Science vs. Philosophy – Part II

Y – I can not parse your meaning, i.e. I have no idea what you are trying to say.

Still have no idea what you are trying to say.

X – What I’m trying to say is to point at core insights within Eastern philosophy (Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism), particularly in advaita Vedanta – but also in Christianity and Islam in their highest metaphysical conceptions. If you are not interested in any of this, that’s alright.

Actually, whatever science – and its highfaluting ‘scientific method’ – is is shot through with difficulties and controversies, including the sacrosanct falsifiability principle (or dogma). Just read the Wickipedia article on this (and on rationality, etc.) and the respective positions of Khun, I. Lakatos, and P. Feyerabend among others. You must know something about all this already if you are scientifically inclined.

Y – What “core insights”?  There is nothing insightful about making up unevidenced tosh, anyone can do it and each piece of tosh has exactly equal validity, none.

And with regard to your ludicrous and unfounded “criticism” of the scientific method, I have one response, yea shall know them by their fruits.

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Science vs. Philosophy (in three parts) – Part I

[Seed of the discussion (in QUORA https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-or-any-defensible-methodology-for-finding-the-truth/answer/Alberto-Mart%C3%ADn-2): A young (so I thought) good-natured and apologetic woman made an excellent remark to a leading Question about science and consciousness, though the question was in fact as per the link above. I then tried to support her and, soon after, a rumbustious, self assured ‘pro-science’ male person (Y) entered and started the fray.]

I (X) to the woman: ‘Why did you not just stay with the unquestionable, direct experience of what you are as you stated it? Yes, it is unprovable, to others, that is, but it is truth with capital T. You touched gold, but then covered it with everything else you added’.

— “That which is the subtle essence – in that have all beings their existence. That is the truth. That is the Self. And that, O Svetaketu, THAT ART THOU.”‘ (From Chandogya Upanishad).

 

Y – ‘Entered’ and made some deprecatory remarks about the foregoing, all in defense of science and against spirituality or metaphysics (for him “making stuff up”):

“science of the spirit”.
Is that anything like engineering of the pixies?

X – Yes, that expression is puzzling and, in principle may be unconvincing, but not so in India, where the foremost philosophy (Shankara’s) is actually neither philosophy, theology, or science per se, but a combination of them all; no compartmentalization there, as is usual in the West. And it is not a blending of spirituality with (empirical) science, which I do not find satisfatory as it is recently being espoused also in the West. It is ‘science’ in a wide, comprehensive sense, definitely to do with knowledge – primarily intuitive knowledge, plus reasoning – for which one needs to be immersed during a usually long time in reading (or ‘hearing’), reflection, and ‘contemplation’. If one studies, e.g. ‘Vedanta or the Science of Reality’, by K. A. Krishnaswami Iyer, one can appreciate that it is not a joke, by any means; this book contains a comparative account of the Indian  tradition of the Upanishads and Western philosophical systems.

Y – You are playing fast and loose with the word “science”.  There is nothing, nadda, zip, zilch, zero in the philosophy of Adi Shankara related to science. it is simply more mystical woo woo.

Make a falsifiable hypothesis regarding “spirits” or regarding Nirguna Brahman or any other religious drivel, and then we’ll talk.

X – If you want to narrow your mind, despite the options it has in terms of getting an understanding of difficult matters, which can only be proven to oneself – not to others – by analysis, introspection, and meditation, it is up to you. The word ‘science’ comes from the Latin ‘scire’ – to discern, distinguish, and this is what, at least myself, am talking about. You write off mysticism because it cannot be proven in the lab or with the tools of empirical science, and put so much stock in the (provisional) notion of falsifiability… again, up to you. That is scientism or reductionism – a narrow view of what constitutes reality, which is immense, ultimately unfathomable.

Y- Your comments regarding the etymology of “science” are terrific, that is frightening, or in this case frighteningly bad.  You see the etymology or the root of a word is not its meaning.  Science has a specific modern meaning that I’m sure you are well aware of, and bastardizing that meaning in this context is self serving hoey.  The philosophy and theology of Adi Shankara has nothing whatsoever to do with science. Unless of course you redefine the word to mean whatever you want it to mean.

And I’m sorry, but the old “narrow mind” argument is simply what gets shoveled out of the male bovine pen.  Having an open mind does not mean simply accepting any old tosh simply because you like it, or because it is part of the proud tradition of my culture or some such nonsense. Being open-minded means being open to evidence.  Please provide some evidence that any mystical experience has any relevance outside the brain of the person experiencing it; if you can’t then any comment you make about it is just making stuff up, and has no more relationship to reality than any other religious rubbish. Continue reading

Science and Vedanta (Part 2)

P1030150_tonemapped-2Part 2 of a 3-part essay by Dr. K. Sadananda, AchArya at Chinmaya Mission, Washington.

(read part 1)

Analysis of Objective Sciences

 An objective scientist provides a narrow definition for science as that which pertains only to the objectifiable entities using the objective tools. For example, he says that the existence of God cannot be scientifically established as His existence cannot be proved. Obviously the proof that a scientist is looking for is perceptibility, using objective tools of investigation which themselves are limited to only objectifiable entities. He presumes that God is also an object that can be precisely defined in order to differentiate Him from the rest of the objects in the universe, and is therefore quantifiable using perceptual data. If an object cannot be established by using his objective tools, then he asserts that any assumption of its existence becomes blind belief or at the most speculative.

No object can establish its own existence, since it is not a conscious entity. A chair does not say ‘I exist’; a conscious entity has to establish its existence. A scientist, who dismisses the existence of God, since it cannot be proved using his objective tools, takes his own existence for granted without questioning it. He cannot establish his own existence or that he is a conscious entity using the same objective tools that he is using to establish the existence of God. The reason is that he, as a subject knower, cannot be known since he cannot objectify the subject knower. He knows that he exists and that he is conscious entity, without even questioning the validity of his assertions. Continue reading

Science and Vedanta (Part 1)

P1030138_tonemapped-1Part 1 of a 3-part essay by Dr. K. Sadananda, AchArya at Chinmaya Mission, Washington.

Science is Objective

The word science is derived from the root ‘scire’, meaning to know. Hence science really means knowledge which reveals a fact or truth. In Sanskrit, ‘vid’ means to know, and ‘veda’ means knowledge. Combining these two statements we can say that Veda means science. Vedanta means that which reveals the ultimate knowledge or absolute truth. From this, it follows that Vedanta is the ultimate science. This is not a fanatical statement but a statement of fact, as in ‘Light travels at 299,792,458 m / s’. This is not an opinion or belief but just plain fact, whether one believes it or not. We will examine here why Vedanta is the science of absolute.

Epistemologically, the word ‘knowledge’ without a qualifier, cannot be defined. The qualifier objectifies the knowledge as in ‘knowledge of Chemistry’ or ‘knowledge of Physics’, etc. It is always knowledge of something. It can be knowledge of the physical or phenomenal world, or knowledge of some subtle entities such as emotions, thoughts, intellectual concepts, etc. The former can be considered as the knowledge of gross entities that can be known via sense input, while the latter can be called the knowledge of subtle entities and can be known without the need of any sense input, or can be inferred indirectly from the sense input. Continue reading

Control Genes With Your Thoughts

The day is not far when you can control your genes with your mind! Effectively you can change not only your moods and behavior but also essentially what you are by the power of your thought!

The technological possibility is established through a ‘Proof of Concept’ research paper just published in Nature Communications.

“We wanted to be able to use brainwaves to control genes. It’s the first time anyone has linked synthetic biology and the mind,” says Martin Fussenegger, a bioengineer at ETH Zurich in Basel, Switzerland.

Schematic representation of mind-controlled transgene expression (After M. Folcher et al, 2014)

Schematic representation of mind-controlled transgene expression (After M. Folcher et al, 2014)

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Sharp vs. Subtle Intellect

A suggestion has been made elsewhere in these columns that “Vedanta differentiates between what is called ‘sharp’ intellect (tIkShNa buddhi) and ‘subtle’ intellect (sUkShma buddhi).”

Experienced Vedantins may differentiate ‘sharp intellect’ from ‘subtle intellect’ in trying to make a point in order to explain contextually some specific concept they would like to amplify on.  But it is doubtful if Advaita Vedanta itself has  anywhere  highlighted the difference between ” ‘sharp’ intellect (tIkShNa buddhi) and ‘subtle’ intellect (sUkShma buddhi).” If we ask whether there is a vedAnta vAkya or shruti mantra to support a claim of difference between the two types of buddhi, the answer is perhaps a resounding “No.”

Vedanta does, of course, contrast ‘sUkshma‘ in relation to ‘sthUla‘ form of  many entities (e.g. sharIra, buddhi, loka-s). Bhagavad-Gita too talks of a stratified order from gross to finer when referring to objects to sensory organs to mind to buddhi &c.

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There is also an idea promoted in some quarters that  ‘sharp’ intellect (tIkShNa buddhi) is useful more often in Science whereas ‘subtle’ intellect (sUkShma buddhi) is utilized in Vedantic study. The reason given is that “The former is the analytical mind characteristic of the scientist [whereas] the latter [i.e.] the ability to integrate rather than divide [is the requirement of Vedanta], to see the unity in diversity.” Continue reading

Revision of ‘Review of article on Shankara’ – part 3

RB: “Now the error in calling avidy¯a as something epistemic should be obvious. The following extract, from [SSS], is clearly putting the philosophical cart before the horse:

‘Avidy¯a is subjective and has been explained by ´ Sa ˙ nkara as the natural tendency of the mind to superimpose the self and the not-self on each other.’

When the conception of j¯ıva itself is due to avidy¯a, how can avidy¯a be the ‘natural tendency of the mind to superimpose the self and not-self’?” (*) Continue reading

Q. 355 – Faith in a Path

Q: How do we get the conviction to go on a spiritual quest?  Unlike science, there are no indicators to give feedback if this is even the right path. We need to have blind faith in the general idea itself before we venture into it. Can we only do this through negation of the other paths, where apparent validations are possible by material feedback.

A devil’s advocate argument could be to dismiss everything associated with the vedas/upanishads as nonsense, since nothing can be proved. Another way to look at this is to acknowledge that the ancient sages have come up with practices such as yoga and meditation, which sort of proves their intellect and extrapolates on their ability to see things farther than a average person can and thereby have faith in their judgements.

 I am not able to articulate my question very well but I hope I got my point across.

Answers are provided by: RamesamDhanya, Ted and Dennis.

A (Ramesam): Man, by his/her very nature, feels incomplete. He seeks fulfillment of what he lacks through effort using his natural or acquired talents.  In fact, it is this “lack” that drives his passion for action along the path of the means chosen by him suiting to his comfort-level.

At the most basic level the drives that motivate a man for action are the biological and physiological needs.  As described by the Psychologist Maslow, the subtlety of these needs changes from a lower to higher level in the following manner: Continue reading

Two-Icings on the Cake of SAND-2013:

For AV PostSAND-2013 has undoubtedly matured.

There is a greater participation of  Scientists well-known and respected in their fields of study spanning from Cognitive science to Computational Neuroscience, Lucid dreams to Non-linear mathematical models, Physics to Consciousness.

Susana Martinez-Conde from Barrow Neurological Institute was a pleasant surprise. A number of years ago I wrote  to her and her colleague Stephen, after seeing their work on the Perception-Reality Disconnect, about how Non-duality considers the world as an illusion and if they would like to explore this line of thought. They had no interest and disposed off my mails as if it’s all quack science. They may not remember the correspondence, but the change in their perspective is very welcome!

The highly popular Non-dual Teachers like Francis Lucille, Rupert Spira and others were also there. Continue reading