Vedic texts divide experience into the seer, the seen, and the seeing. We can also call these the knower, the known, and the knowing. What we commonly call ‘consciousness’ is the process of seeing or knowing. This seeing or knowing is a property of the soul—the seer or the knower—but it operates under the knower’s control. Thus, the knower is distinct...
Hierarchical space brings a problem of having to reconcile a fixed hierarchy of material elements in an observer with the fixed hierarchy of the different planetary systems in the universe. The problem is that every living being in the universe has a morality, ego, intelligence, mind, senses, properties, and sense objects, but these living entities are also situated at different levels...
Darwinian evolution or evolutionary theory predates the development of modern physics—e.g. quantum theory. At the time at which the theory was developed, the best-known theory of matter was classical physics, in which matter always exists in definite states. Ideas such as random mutation and natural selection in evolution were incompatible with classical physics because randomness was injected into evolution. In quantum...
While writing mathematical equalities, we assume that if A = B, then B = A. But this principle doesn’t hold in logic when we employ two concepts, one of which is more general than the other. For example, “cat is a mammal” doesn’t imply that “mammal is a cat” because even dogs are mammals. Logic tries to solve this problem using...
Last year, I wrote a post on the Twin Paradox in relativistic theory, followed by another post on the nature of Dark Energy and Dark Matter, which I never published. The reason I never published the latter post is that I felt that this could be developed into a full-fledged work on Vedic cosmology. I have spent the last few months...
It is commonly assumed that science describes objective facts about the world, which are discovered through measurements of physical properties. The problems in this measurement are generally not understood, and this post describes them, highlighting two key issues of circularity and recursion in the definition of measurement. How these problems are addressed in Indian philosophy is also discussed.
Modern science grew out of the idea that the universe is comprised of independent parts, and a complex system can be reduced to these parts without loss of completeness. The independence of parts became the basis of reductionism―the idea that the whole is simply a linear sum of parts. Sometimes, this reduction fails, and then it becomes necessary to postulate that...
The Twin Paradox in Einstein’s Relativity Theory describes a thought experiment in which there are two identical twins, one of whom makes a journey into space in a high-speed rocket and returns home to find that the twin who remained on Earth has aged more. This post analyzes the paradox and describes the difference between Clock Time and Conscious Time. The...
This post describes a problem in Evolutionary Theory that arises when we consider why all living beings eventually die. I will compare the death of a living being to a computer program that halts after completing execution. The issue of program halting is problematic in computing theory because current computing models do not incorporate meanings. A similar problem exists for living...
The below is a modified version of a response I wrote recently on Google+ in response to a question about the conflict between reason and faith. The response is also detailed in my recent book Uncommon Wisdom. This essay will argue that the manner in which science has construed the use of reason (and experience) – i.e., the path to discovery – cannot...
The main goal of today’s academic research is to keep the pretense that the situation is, after all, not all that bad. I say this because, if you happen to take a closer look at the biggest outstanding problems facing academic research you will find problems that require not just a patch; they require a drastic overhaul, a fundamental revision to conceptual...
