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Physics or Philosophy
WHAT is the world that we see really like? Is it mental, is
it material? This is a question, we know, philosophers are familiar with, and
they have answered and are still answering, each in his own way, taking up one side or other of the
antinomy. There is nothing new or uncommon in that. The
extraordinary novelty comes in when we see today even
scientists forced to tackle the problem, give an answer to it,—
scientists who used to smile at philosophers, because they
seemed to assault seriously the windmills of abstract notions
and airy concepts, instead of reposing on the terra firma of
reality. The tables are turned now. The scientists have had to
start the same business—the terra firma on which they stood
as on the securest rock of ages is slipping away under their
feet and fast vanishing into smoke and thin air. Not only
that, it is discovered today that the scientist has always been a
philosopher, without his knowledge—a crypto-philosopher,— Physical Science in the nineteenth century did indeed develop or presuppose a philosophy of its own; it had, that is to say, a definite outlook on the fundamental quality of things and the nature of the universe. Those were .days of its youthful self-confidence and unbending assurance. The view was, as is well-known, materialistic and deterministic. That is to say, all observation and experiment, according to it demonstrated and posited: First, that this universe is made up of particles that push and pull each other, the particles having certain constant values, such as in respect of mass and volume. Page 230 Secondly, that the laws governing the relations among the particles, in other words, their push and pull, are laws of simple mechanics; they are fixed and definite and give us determinable and mensurable quantities called co-ordinates— by which one can ascertain the pattern or configuration of things at a given moment and deduce from that the pattern or configuration of things at any other moment: the chain that hangs things together is fixed and uniform and continuous and is not broken anywhere. The scientific view of things thus discovered or affirmed certain universal and immutable facts—axiomatic truths— which were called constants of Nature. These were the very basic foundations upon which the whole edifice of scientific knowledge was erected. The chief among them were: (1) conservation of matter, (2) conservation of energy, (3) uniformity of nature and (4) the chain of causality and continuity. Above all, there was the fundamental implication of an independent—an absolute—time and space in which all things existed and moved and had their being. The whole business of experimental science was just to find the absolutes of Nature, that is to say, facts and laws governing facts that do not depend for their existence upon anything but themselves. The purely objective world without any taint of an intruding subject was the field of its inquiry. In fact, the old-world or Mediaeval Science—there was a Science even then—could not develop properly, did not strike the right line of growth, precisely because it had a strong subjective bias: the human factor, the personal element of the observer or experimenter was unconsciously (at times even deliberately) introduced into the facts and explanations of Nature. The new departure of Modern Science consisted exactly in the elimination of this personal element and making observation and experiment absolutely impersonal and thoroughly objective. Well, the old-world spirit has had its revenge complete and absolute in a strange manner. We are coming to that presently. Now, the constants or absolutes of which we spoke, which. were the bed-rock of Modern Science, were gradually found to be rather shaky—very inconstant and relative. Take, for example, the principle of conservation of matter. The principle Page 231
posited that in a given system the quantity of matter is constant
in and through all transformations. Modern Science has
found out that this law holds good only in respect of gross
matter belonging to man-size Nature. But as soon as we
enter into the domain of the ultimate constituents of matter,
the units of electric charges, the infinitesimals, we find that
matter is destroyed and is or can be recreated: material
particles are dematerialised into light waves or quanta, and
light quanta are precipitated back again into electric particles
of matter. Similarly, the law of conservation of energy—that
every= mv2 (m being mass, v velocity)—does not hold The principle of indeterminacy carries two revolutionary implications. First, that it is not possible to determine the movement of the ultimate particles of matter individually and severally, it is not possible even theoretically to follow up the chain of modulations of an electron from its birth to its dissolution (if such is the curve of its destiny), as Laplace considered it quite possible for his super-mathematician. One cannot trace the complete evolution of each and every or even one particular particle, not because of a limitation in the human capacity, but because of an inherent impossibility in the nature of things. In radioactive substances, for example, there is no ground or data from which one can determine which particle will go off or not, whether it will go off the Page 232 next moment or wait for a million years. It is mere chance that seems to reign here. In radiation too, there is no formula, and no formula can be framed for determining the course of a photon in relation to a half-reflecting surface, whether it will pass through or be reflected. In this field of infinitesimals what we know is the total behaviour of an assemblage of particles, and the laws of nature are only laws of average computation. Statistics has ousted the more exact and rigid arithmetics. And statistics, we know, is a precarious science: the knowledge it gives is contingent, contingent upon the particular way of arranging and classifying the data. However, the certainty of classical mechanistic knowledge is gone, gone too the principle of uniformity of nature. The second element brought in in the indeterminacy picture is the restoration of the "subject" to its honoured or even more than the honoured place it had in the Mediaeval Ages, and from which it was pulled down by young arrogant Science. A fundamental question is now raised in the very methodology of the scientific apparatus. For Science, needless to say, is first and foremost observation. Now it is observed that the very fact of observation affects and changes the observed fact. The path of an electron, for example, has to be observed; one has then to throw a ray of light—hurl a photon—upon it: the impact is sufficient to deflect the electron from the original path. If it is suggested that by correction and computation, by a backward calculation we can deduce the previous position, that too is not possible. For we cannot fix any position or point that is not vitiated by the observer's interference. How to feel or note the consistency of a thing, if the touch itself, the temperature of the finger, were sufficient to change the consistency? The trouble is, as the popular Indian saying goes, the very amulet that is to exorcise the ghost is possessed by the ghost itself. So the scientists of today are waking up to this disconcerting fact. And some have put the question very boldly and frankly: do not all laws of Nature contain this original sin of the observer's interference, indeed may not the laws be nothing else but that? Thus Science has landed into the very heart— the bog and quagmire, if you like—of abstruse metaphysics. Eddington says, there is no other go for Science today but to Page 233
admit and delcare that its scheme and pattern of things, as
described by what is called laws of Nature, is only a mental
construct of the Scientist. The "wonderful" discoveries are
nothing but jugglery and legerdemain of the mind—what it
puts out of itself unconsciously into the outside world, it recovers again and is astonished at the miracle. A scientific law
is a pure deduction from the mind's own disposition. Eddington
goes so far as to say that if a scientist is sufficiently introspective
he can trace out from within his brain each and every law of
Nature which he took so much pains to fish out from Nature
by observation and experiment. Eddington gives an analogy
to explain the nature of scientific law and scientific discovery.
Suppose you have a fishing net of a particular size and with Eddington gives us absolutely no hope for any knowledge of an objective world apart from the objectification of mind's own constructs. This is a position which a scientist, qua scientist, finds it difficult to maintain. Remedies and loop-holes have been suggested with what result we shall presently see. Einstein's was, perhaps, the most radical and revolutionary solution ever proposed. Indeed, it meant the reversal of the whole scientific outlook, but something of the kind was art imperative need in order to save Science from inconsistencies that seemed to be inherent in it. The scientific outlook was vitiated, Einstein said, because we started from wrong premises; two assumptions mainly were responsible for the bankruptcy which befell latter-day Science. First, it was assumed that a push and pull—a force (a gravitational or, more generally, a causal force) existed and that acted upon isolated and independent particles strewn about; and secondly, they were strewn about in an independently existing time and Page 234 an independently existing space. Einstein has demonstrated, it seems, successfully that there is no Time and no Space actually, but times and spaces (this reminds one of a parallel conception in Sankhya and Patanjali), that time is not independent of space (nor space of time) but that time is another coordinate or dimension necessary for all observation in addition to the three usual co-ordinates (or dimensions). This was the explanation he found of the famous Michelson-Morley experiment which failed to detect any difference in the velocity of light whether it moved with or against a moving object, which is an inconsistency according to the mechanistic view.1 The absolute dependence of time and space upon each other was further demonstrated by the fact that it was absolutely impossible to synchronise two distant clocks (moving with different speeds and thus forming different systems) with perfect accuracy, or determine exactly whether two events happened simultaneously or not. In the final account of things, this relative element that varies according to varying particulars had to be eliminated, sublated. In order to make a law applicable to all fields—from the astronomical through the normal down to the microscopic or sub-atomic—in an equally valid manner, the law had to divest itself of all local colour. Thus, a scientific law became a sheer mathematical formula; it was no longer an objective law that governed the behaviour of things, but merely a mental rule or mnemonics to string together as many diverse things as possible in order to be able; to memorise them easily. Again, the generalised law of relativity (that is to say, laws governing all motions, even accelerated motion and not merely uniform motion) that sought to replace the laws. of gravitation did away also with the concepts of force and causality: it stated that. things moved not because they were pulled or pushed but because they followed the natural curve of space (they describe geodesies, i.e., move in the line of least distance). Space is not a plain surface, smooth and uniform,
1 The constancy of the velocity of light, it must be noted, is not altogether an
objective fact: it is a supposition by which Einstein tried to explain certain Page 235 but full of dimples and hollows, these occurring in the vicinity of masses of matter, the sun, for instance, (although one does not see how or why a mass of matter should roll down the inclined plane of a curved surface without some kind of push and pull—the problem is not solved but merely shifted and put off). All this means to say that the pattern of the universe is absolutely geometrical and science in the end resolves itself into geometry: the laws of Nature are nothing but theorems or corollaries deduced and deducible from a few initial postulates. Once again, on this line of enquiry also the universe is dissolved into abstract and psychological factors. Apart from the standpoint of theoretical physics developed by Einstein, the more practical aspect as brought out in Wave Mechanics leads us into no less an abstract and theoretical domain. The Newtonian particle-picture, it is true, has been maintained in the first phase of modern physics which specialised in what is called Quantum Mechanics. But waves or particles—although the question as to their relative validity and verity still remains open—do not make much difference in the fundamental outlook. For in either view, the individual unit is beyond the ken of the scientist. A wave is not a wave but just the probability of a wave: it is not even a probable wave but a probability wave. Thus the pattern that Wave Mechanics weaves to show the texture of the ultimate reality is nothing more than a calculus of probabilities. By whichever way we proceed we seem to arrive always at the same inevitable conclusion.
So it is frankly admitted that what Science gives is not a
faithful description of actuality, not a representation of material
existence, but certain conventions or convenient signs to put
together, to make a mental picture of our sensations and
experiences. That, does not give any clue to what the objective
reality may or may not be like. Scientific laws are mental
rules imposed upon Nature. It may be asked why does Nature
yield to such imposition? There must be then some sort of Page 236 mere figments, hanging in the air; for they are justified by their applicability, by their factual translation. This is arguing in a circle, a thorough-going mentalist like Eddington would say. What are facts ? What is life ? Anything more than what the senses and the mind have built up for us? Jeans himself is on the horns of a dilemma.1 Being a scientist, and not primarily a mathematician like Eddington, he cannot very well acquiesce in the liquidation of the material world; nor can he refute successfully the facts and arguments that Science itself has brought forward in favour of mentalism.He wishes to keep the question open for further light and surer grounds. In the meanwhile, however, he is reconciled to a modified form of mentalism. The laws of Nature, he says, are surely subjective in the sense that astronomical or geographical concepts, for example, such as the system of latitudes, longitudes, equator and axis, ellipse and quadrant and sextant, are subjective. These lines and figures are not drawn physically upon the earth or in space: they are mental constructs, they are pointers or notations, but they note and point to the existence and the manner of existence of real objects in a real world. In other words, one tries to come back more or less to the common-sense view of things. One does not argue about what is naturally given as objective reality; whatever the mental gloss over it, it is there all the same. One accepts it, takes it on trust, if you like—one can admit even that it is an act of faith, as Russell and the Neo-Realists would maintain. But Jeans' position is remarkable and very significant in one respect. When cornered in the process of argument, feeling that the world is inexorably dematerialised and mentalised, he suggests an issue which is natural to a philosopher, a mystic philosopher alone. Well, let him state his position in his own words, the passage, I repeat, is so remarkable and significant: "When we view ourselves in space and time, our consciousnesses are obviously the separate individuals of a particle-picture, but when we pass beyond space and time, they may perhaps form ingredients of a single continuous stream of life. As it is with light and electricity, so it may be with life; the phenomena may be individuals carrying on separate existence
1 Physics and Philosophy, by Sir James Jeans. Page 237 in space and time, while in the deeper reality beyond space and time we may all be members of one body. In brief, modern physics is not altogether antagonistic to an objective idealism like that of Hegel." (p. 204)1 A la bonne heure! That runs close to Upanishadic knowledge. It means that the world is objective—it is not the figment of an individual observer; but it is not material either, it is consciousness in vibration. (Note the word "consciousness" is Jeans' own, not mine). Jeans is not alone to have such a revolutionary and unorthodox view. He seems to take courage from Dirac also. Dirac too cannot admit an annihilation of the material world. His proposal to save and salvage it follows a parallel line. He says that the world presented or pictured by physical science may not be and is not the actual world, but it posits a substratum of reality to which it conforms: the pattern presented by subjective laws is so composed because of a pressure, an impact from an analogous substratum. There is no chain of causal. relation in the pattern itself, the relation of causality is between the substratum reality and the pattern that it bodies forth. Here again we find ourselves at the end of physical inquiry driving straight into the tenuous spaces of spiritual metaphysics. We have one more example of how a modern physicist is metamorphosed into a mystic. What Dirac says is tantamount to the very well-known spiritual experience that the world as it appears to us is a vesture or symbol of an inner order of reality out of which it has been broadcast—sah paryagat—and the true causes of things are not on the surface, the so-called antecedents, but behind in the subtler world called therefore the causal world, karana jagat. Even Eddington is not so absurd or impossible as it may seem to some. He says, as we have seen, that all so-called laws of Nature can be discovered from within the mind itself, can be deduced logically from psychologically given premises: no empiricial observation or objective experimentation is necessary to arrive at them: they are found a priori in the subject. Now, mystic experience always lays stress on extra-sensory knowledge: it declares that such a knowledge is not only possible, but that this alone is the right and correct knowledge. All
1 op. cit. ' Page 238 things—matter and mind and life and all—being but vibrations of consciousness, even as the colours of a spectrum are vibrations, electro-magnetic waves of different frequency, mystic discipline enables one to enter into that condition in which one's consciousness mingles with all consciousness or with another particular consciousness (Patanjali's term is samyama), and one can have all knowledge that one wishes to have by this inner contact or concentration or identification, one discovers the knowledge within oneself, no external means of sense observation and experimental testing, no empirical inductive process is needed. We do not say that Eddington had in view anything of this kind, but that his attitude points in this direction. That seems to be the burden, the underlying preoccupation of modern physical science: it has been forced to grope towards. some kind of mystic perception; at least, it has been put into a frame of mind, due to the crumbling of the very fundamentals of the past structure, which is less obstructive to other sources and spheres and ways of knowledge. Certainly, we must admit that we have moved very far from Laplace when we hear today a hard-boiled rationalist like De Broglie declare:
The idealisations more or less schematic that our
mind builds up are capable of representing certain
facets of things, but they have inherent limitations and
The difficulty that modern Science encounters is not, however, at all a difficulty: it may be so to the philosopher, but not to the mystic, the difficulty, that is to say, of positing a real 'objective world when all that we know or seize of it seems to be our own mental constructions that we impose upon it. Science has come to such a pass that it can do no more than take an i.: objective world on trust. Things need not, however, be so dismal looking. The difficulty arises because of a fundamental attitude—the attitude of a purely reasoning being. But Reason or Mind is only one layer or vein of the reality, and to see and understand and
1 La Physique Nowelle et les Quanta, by Louis de Broglie, p. 12. Page 239 explain that reality through one single track of approach will naturally bias the view, it will present only what is real or immediate to it, and all the rest will appear as secondary or a formation of it. That is, of course, a truth that has been clearly brought out by the anti-intellectualist. But the vitalist's view is also likewise vitiated by a similar bias, as he contacts reality only through this prism of vital force. It is the old story of the Upanishad in which the seeker takes the Body, the Life and the Mind one after another and declares each in its turn to be the only and ultimate reality, the Brahman. The truth of the matter is that the integral reality is to be seized by an integral organon. To an integralised consciousness the integral reality is directly and immediately presented, each aspect is apprehended in and through its own truth and substance. The synthesis or integration is reached by a consciousness which is the basis and' continent of all, collectively and severally, and of which all are vari6us formations and expressions on various levels and degrees. This is the knowledge and experience given by the supreme spiritual consciousness. Page 240 |