{"id":19248,"date":"2018-08-28T13:30:11","date_gmt":"2018-08-28T08:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hindupost.in\/?p=19248"},"modified":"2018-08-29T11:07:40","modified_gmt":"2018-08-29T05:37:40","slug":"bharats-foundations-of-modern-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hindupost.in\/history\/bharats-foundations-of-modern-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Bharat’s Foundations of Modern Science"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scholars see Bharat and Greece as the\u00a0two principal birthplaces of science<\/a>. School textbooks tell us about Pythagoras, Aristotle, Euclid, Archimedes, and Ptolemy, geometry of the Vedic altars, the invention of zero in Bharat, Yoga psychology, and Bharat’s technology of steel-making that went into the manufacture of the best swords. But if you take the trouble of reading scholarly books,\u00a0articles and encyclopedias<\/a>, you will find that in many ways the early Bharatiya contributions are the more impressive for they include a deep theory of mind, P\u0101\u1e47ini\u2019s astonishing Sanskrit grammar, binary numbers of Pi\u1e45gala, music theory, combinatorics, algebra, earliest astronomy, and the physics of Ka\u1e47\u0101da with its laws of motion.<\/p>\n

Of these,\u00a0Ka\u1e47\u0101da is the least known<\/a>. He may not have presented his ideas as mathematical equations, but he attempted something that no physicist to date has dared to do: he advanced a system that includes space, time, matter, as well as observers. He also postulated four types of atoms, two with mass (like proton and electron) and two without (like neutrino and photon), and the idea of invariance. A thousand or more years after Ka\u1e47\u0101da, \u0100ryabha\u1e6da postulated that earth rotated and advanced the basic idea of relativity of motion.<\/p>\n

And then there is Bharat\u2019s imaginative literature, which includes the Epics, the Pur\u0101\u1e47as and the Yoga V\u0101si\u1e63\u1e6dha (perhaps the greatest novel ever written), that speaks of time travel, airplanes, exoplanets (that is many solar-like systems), cloning of embryos, sex change, communication over distances, and weapons that can destroy everything. Some nationalists take these statements to mean the literal scientific truth, which claim is ridiculed by their political opponents who then use this broad brush to tar all Bharatiya science.<\/p>\n

There are also anomalous statements in Bharatiya texts whose origin is not understood. Just to mention a few:\u00a0the correct speed of light<\/a>,\u00a0the correct distance to the sun<\/a>, cosmological cycles that broadly correspond to the numbers accepted currently, the fact that the sun and the moon are approximately\u00a0108 times their respective diameters from the earth<\/a>, the\u00a0correct number of species on earth\u00a0<\/a>(about 8.4 million), and so on. Historians either ignore them or say that they are extraordinary coincidences. We will come to these anomalies later in the essay.<\/p>\n

To return to the history of mainstream science, the discovery of infinite series and calculus by Newton and Leibniz heralded the Scientific Revolution that was to change the world. But new research has shown that over two centuries prior the Kerala School of Mathematics had already developed calculus and some historians suggest that this and advanced\u00a0astronomical knowledge from Kerala went abroad via the Jesuits<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0provided the spark for its further development in Europe<\/a>. Other historians discount the transmission of this knowledge to Europe.<\/p>\n

There is more agreement about the many achievements of Bharatiya medical sciences. For example, the Royal Australia College of Surgeons in Melbourne, Australia has a prominent display of a statue of Su\u015bruta (600 BCE) with the caption \u201cFather of Surgery\u201d. The ancient Ayurveda texts include the notion of germs and inoculation and also postulate mind-body connection, which has become an important area of contemporary research. Bharatiya medicine was strongly empirical; it used Nature (which is governed by\u00a0\u1e5ata<\/em>) as guide, and it was informed by a sense of skepticism. In the West the notion of skepticism is usually credited to the Scottish philosopher of science, David Hume, but scholars have been puzzled by the commonality between his ideas and the earlier Bharatiya ones. Recently, it was shown that Hume\u00a0almost certainly learnt Bharatiya ideas from Jesuits<\/a>\u00a0when he was at the Royal College of La Fl\u00e8che in France.<\/p>\n

There are also indirect ways that Bharatiya ideas led to scientific advance. Mendeleev was inspired by the\u00a0two-dimensional structure of the Sanskrit alphabet<\/a>\u00a0to propose a similar two-dimensional structure of chemical elements. Erwin Schr\u00f6dinger, a founder of quantum theory, credited ideas in the Upanishads for the key notion of superposition that was to bring about the quantum revolution in physics that changed chemistry, biology, and technology.<\/p>\n

I now briefly touch upon Bharat’s influence on linguistics, logic, philosophy of physics, and theory of mind.<\/p>\n

Linguistics, algorithms and society<\/h3>\n

P\u0101\u1e47ini\u2019s work (4th or 5th century BCE) showed the way to the development of modern linguistics through the efforts of scholars such as Franz Bopp, Ferdinand de Saussure, Leonard Bloomfield, and Roman Jakobson. Bopp was a pioneering scholar of the comparative grammars of Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages. Ferdinand de Saussure in his most influential work, Course in General Linguistics (Cours de linguistique g\u00e9n\u00e9rale<\/em>), that was published posthumously (1916), took the idea of the use of formal rules of Sanskrit grammar and applied them to general linguistic phenomena.<\/p>\n

The structure of P\u0101\u1e47ini\u2018s grammar contains a\u00a0meta-language, meta-rules, and other technical devices\u00a0<\/a>that make this system effectively equivalent to the most powerful computing machine. Although it didn\u2019t directly contribute to the development of computer languages, it influenced linguistics and mathematical logic that, in turn,\u00a0gave birth to computer science<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The works of P\u0101\u1e47ini and Bharata Muni also presage the modern field of semiotics which is the study of signs and symbols as a significant component of communications. Their template may be applied to sociology, anthropology and other humanistic disciplines for all social systems come with their grammar.<\/p>\n

The search for universal laws of grammar underlying the diversity of languages is ultimately an exploration of the very nature of the human mind. But Bharatiya texts remind that the other side to this grammar is the idea that a formal system cannot describe reality completely since it leaves out the self.<\/p>\n

Modern logic<\/h3>\n

That\u00a0Bharatiya thought was central to the development of machine theory<\/a>\u00a0is asserted by Mary Boole\u200a\u2014\u200athe wife of George Boole, inventor of modern logic\u200a\u2014\u200awho herself was a leading science writer in the nineteenth century. She claimed that George Everest, who lived for a long time in Bharat and whose name was eventually applied to the world\u2019s highest peak, was the intermediary of Bharat’s ideas and they influenced not only her husband but the other two leading scientists in the attempt to mechanize thought: Augustus de Morgan and Charles Babbage. She says in her essay on\u00a0Indian Thought and Western Science in the Nineteenth Century<\/em>\u00a0(1901): \u201cThink what must have been the effect of the intense Hinduizing of three such men as Babbage, De Morgan, and George Boole on the mathematical atmosphere of 1830\u201365.\u201d She further speculates that these ideas influenced the development of vector analysis and modern mathematics.<\/p>\n

Much prior to this, Mohsin Fani\u2019s\u00a0Dabistani-i Madhahib<\/em>\u00a0(17th Century) claimed that Kallisthenes, who was in Alexander\u2019s party, took logic texts from Bharat and the beginning of the Greek tradition of logic must be seen in this material. In Bharatiya logic, minds are not empty slates; the very constitution of the mind provides some knowledge of the nature of the world. The four pram\u0101\u1e47as through which correct knowledge is acquired are direct perception, inference, analogy, and verbal testimony.<\/p>\n

Physics with observers<\/h3>\n

Bharatiya physics, which goes back to the Vai\u015be\u1e63ika S\u016btras (c. 500 BCE), does not appear to have directly influenced the discovery of physical laws in Europe. But Bharatiya ideas that place the observer at center prefigure the conceptual foundations of modern physics, and this is acknowledged by the greatest physicists of the twentieth century.<\/p>\n

In the West, the universe was seen as a machine going back to Aristotle and the Greeks who saw the physical world consisting of four kinds of elements of earth, water, fire, and air. This model continued in Newton\u2019s clockwork model of the solar system. Bharatiya thought, in contrast, has a fifth element, \u0101k\u0101\u015ba, which is the medium for inner light and consciousness. With the rise of relativity theory and quantum mechanics, the observer could no longer be ignored. In one sense, the journey of science is the discovery of self and consciousness.<\/p>\n

It is one of those obscure footnotes to the history of physics that Nikola Tesla, who was very famous in the 1890s, was asked by Swami Vivekananda to find an equation connecting mass and energy. We know that Tesla didn\u2019t quite succeed at this but he was to work on various models of wireless transfer of energy for the remainder of his career.<\/p>\n

Cosmology and evolution<\/h3>\n

The \u1e5agveda speaks of the universe being infinite in size. The evolution of the universe is according to cosmic law. Since it cannot arise out of nothing, the universe must be infinitely old. Since it must evolve, there are cycles of chaos and order or creation and destruction. The world is also taken to be infinitely old. Beyond the solar system,\u00a0other similar systems were postulated<\/a>, which appear to have been confirmed with the modern discovery of exoplanets.<\/p>\n

The S\u0101\u1e45khya system describes evolution at cosmic and individual levels. It views reality as being constituted of\u00a0puru\u1e63a<\/em>, consciousness that is all-pervasive, and\u00a0prak\u1e5bti<\/em>, which is the phenomenal world.\u00a0Prak\u1e5bti<\/em>\u00a0is composed of three different strands (gu\u1e47as or characteristics) of sattva, rajas, and tamas, which are transparency, activity, and inactivity, respectively.<\/p>\n

Evolution begins by puru\u1e63a and prak\u1e5bti creating mahat (Nature in its dynamic aspect). From mahat evolves buddhi (intelligence) and manas (mind). Buddhi and manas in the large scale are Nature\u2019s intelligence and mind. From buddhi come individualized ego consciousness (aha\u1e45k\u0101ra) and the five tanm\u0101tras (subtle elements) of sound, touch, sight, taste, smell. From the manas evolve the five senses (hearing, touching, seeing, tasting, smelling), the five organs of action (with which to speak, grasp, move, procreate, evacuate), and the five gross elements (\u0101k\u0101\u015ba<\/em>, air, fire, water, earth).<\/span><\/p>\n

The evolution in S\u0101\u1e45khya is an ecological process determined completely by Nature. It differs from modern evolution theory in that it presupposes a universal consciousness. In reality, modern evolution also assigns intelligence to Nature in its drive to select certain forms over others as well as in the evolution of intelligence itself.<\/p>\n

The description of evolution of life is given in many texts such as the Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata. I present a quote from the Yoga V\u0101si\u1e63\u1e6dha on it:<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>I\u00a0<\/span>remember that once upon a time there was nothing on this earth, neither trees and plants, nor even mountains. For a period of eleven thousand [great] years the earth was covered by lava. In those days there was neither day nor night below the polar region: for in the rest of the earth neither the sun nor the moon shone. Only one half of the polar region was illumined. [Later] apart from the polar region the rest of the earth was covered with water. And then for a very long time the whole earth was covered with forests, except the polar region. Then there arose great mountains, but without any human inhabitants. For a period of ten thousand years the earth was covered with the corpses of the asuras.\u201d [YV 6.1]<\/p>\n

The reverse sequence, of the end of the world, is also described in various texts. First, the sun expands in size incinerating everything on the earth (quite similar to modern accounts of the aging sun becoming a red giant). The specific sequence mentioned is that the fireball of the sun transforms the P\u1e5bthiv\u012b atoms into \u0100pas atoms, which then together change into Tejas atoms and further into V\u0101yu atoms, and finally to sound energy that is an attribute of space, and so on (Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata, \u015a\u0101nti Parva Section 233). In our modern language, it means that as temperatures become high, matter breaks down becoming a sea of elements, then the protons break down into electrons, further into photons, and finally into neutrinos, and on to acoustic energy of space. At the end of this cycle the world is absorbed into Consciousness.<\/p>\n

Vivekananda was aware of this sequence which is why he asked Tesla to find the specific equation for\u00a0transformation between mass and energy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mind and Yoga<\/h3>\n

We are in the midst of a worldwide Yoga revolution. For many, it is about health and well-being but that is only a portal that leads to the understanding of the self and its relationship with the body.<\/p>\n

Although the roots of Yoga lie in the Vedas, most read Pata\u00f1jali\u2019s Yoga-s\u016btra for a systematic exposition of the nature of the mind. The text is logical and it questions the na\u00efve understanding of the world. According to it, there is a single reality and the multiplicity we see in it is a consequence of the projections of our different minds. Therefore to obtain knowledge one must experience reality in its most directness.<\/p>\n

The Vedic texts claim to be\u00a0\u0101tmavidy\u0101<\/em>, \u201cscience of self\u201d or \u201cconsciousness science\u201d and they also provide a framework to decode its narrative, establishing its central concern with consciousness.<\/p>\n

In the Vedic view, reality is unitary at the deepest level since otherwise there would be chaos. Since language is linear, whereas the unfolding of the universe takes place in a multitude of dimensions, language is limited in its ability to describe reality. Because of this limitation, reality can only be experienced and never described fully. All descriptions of the universe lead to logical paradox.<\/p>\n

Knowledge is of two kinds: the higher or unified and the lower or dual. The higher knowledge concerns the perceiving subject (consciousness), whereas the lower knowledge concerns objects. The higher knowledge can be arrived at through intuition and meditation on the paradoxes of the outer world. The lower knowledge is analytical and it represents standard sciences with its many branches. There is a complementarity between the higher and the lower, for each is necessary to define the other, and it mirrors the one between mind and body.<\/p>\n

The future of science<\/h3>\n

I have gone through a random list of topics to show that Bharatiya ideas\u00a0<\/em>and contributions have shaped science in fundamental ways. I hope to show now that they remain equally central to its future growth.<\/p>\n

We first note that in spite of its unprecedented success and prestige, science is facing major crises. The first of these crises<\/strong> is that of physics for it has found no evidence for dark matter and dark energy that together are believed to constitute 95% of the observable universe, with another 4.5% being intergalactic dust that doesn\u2019t influence theory. How can we claim that we are near understanding reality if our theories are validated by only 0.5% of the observable universe?<\/p>\n

The second crisis<\/strong> is that neuroscientists have failed to find a neural correlate of consciousness. If there is no neural correlate, then does consciousness reside in a dimension that is different from our familiar space-time continuum? And how do mind and body interact with each other?<\/p>\n

The third crisis<\/strong> is that there is no clear answer to the question if machines will become conscious. The fourth crisis<\/strong> is related to the implications of biomedical advances such as cloning on our notions of self.<\/p>\n

It becomes clear that the three crises are actually interrelated when it is realized that consciousness is also an issue at the very foundations of physics. These questions also relate to the problem of free will.<\/p>\n

Researchers are divided on whether conscious machines will ever exist. Most computer scientists believe that consciousness is computable and that it will emerge in machines as technology develops. Bu there are others who say there\u2019re things about human behavior that cannot be computed by a machine. Thus creativity and the sense of freedom people possess appear to be more than just an application of logic or calculations.<\/p>\n

Quantum views<\/h3>\n

Quantum theory, which is the deepest theory of physics, provides another perspective. According to its orthodox Copenhagen Interpretation, consciousness and the physical world are complementary aspects of the same reality. Since it takes consciousness as a given and no attempt is made to derive it from physics, the Copenhagen Interpretation may be called the\u00a0\u201cbig-C\u201d view of consciousness<\/a>, where it is a thing that exists by itself\u200a\u2014\u200aalthough it requires brains to become real. This view was popular with the pioneers of quantum theory such as Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schr\u00f6dinger.<\/p>\n

The opposing view is that consciousness emerges from biology, just as biology itself emerges from chemistry which, in turn, emerges from physics. We call this less expansive concept of consciousness \u201clittle-C.\u201d It agrees with the neuroscientists\u2019 view that the processes of the mind are identical to states and processes of the brain.<\/p>\n

Philosophers of science believe that these modern quantum physics views of consciousness have parallels in ancient philosophy. Big-C is like the theory of mind in Vedanta\u200a\u2014\u200ain which consciousness is the fundamental basis of reality and at the experienced level it complements the physical universe. The pioneers of quantum theory were aware of this linkage with Vedanta.<\/p>\n

Little-C, in contrast, is quite similar to Buddhism. Although the Buddha chose not to address the question of the nature of consciousness, his followers declared that mind and consciousness arise out of emptiness or nothingness.<\/p>\n

Big-C, anomalies, and scientific discovery<\/h3>\n

Scientists question if consciousness is a computational process. More restrictively, scholars argue that the creative moment is not at the end of a deliberate computation. For instance, dreams or visions are supposed to have inspired Elias Howe\u2018s 1845\u00a0design of the modern sewing machine and August Kekul\u00e9\u2019s discovery of the structure of benzene<\/a>\u00a0in 1862, and these may be considered to be examples of the anomalous workings of the mind.<\/p>\n

A dramatic piece of evidence in favor of big-C consciousness existing all on its own is the life of self-taught mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, who died in 1920 at the age of 32. His notebook, which was lost and forgotten for about 50 years and published only in 1988, contains several thousand formulas\u200a\u2014\u200awithout proof in different areas of mathematics\u200a\u2014\u200athat were well ahead of their time, and the methods by which he found the formulas remain elusive. Ramanujan himself claimed that the formulas were revealed to him by Goddess N\u0101magiri while he was asleep. The idea of big-C provides an explanation for the anomalous scientific results from old Bharatiya texts that were mentioned at the beginning of the essay.<\/p>\n

The concept of big-C consciousness raises the questions of how it is related to matter, and how matter and mind mutually influence each other. Consciousness alone cannot make physical changes to the world, but perhaps it can change the probabilities in the evolution of quantum processes. The act of observation can freeze and even influence atoms\u2019 movements,\u00a0as has been demonstrated in the laboratory<\/a>. This may very well be an explanation of how matter and mind interact.<\/p>\n

With cognitive machines replacing humans at most tasks, the question of what selfhood means will become more central to our lives. It appears to me that the only way to find fulfilment in life will be through wisdom of \u0101tmavidy\u0101. Vedic science will bring humanity full circle back to the source of all experience, which is consciousness. It will also reveal unknown ways mind and body interact and this will have major implications for medicine.<\/p>\n

Bharatiya sciences are universal and they have within them the power to inspire people to find their true potential and find meaning in life, as also having the potential to facilitate the next advances in both physical and biological sciences.<\/p>\n

Historians may quibble about whether a certain equation should be called Baudh\u0101yana\u2019s Theorem or Pythagoras Theorem, but in the larger scheme names do not matter. The direction of science is the more important thing and it is clear that the mystery of consciousness will be one of its major concerns.<\/p>\n

-By Subhash Kak<\/strong><\/p>\n

This article first appeared on medium.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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Scholars see Bharat and Greece as the\u00a0two principal birthplaces of science. School textbooks tell us about Pythagoras, Aristotle, Euclid, Archimedes, and Ptolemy, geometry of the Vedic altars, the invention of zero in Bharat, Yoga psychology, and Bharat’s technology of steel-making that went into the manufacture of the best swords. But if you take the trouble […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":19249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"koo_publish_custom_meta":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[13,1916],"tags":[1517,1363,345,115,239,240,143],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hindupost.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Science_Bharat_India_contribution.jpg?fit=600%2C300&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hindupost.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19248"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hindupost.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hindupost.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hindupost.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hindupost.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hindupost.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hindupost.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hindupost.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hindupost.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hindupost.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}