Introduction:
-
As a student of theology, one may think is it necessary to study about science
or is there is any relation between them. Religion was developed when there is
growth in science and when there is no answer for a research, philosophers
tried to attain results from the knowledge of God and attempted to say there
was creator. There is shift from science to spirit and vice versa. In Christian
scripture there are scientific words which were used by the scientist or
philosophers to understand God, especially in the writings of Paul. And it can
also be noted during the development of science it was written. The whole world
can be divided into two in relating to study about science, western (philosophies)
and eastern (mystics). There occurred many shifts in the history of scientific
theories and there were many paradigms. The law of physics requires the
concepts of space and time for its formulation. The profound modification of
these basic concepts brought about by relativity theory was therefore one of
the greatest revolutions in the history of science.
Paradigm:
-
The term paradigm means what the members of a scientific community share. A
scientific community consists of men who share a paradigm and practitioners of
a scientific specialty. Communities in this sense exist, of course at numerous levels;
the most global is the community of all natural scientists. The members of all
scientific communities share the sorts of elements which labeled ‘a paradigm’.
A paradigm governs, in the first instance, not a subject matter but rather a
group of practitioners. A study of paradigm-directed of paradigm shattering research
must begin by locating the responsible groups. Paradigm is the central
philosophical element, and is used in different ways.
Modern physics
has had a profound influence on almost all aspects of human society. It has
become the basis of natural science, and the combination of natural and
technical science has fundamentally changed the conditions of life on our
earth, both in beneficial and detrimental ways. It extends to the realm of
thought and culture where it has led to a deep revision in man’s conception of
the universe and his relation to it. Modern physics has the basic idea of
Eastern mysticism; that all the concepts we use to describe nature are limited,
that they are not features of reality, but creations of the mind. The concept
of matter in subatomic physics, for example, is totally different from the
traditional idea of a material substance in classical physics. The same is true
for concepts like space, time, or cause and effect. These concepts, however,
are fundamental to our outlook on the world around us and with their radical
transformation our whole world view has begun to change. These changes, brought
about by modern physics, have been widely discussed by physicists and by
philosphers over the past decades, but very seldom has it been realized that
they all seem to lead in the same direction, towards a view of the world which
is very similar to the views held in Eastern mysticism. ‘Eastern mysticism’, mean the religious philosophies of Hinduism,
Buddhism and Taoism. The concepts of modern physics often show
surprising parallels to the ideas expressed in the religious philsophies of the Far East. Although these parallels
have not, as The yet, been
discussed extensively, they have been noticed by some of the great physicists of our century when they came in contact with Far Eastern culture during their
lecture tours to India, China and Japan.
There is relationship between the concepts of modern physics and the
basic ideas in the philosophical and religious traditions of the Far East. We
shall see how the two foundations of twentieth-century physics-quantum theory
and relativity theory-both force us to see the world very much in the way a
Hindu, Buddhist or Taoist sees it, Although these comprise a vast number of
subtly interwoven spiritual disciplines and philosophical systems, the basic
features of their world view are the same.
Early
era of Physics: -
The roots of physics, as of all Western science, were found in the first period
of Greek philosophy in the sixth century B.C., in a culture where science,
philosophy and religion were not separated. The term ‘physics’ is derived from
this Greek word and meant therefore, originally, the endeavor of seeing the
essential nature of all things. This, of course, is also the central aim of all
mystics, and the philosophy of the Milesian school did indeed have a strong
mystical flavour.
Milesian
school: -
The Milesians were called ‘hylozoists’, or ‘those who think matter is alive’,
by Greeks, because they saw no distinction between animate and inanimate,
spirit and matter. In fact, they did not even have a word for matter, since
they saw all forms of existence as manifestations of the ‘physis’, endowed with
life and spirituality. Thus Thales declared all things to be full of gods, and
Anaximander saw the universe as a kind of organism which was supported by
‘pneuma’, the cosmic breath, in the same way as the human body is supported by
air.
The monistic and organic view of
the Milesians was very close to that of ancient Indian and Chinese philosophy,
and the parallels to Eastern thought are even stronger in the philosophy of
Heraclitus of Ephesus.
Heraclitus:
-
Heraclitus believed in a world of perpetual change, of eternal ‘Becoming’. For
him, all static Being was based on deception and his universal principle was
fire, a symbol for the continuous flow and change of all things. Heraclitus
taught that all changes in the world arise from the dynamic and cyclic
interplay of opposites and he saw any pair of opposites as a unity. This unity,
which contains and transcends all opposing forces, he called the Logos.
The split of
this unity began with the Eleatic school, which assumed a Divine Principle
standing above all gods and men. This principle was first identified with the
unity of the universe, but was later seen as an intelligent and personal God
who stands above the world and directs it. Thus began a trend of thought which
led, ultimately, to the separation of spirit and matter and to a dualism which
became characteristic of Western philosophy.(from science to religion i.e.
spirit)
Parmenides:
-
Parmenides of Elea who was in strong opposition to Heraclitus. He called his
basic principle the Being and held that it was unique and invariable. He
considered change to be impossible and regarded the changes we seem to perceive
in the world as mere illusions of the senses. The concept of an indestructible
substance as the subject of varying properties grew out of this philosophy and
became one of the fundamental concepts of Western thought.
Shift
from spirit to Matter: - In the fifth century B.C., the Greek philosophers
tried to overcome the sharp contrast between the views of Parmenides and
Heraclitus. In order to reconcile the idea of unchangeable Being (of
Parmenides) with that of eternal Becoming (of Heraclitus), they assumed that
the Being is manifest in certain invariable substances, the mixture and
separation of which gives rise to the changes in the world. This led to the
concept of the atom, the smallest indivisible unit of matter, which found its
clearest expression in the philosophy of Leucrppus and Democritus. The Greek
atomists drew a clear line between spirit and matter, picturing matter as being
made of several ‘basic building blocks’. These were purely passive and
intrinsically dead particles moving in the void and the cause of their motion
was not explained, but was often associated with external forces which were
assumed to be of spiritual origin and fundamentally different from matter. In
subsequent centuries, this image became an essential element of Western
thought, of the dualism between mind and matter, between body and soul.
As the idea of a
division between spirit and matter took hold, the philosophers turned their
attention to the spiritual world, rather than the material, to the human soul
and the problems of ethics.
Shift
from spirit, matter to spiritual reasoning: - There were questions about
Western thought for more than two thousand years after the culmination of Greek
science and culture in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.
Aristotle:
-
The scientific knowledge of antiquity was systematized and organized by
Aristotle, who created the scheme which was to be the basis of the Western view
of the universe for two thousand years. But Aristotle himself believed that
questions concerning the human soul and the contemplation of God’s perfection
were much more valuable than investigations of the material world. The reason the Aristotelian model of the universe remained unchallenged for so long
was precisely this lack of interest in the material world, and the strong hold
of the Christian Church which
supported Aristotle’s doctrines throughout the Middle Ages. Further development
of Western science had to wait until the Renaissance, when men began to free
themselves from the influence of Aristotle and the Church and showed a new interest
in nature.
Shift from
church centered to Nature (Age of Mathematics):- In the late fifteenth century, the study of nature was approached, for
the first time, in a truly scientific spirit and experiments were undertaken to
test speculative ideas. As this development was paralleled by a growing
interest in mathematics, it finally led to the formulation of proper scientific
theories, based on experiment and expressed in mathematical language.
Galileo
was the first to combine empirical knowledge with mathematics and is therefore
seen as the father of modern science. The birth of modern science was preceded
and accompanied by a development of philosophical thought which led to an
extreme formulation of the spirit/matter dualism[1].
This formulation appeared in the seventeenth century in the philosophy of Rene
Descartes (French philosopher) who based his view of nature on a fundamental
division into two separate and independent realms; that of mind (res cogitans),
and that of matter (res extensa).
The philosophy of Descartes was not only important for the development of
classical physics, but also had a tremendous influence on the general Western
way of thinking up to the present
day. Descartes’ famous sentence ‘Cogito ergo sum’- ‘I think, therefore I exist’-has led Western man to equate his identity with his mind, instead of
with his whole organism. As a
consequence of the Cartesian division, most individuals are aware of themselves as isolated egos
existing ‘inside’ their bodies.
The mind has been separated from the body and given the futile task of controlling it, thus causing an apparent
conflict between the conscious
will and the involuntary instincts. Each
individual has been split up further into a large number of separate compartments, according to his or her activities, talents, feelings, beliefs, etc.,
which are engaged in endless conflicts
generating continuous metaphysical confusion and frustration.
This inner
fragmentation of man mirrors his view of the world ‘outside’ which is seen as a
multitude of separate objects and events. The natural environment is treated as
if it consisted of separate parts to be exploited by different interest groups.
The fragmented view is further extended to society which is split into different
nations, races, religious and political groups. The belief that all these
fragments-in ourselves, in our environment and in our society-are really
separate can be seen as the essential reason for the present series of social,
ecological and cultural crises. It has alienated us from nature and from our
fellow human beings. It has brought a grossly unjust distribution of natural
resources creating economic and political disorder; an ever rising wave of
violence, both spontaneous and institutionalized, and an ugly, polluted
environment in which life has often become physically and mentally unhealthy.
The Cartesian division and the mechanistic world view have thus been beneficial
and detrimental at the same time. They were extremely successful in the
development of classical physics and technology, but had many adverse
consequences for our civilization. It is fascinating to see that
twentieth-century science, which originated in the Cartesian split and in the
mechanistic world view, and which indeed only became possible because of such a
view, now overcomes this fragmentation and leads back to the idea of unity
expressed in the early Greek and Eastern philosophies.
In contrast to
the mechanistic Western view, the Eastern view of the world is ‘organic’. For
the Eastern mystic, all things and events perceived by the senses are
interrelated, connected, and are but different aspects or manifestations of the
same Physics ultimate reality. Our tendency to divide the perceived world into
individual and separate things and to experience ourselves as isolated egos in
this world is seen as an illusion which comes from our measuring and
categorizing mentality. It is called avidya, or ignorance, in Buddhist
philosophy and is seen as the state of a disturbed mind which has to be
overcome: When the mind is disturbed, the multiplicity of things is produced,
but when the mind is quieted, the multiplicity of things disappears. Although
the various schools of Eastern mysticism differ in many details, they all
emphasize the basic unity of the universe which is the central feature of their
teachings. The highest aim for their followers-whether they are Hindus,
Buddhists or Taoists-is to become aware of the unity and mutual interrelation
of all things, to transcend the notion of an isolated individual self and to
identify themselves with the ultimate reality. The emergence of this
awareness-known as ‘enlightenmerit’- is not only an intellectual act but is an
experience which involves the whole person and is religious in its ultimate nature.
For this reason, most Eastern philosophies are essentially religious
philosophies.
The ‘Cartesian’[2]
division allowed scientists to treat matter as dead and completely separate
from themselves, and to see the material world as a multitude of different objects
assembled into a huge machine (The beginning of mechanistic view).
Shift from
nature to mechanistic: - The mechanistic world
view was held by Isaac Newton who constructed his mechanics on its basis and
made it the foundation of classical physics. From the second half of the
seventeenth to the end of the nineteenth century, the mechanistic Newtonian
model of the universe dominated all scientific thought. It was paralleled
by the image of a monarchical God who ruled the world from above by imposing
his divine law on it. The fundamental laws of nature searched for by the
scientists were thus seen as the laws of God, invariable and eternal, to which
the world was subjected.
In the Eastern
view, then, the division of nature into separate objects is not fundamental and
any such objects have a fluid and ever-changing character. The Eastern world
view is therefore intrinsically dynamic and contains time and change as
essential features. The cosmos is seen as one inseparable reality-forever in
motion, alive, organic; spiritual and material at the same time. Since motion
and change are essential properties of things, the forces causing the motion
are not outside the objects, as in the classical Greek view, but are an
intrinsic property of matter. Correspondingly, the Eastern image of the Divine
is not that of a ruler who directs the world from above, but of a principle that
controls everything from within.
The basic
elements of the Eastern world view are also those of the world view emerging
from modern physics. They are intended to suggest that Eastern thought and,
more generally, mystical thought provide a consistent and relevant
philosophical background to the theories of contemporary science; a conception
of the world in which man’s scientific discoveries can be in perfect harmony
with his spiritual aims and religious beliefs. The two basic themes of this
conception are the unity and interrelation of all phenomena and the
intrinsically dynamic nature of the universe. The further we penetrate into the
submicroscopic world, the more we shall realize how the modern physicist, like
the Eastern mystic, has come to see the world as a system of inseparable,
interacting and ever-moving components with man being an integral part of this
system.
Space and Time:- In the West, the notions of space and time were so deeply rooted in the minds of philosophers and
scientists that they were taken
as true and unquestioned properties of nature. The belief that geometry is inherent in nature has its origin in Greek thought. The Greeks believed that
their mathematical theorems were
expressions of eternal and exact truths
about the real world, and that geometrical shapes were manifestations of absolute beauty. Geometry
was considered to be the perfect
combination of logic and beauty and was thus believed to be of divine origin. Hence Plato’s dictum, ‘God is a geometer.’ Since geometry was seen as the revelation of
God, it was obvious to the
Greeks that the heavens should exhibit perfect geometrical shapes. This meant that the heavenly bodies had to move in circles and the earth was
presented at the centre with a series of concentric crystalline spheres. Later, Greek geometry exerted a strong influence on Western philosophy and
science.
Eastern philosophy, unlike that of the Greeks, has always maintained that
space and time are constructs of the mind. The Eastern mystics treated them
like all other intellectual concepts; as relative, limited, and illusory. In a
Buddhist text, for example, we find the words, It was taught by the Buddha, oh
Monks, that . . . the past, the future, physical space . . . and individuals
are nothing but names, forms of thought, words of common usage, merely
superficial realities. Thus in the Far East, geometry never attained the status
it had in ancient Greece, although this does not mean that the Indians and
Chinese had little knowledge of it. They used it extensively in building altars
of precise geometrical shapes, in measuring the land and mapping out the heavens,
but never to determine abstract and eternal truths. This philosophical attitude
is also reflected in the fact that ancient Eastern science generally did not
find it necessary to fit nature into a scheme of straight lines and perfect
circles.
The ancient Eastern philosophers and scientists already had the attitude
which is so basic to relativity theory-that our notions of geometry are not
absolute and unchangeable properties of nature, but intellectual constructions.
In the words of Ashvaghosha, Be it clearly understood that space is nothing but
a mode of particularisation and that it has no real existence of its own . . .
Space exists only in relation to our particularizing consciousness. The same
applies to our idea of time. The Eastern mystics link the notions of both space
and time to particular states of consciousness. Being able to go beyond the
ordinary state through meditation, they have realized that the conventional
notions of space and time are not the ultimate truth. The refined notions of space
and time resulting from their mystical experiences appear to be in many ways
similar to the notions of modern physics, as exemplified by the theory of
relativity.
The new view of space and time which emerged from relativity theory is
based on the discovery that all space and time measurements are relative. The
relativity of spatial specifications was, of course, nothing new. It was well
known before Einstein that the position of an object in space can only be
defined relative to some other object.
Einstein realized that observers move at different velocities will order
the events differently in time. The relativity of time also forces us to
abandon the Newtonian concept of an absolute space. Such a space was seen as
containing a definite configuration of matter at every instant; but now that
simultaneity is seen to be a relative concept, depending on the state of motion
of the observer, it is no longer possible to define such a definite instant for
the whole universe. A distant event which takes place at some particular
instant for one observer may happen earlier or later for another observer. It
is therefore not possible to speak about ‘the universe at a given instant’ in
an absolute way; there is no absolute space independent of the observer.
Relativity theory has thus shown that all measurements involving space
and time lose their absolute significance and has forced us to abandon the
classical concepts of an absolute space and an absolute time. The fundamental
importance of this development has been clearly expressed by Mendel Sachs in
the following words: The real revolution that came with Einstein’s theory . . .
was the abandonment of the idea that the space-time coordinate system has
objective significance as a separate physical entity. Instead of this idea,
relativity theory implies that the space and time coordinates are only the
elements of a language that is used by an observer to describe his environment.
This statement from a contemporary physicist shows the close affinity
between the notions of space and time in modern physics and Eastern mystics.
Since space and time are now reduced to the subjective role of the elements of
the language a particular observer uses for his or her description of natural
phenomena, each observer will describe the phenomena in a different way. To
abstract some universal natural laws from their descriptions, they have to
formulate these laws in such a way that they have the same form in all
coordinate systems, i.e. for all observers in arbitrary positions and relative
motion. This requirement is known as the principle of relativity and was, in
fact, the starting point of relativity theory.
The germ of the theory of relativity was contained in a paradox which
occurred to Einstein when he was only sixteen. He tried to imagine how a beam
of light would look to an observer who travelled along with it at the speed of
light, and he concluded that such an observer would see the beam of light as an
electromagnetic field oscillating back and forth without moving on, i.e. without
forming a wave. Such a phenomenon, however, is unknown in physics. It seemed
thus to the young Einstein that something which was observed by one observer to
be a well-known electromagnetic phenomenon, namely a light wave, would appear
as a phenomenon contradicting the laws of physics to another observer, and this
he could not accept. In later years, Einstein realized that the principle of
relativity can be satisfied in the description of electromagnetic phenomena
only if all spatial and temporal specifications are relative. The laws of
mechanics, which govern the phenomena associated with moving bodies, and the
laws of electrodynamics, the theory of electricity and magnetism, can then be
formulated in a common ‘relativistic’ framework which incorporates time with
the three space coordinates as a fourth coordinate to be specified relative to
the observer. In order to check whether the principle of relativity is
satisfied, that is, whether the equations of one’s theory look the same in all
coordinate systems, one must of course be able to translate the space and time
specifications from one coordinate system, or ‘frame of reference’, to the
other. Such translations, or ‘transformations’ as they are called, were already
well known and widely used in classical physics.
In relativistic physics, a new situation arises because time is added to
the three space coordinates as a fourth dimension. Since the transformations
between different frames of reference express each coordinate of one frame as a
combination of the coordinates of the other frame, a space coordinate in one
frame will in general appear as a mixture of space and time coordinates in
another frame. This is indeed an entirely new situation. Every change of
coordinate systems mixes space and time in a mathematically well-defined way.
The two can therefore no longer be separated, because what is space to one
observer will be a mixture of space and time to another.
Relativity theory has shown that space is not three-dimensional and time
is not a separate entity. Both are intimately and inseparably connected and
form a four-dimensional continuum which is called ‘space-time’. This concept of
space-time was introduced by Hermann Minkowski in 1908, the views of space and
time have sprung from the soil of experimental physics, and therein lies their
strength. They are radical. Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are
doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will
preserve an independent reality.
The concepts of space and time are so basic for the description of
natural phenomena that their modification entails an alteration of the whole
framework we use in physics to describe nature. In the new framework, space and
time are treated on an equal footing and are connected inseparably. In
relativistic physics, we can never talk about space without talking about time,
and vice versa. Throughout Eastern mysticism, there seems to be a strong Physics intuition for the ‘space-time’ character of
reality. The fact that space and time are inseparably linked, which is so
characteristic of relativistic physics, is stressed again and again.
Greek natural philosophy was, on the whole, essentially static and
largely based on geometrical considerations. It was, one could say, extremely
‘non relativistic’, and its strong influence on Western thought may well be one
of the reasons why we have such great conceptual difficulties with relativistic
models in modern physics. The Eastern philosophies, on the other hand, are
‘space-time’ philosophies, and thus their intuition often comes very close to
the views of nature implied by our modern relativistic theories. Because of the
awareness that space and time are intimately connected and interpenetrating,
the world views of modern physics and of Eastern mysticism are both
intrinsically dynamic views which contain time and change as essential
elements.
The Eastern
mystics assert that in transcending time, they also transcend the world of
cause and effect. Like ordinary notions of space and time, causation is an idea
which is limited to a certain experience of the world and has to be abandoned
when this experience is extended. In the words of Swami Vivekananda, Time, space, and causation are like the glass
through which the Absolute is
seen . . . In the Absolute there is neither time, space, nor causation.
The Eastern spiritual traditions show their followers various ways of
going beyond the ordinary experience of time and of freeing themselves from the
chain of cause and effect-from the bondage of karma, as the Hindus and Buddhists say. It has therefore been said that Eastern
mysticism is a liberation from time. In a way, the same may be said of
relativistic physics
Conclusion
Science emerged
with the help of Greek philosophers and scientist who formed different schools
to promote their paradigms. The history of science points out that there is
relation between science and religion. Religion emerged with the influence of
scientific quest not based on faith; later it became a faith community. Christianity
as a religion was formed and influenced by west and western philosophies but it
spreads to Eastern mystical world. We are living in the world of mysticism in
which mystics attain to think God who is beyond our understanding.
Bibliography
Frifjof Capra,Tao of Physics,( Colorado: Shambhala
Publications,1975)
Hawking, Stephen. A brief history of Time
Kuln, Thomas. The structure of scientific revolutions (Chicago: Univeristy of
Chichago press,1962)
[1] The division of something
conceptually into two opposed aspects; mind and matter
[2] Relating to Rene’s teachings or
his ideas; Follower of Descartes.
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