Laws of Nature

The Implications of Compression and Incompressibility

No two people are completely alike. No two roses look exactly the same. No two oranges are identical. Even as we classify the world into concepts, those classifications do not entail that two things are exactly alike. This fact is accommodated in modern physics by permitting different distributions of matter and energy, subject to some additional constraints (e.g., that the total...

Dharma vs. Law

Modern society is based upon the idea of “laws”. These laws exist in religions, social organizations, and sciences, and they are considered “universal”. For instance, the laws of a nation apply to all citizens of a nation. The laws of a religious institution or business apply to all the members of the institution or business. And the laws of science apply...

The Conundrum of Free Will

Since the beginning of science, nature was believed to be controlled by some laws which can be used to make predictions about the future independent of the individual observers. The observers cannot have choices because through these choices the future could be changed, in contradiction to the laws of nature. Therefore, if free will exists, then there cannot be predictive laws...

Universalism and Personalism in Science

The laws of nature in current science are mathematical formulae that predict the behavior of objects deterministically, which precludes any role for choice and morality in nature. Therefore, if nature permitted choices, how would we reconceive natural laws? In Vedic philosophy, the law is a material entity called a role which defines the expected behaviors but doesn’t preclude choice. The interaction...

Why Sāńkhya Doesn’t Have Objects of Action

Even a casual look at Sāńkhya reveals an apparent asymmetry in its ontology, namely that there are five sense-objects called Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Ether, corresponding to the five senses of knowledge Nose, Tongue, Eyes, Skin, and Ears respectively, but there aren’t corresponding sense-objects for the five senses of action, namely, Hands, Legs, Anus, Genitals, and Speech. Why do senses...