Dear Dr. Nalin Thanki,
Sorry for a delayed reply to your mail. I had to be out of station for some time and could not attend to my mails. I am fully in agreement with your views on Science that one can do good science without borrowing anything from Vedanta. But the following points remain as true:

A. Science can illuminate only a small part of the reality and it can never ever reveal the whole truth. If one is fully satisfied with this situation, further discussions are unnecessary.

B. Some basic inputs into science (the paradigm shifts) come from outside of sciene ( it could be vedatic ideas as well). Thus the concepts of simplicity, truth, beauty, symmetry, unification etc. are not of science itself but are the contributions from a wider percepective. Fully empirical things also are acceptabel as science, but human mind remain unsatisfied and seeks models with better 'values'

C. Human mind is at the root of everything and any understanding of this unique phenomenon in the universe will throw open much wider vistas on reality. Thus there is room for philosophy and vedanta which can accompany science if not within it. Von Neumann knew about this long ago and he has prooved a theorem in 1948 that an essential ingradient in any experimental system is the human conciousness without which the whole experimental set up is totally meaningless. This prompted J.D. Bradley to comment that "a universe simple enough to be understood by human mind is too simple to produce a mind which is able to understand it".
Science is not able to provide any satsfactory answer to the question "Why all these laws ?".Do they operate only in inert matter or can they affect more compex systems like human mind?
I agree that these questions are not of much relevance to operational part of science in a lab, but are of great importance to our undersatding of the universe and its functioning. Our ancient seers had clear ideas on these fundamental questions which have remained essentially the same in spite of the march of Science and Technology upto 21 st century. No one appears to have made any improvements to their original answers.
A profound and deep discussion on such matters in English is available from the writings of Sri Arabindo who himself was a great revolutionary. He accepts science and goes beyond it.
I may not have provided answers to your satisfaction, neverthless I have tried to point to you the directions in which one can try to seek answers. Best regards

GIRIJAVALLABHAN

Article sent by Dr.C.P.G. Vallabhan (vallabhan@vsnl.com)

PhysicsWeb (April)

Quantum physics says goodbye to reality

Reality is in the eye of the observer, experiment reveals

URL: http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/11/4/14/1

Comments: A good article on Q.M and reality!

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Dear Professor GirijaVallabhan,
>
> I am a scientist and also a student of Vedanta. I recently came
> across your paper "Indian Influence in the Development of Quantum
> Mechanics" which I found informative and fascinating. I was writing
> to ask a question. Currently I'm interested in doing some research on
> the slightly broader question of the influence of Eastern philosophy
> on Western science (in general). I wanted to ask whether you are
> familiar with other examples of this stream from east to west in the
> realm of science. You mentioned Oppenheimer and, of course, David
> Bohm was very influenced by Krishnamurti. If you have the time could
> you point me in the direction of other examples? Thanks for any help
> you can give.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Robin Weeks
>
> Affiliate Assistant Professor
> Earth and Space Sciences
> University of Washington,
> Seattle.

Dear Dr. Robin Weeks,
Thank you very much for your mail. I am very happy to learn about your interest in Science and Vedanta. I am glad that you could appreciate my article on Indian influence in the development of Q.M. Your interest in the broader theme of influence of Eastern Philosopy in modern science is certaily a worth while one. This aspect has been discussed nicely in the recent book "Doubt and Certainty" by Tony Rothman and George Sudarshan (Persues Books, USA, 1998). In my opinion the concept of Unified Field Theory is nothing but the "Advaitha Philosophy" of 7th Centuary Indian Seer, Adi Sankara. I will be glad to be in touch with to discuss more on this. Best Regards

Dr.C.P.GIRIJAVALLABHAN
Director, CELOS &
Dean, Faculty of Technology
Cochin University of Science & Technology
Cochin 682022
Tel: 91 484 2577540(O), 91 484 2346869(R)

Dear Professor GirijaVallabhan,
>>
>> I am a scientist and also a student of Vedanta. I recently came
>> across your paper "Indian Influence in the Development of Quantum
>> Mechanics" which I found informative and fascinating. I was writing
>> to ask a question. Currently I'm interested in doing some research
>> on the slightly broader question of the influence of Eastern
>> philosophy on Western science (in general). I wanted to ask whether
>> you are familiar with other examples of this stream from east to west
>> in the realm of science. You mentioned Oppenheimer and, of course,
>> David Bohm was very influenced by Krishnamurti. If you have the time
>> could you point me in the direction of other examples? Thanks for
>> any help you can give.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Robin Weeks
>>
>> Affiliate Assistant Professor
>> Earth and Space Sciences
>> University of Washington,
>> Seattle.

Dear Dr. Robin Weeks,
> Thank you very much for your mail. I am very happy to learn about your
> interest in Science and Vedanta. I am glad that you could appreciate
> my article on Indian influence in the
> development of Q.M. Your interest in the broader theme of influence of
> Eastern Philosopy in modern science is certaily a worth while one.
> This aspect has been discussed nicely in the recent book "Doubt and
> Certainty" by Tony Rothman and George Sudarshan (Persues Books, USA,
> 1998).
> In my opinion the concept of Unified Field Theory is nothing but the
> "Advaitha Philosophy" of 7th Centuary Indian Seer, Adi Sankara.
> I will be glad to be in touch with to discuss more on this.
> Best Regards
>
> Dr.C.P.GIRIJAVALLABHAN
> Director, CELOS &
> Dean, Faculty of Technology
> Cochin University of Science & Technology
> Cochin 682022
> Tel: 91 484 2577540(O), 91 484 2346869(R)

Dear Dr Girijavallabhan:
>
> Thank you for including me in your email distribution - I appreciate
> this.
>
> I graduated from King's College in Electronics with honors and have a
> reasonably good understanding of QM but I am not a postgraduate
> student of QM however I am keenly interested in it.
>
> My first email to you explained my doubts about linking it to Vedanta.
>
> I would appreciate your help in how and where my thinking stops being
> rational. I have been trained as a scientist to be first and foremost
> a rationalist - Karl Popper being the guiding light much more than any
> other.
>
> Abdus Salam - a devout Muslim and with Nobel Prize in Physics 1979 -
> cannot claim, unless he can prove, that his discoveries in Nuclear
> Physics proves certain aspects of Islam. Or can he?
>
> Please enlighten.
>
> I would like to believe as you do but as it is I can not. Please show
> where my thinking is faulty.
>
> Thanks.
>
> === Nalin.