treated as one of the nyAya categories of absence (abhAva) other than atyntAbhAva (absolute absence or non-existence). Neurologists today will have no problem with the appearance (Vivarta) theory because they know that brain is the decoder of the Reality into appearances. We do not have direct access to the Reality. This decoding cannot be explained because the brain's neural states can be observed only from a third party perspective even when we observe our own neural states. There is an incontrovertible gap between Actuality (appearance) and the underlying Reality (if we have to use Kantian terminology). Thus, science has more to agree than to disagree with vedAnta in this particular respect.

Superimposition (adhyAsa or adhyAropa) as "one reality projected or superimposed on another reality" can be interpreted in various ways. One interesting analogy with Holographic Conjecture is given in my own post in Science-Religion-Philosophy group (linked here.)

The pratItya-samutpAda (PS) may be ideally used as a pedagogical method (prakrIyA) of vedAnta to show that we conceptually need AtmA (acosmic Self) to explain the "empirical self" precisely because PS is reduced to non-Self (anAtmA). The ghatAkAsha-mahAksha analogy is useful here.

PS otherwise can metamorphose into a holistic law of causality on the large scale for physical (non-living) matter. Perhaps this is not the place to show how Mach's principle is an expression of PS, and how it can be used for deriving GR equations; but one thing needs to be registered: PS type interdependent causality works quite well on a very large scale (in fact on universal scale) and gives us tangible results. Vedanta should have no problem with Mach or Buddha in their respective approaches. Theses approaches ultimately will have to yield to vedAnta's acosmic Atman or jIva-sAxin when we come to living and sentient beings.

Science should have no problem with sA.nkhya satkArya-vAda either.. at least as of today. The prakRRiti (avyakta, the seed of jagat in vedAnta) causes mahat or buddhi in the form of intelligence of the physical laws of science and then causes ahaMkAra the tendency to grow and separate into multiple objects. This fits well within so called BB theory to the extent we know today. Atomic combination of vaishShika (AraMbha) also may be reconciled with science in one way or the other (but I am not sure if we really have to do that when we know so much now about particle physics in the form of Standard Model).

I am also not sure how much of all these will be covered in the course. Hopefully, the approach is not of establishing the superiority of vedAnta over science or vice-versa but to appreciate the ingenuity of ancient Indians. They could get following insight through simple observations and contemplation: (a) Consciousness is fundamental, (b) World is an appearance, (c) self=Self (after relational content is removed from self).

g