Today we disucessed the influence of Sripad Bhaktisvarupa Damodara Maharaja on Dr. Roger Penrose’s new conception of the cyclical nature of the universal creation. The article that we are reading during the satsanga may be found at http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=859062
Dear Devotees and Friends:
Please accept our humble dandavats.
Hare Krsna.
Here is the recording for 10 August 2008 satsanga.
Right-click here to Download
(downloads – 222)
In the Satsanga a scientific discussion is presented about “Identity and personality” and thus a platform is proposed to help distinguish the human being from that of other form of living beings exist in the universe.
http://www.animalliberationfront.com/Philosophy/Morality/Speciesism/MirrorMirrorEvidence.htm
—————————————————————————
Thinking is an activity. Knowing is an activity. That means consciousness is also an activity. Hegel said that the “I” is pure restlessness, pure activity, or pure negativity. Activity means change. And whatever changes must negate its present situation in order to change or appear in another situation. For a flying arrow its present position in space must be negated in order to move to a further position in space. The tensed bowstring imparts the force to the arrow for its movement or its negation of place to take occur. But in the case of thinking, what is the force that is activating it? According to Aristotle, thinking moves itself. It is self active or spontaneous. For him, thought thinking itself is God. This must not be misconceived as our thought or finite thought, but the Infinite or Pure Thought of the Absolute, from which all other finite movement comes.
When thought reflects upon itself, i.e. when thinking thinks about thinking, this self-reflection is what is called I. So we can understand why Aristotle called this God. The “I” also means identity. When I ask what is my real identity, I am asking, “who am I?” When someone wants to establish your identity, they want to know who you are.
Identity is generally thought to refer to a numerical unity or one. However, that is not the case, because identity is a comparative term. In other words two things are required. Identical twins refer to two bodies. Even self-identity requires thought as subject, dealing with itself, its own thought, as object. So it apprehends itself by dividing itself. Or it reflects upon itself, i.e. makes itself object to itself as subject. In this way we say “I.”
Consciousness is subjective and has an object of consciousness. But consciousness can also be conscious of itself. In that case it is called self-consciousness or Ego. Consciousness can also take different forms or shapes, such as knowing, thinking, feeling or willing. In that case it is called Mind. It can also take the form of a sensuous object. In that case it is called sentient. Behind or implicit to all these different forms, however, is thinking, although it may not be explicit to the consciousness when it is in its different forms.
Depending on the different forms of consciousness an individual may not be able to access all the other forms of consciousness. Some may not be able to access their mathematical intelligence, or others their literary intelligence, or linguistic intelligence, etc. Some may not be able to access their artistic ability, and different forms of life, such as animals, are not able to access their thinking capacity. They are able to feel, and usually have strong feelings, and senses, but thinking is not accessible to them, even though it is there implicitly even in animals. Thus Man is called a rational animal. He is distinguished by his ability to think, and not merely act instinctively.
For knowing, what is the necessary requirement? Knowing that an object is there is one requirement, but it is also required to know what the object is. These are not the same thing. Knowing that something is there refers to its being, but knowing what is there requires a determination of its being or determinate being. And what does that require? Determination requires thought or the explicit thinking aspect of consciousness, which we have explained is constituent of consciousness. Thinking, or the content of thinking, is what constitutes our personality, or the person. In order to be a person, there must be consciousness, but more significantly, when we say, ‘I,’ we must be thinking, as Descartes claimed.
When the true knowledge or consciousness of the self or ‘I’ and our relationship with God are unknown or we are unconscious of that, then the individual in ignorance identifies with a limited or vitiated form of consciousness, and that is called the false ego.
We can understand that there is a restricted (or conditioned) and unrestricted (or liberated) sense of self. In the unrestricted or universal sense, the ‘I’, exists in all the instances, circumstances, or arrangements of my body. I call myself ‘I’, whether I am sitting, standing, eating, running, thinking, whatever. Whatever the body is doing, ‘I’ remains the same. The body may be young, old, or middle-aged. The body keeps on changing – the situations of the body keep on changing, but ‘I’ remains the same. Just like the river Ganges, sometimes it overflows, sometimes it even changes its course, sometimes it has less water, sometimes more water. The water is always moving, changing, but still the flowing river is always identified as the Ganges. This means that the Ganges is something universal, i.e. it is an idea that is not associated merely with some particular sensuous experience. Similarly, the body is particular, the mental state is particular: sometimes we are happy, and sometimes we are unhappy. The mind is changing, the body is changing, but the ‘I’ remains the same.
So the ‘I’ is of a different categorical nature than the situations that the ‘I’ identifies with. Thus we can categorize ‘I’ as a universal entity that is, moreover, not an entity or thing, but pure activity, as we explained before. However the ‘I’ is also not infinitely universal. Mathematicians know that there are different types of infinity, some larger than others. In other words, I can know from a first person perspective what is going on with my body, but not what is going on with yours. So the universality of my ‘I’ is limited. ‘I’ is a universal, but it is a limited universal. So the proper term would be infinitesimal, as our infinity is limited.
Human beings are special among all the creators of the universe, because they have developed thinking to a very high degree of abstraction, and due to that they can understand a concept like ‘I’. Non human creators can’t say ‘I’, because their thinking is not so exclusively developed. Thus it is not possible for them to think: “Why am I suffering?” They must simply suffer their fate, unhappily, no doubt.
What is the influence of the negative activity or the activity of thinking on the positive activity of the body and vise versa? We can’t say “positive” if there is no negative. There is relation; one can’t exist without the other. They are related although they are totally opposite. In electricity we have negative and positive charges, and in a magnet north pole and south pole, but they are complete opposites. Thinking can’t be detected by the senses. But if what we think about is a sensuous object then it has a positive significance to us. We call the experience of the sensuous or empirical field positivity. But we also experience thinking, and since it is not sensuous experience we can call it negativity.
The negative is always related to the positive, and positive is always related to the negative. For example an object, say, a dog is here and a cow is there. From a sense point of view the dog and cow can be felt, seen, smelled and so on. But thinking or making the judgment that, here is the dog, there is the cow is not a sense activity. The determination that what is in front of me is a cow is not a sense determination, it is a judgment. I see some black, some white, some long, some big, some different qualities. I am seeing, but the judgment of what that I am seeing, that is coming from another place and not from the senses.
There are so many things in this world that are black, white, small and long. However, this information is not enough to say that, that thing is a cow. Senses can only detect the qualities of the thing like color, the shape, the weight, the hardness and the softness. But to determine what that thing is, requires another principle that is a non sensuous principle. Thus it is above the senses.
The word cow, the idea cow doesn’t come from the senses. It comes from the mind or the thinking. That is called judgment. To say ‘this is’ and then give it a name means to judge what this is. When we say ‘this’, we utter an ‘indexical’ or referential word – an abstract thing. ‘This’ refers to everything and thus ‘this’ is indeterminate. To determine what ‘this’ is requires a judgment or determination. Determining of ‘this’ means thinking is involved. To think what ‘this’ is, to give some definition to this, is called determination or thought.
So from where does the thought of cow come? The word or idea is coming from thought. From where the thought of cow is coming we don’t actually know. That may not be the word cow, it may me ‘go’ in Sanskrit. ‘go’ and cow are the same word actually, they sound the same, they come from the same word. The original word was ‘go’ and in English it came down to cow. But from where the original word ‘go’ came from we can’t say.
From all of this, I hope we can see that identity is a very important idea. Scientists don’t know much about it. They use it, but like “cow” and so many other words, they don’t know much about what they are saying or what they are doing. Still, identity is a very fundamental concept for them. For example, scientists think only in terms of atoms and molecules. For them identity means the atom. The atom, in chemistry, generally retains its identity regardless of whatever situation it is in. For scientists the atom or molecule is the basic principle of identity. They are the things that maintain their identity throughout time and throughout different circumstances or situations.
The identity of the carbon atom remains throughout all its occurrences in chemistry. Of course in physics, from the nuclear principle it is different. Carbon can be broken down into neutron, proton, electron and all those subatomic particles become the principle identities. But otherwise, the carbon atom is the same in a rose and a caterpillar. How can we distinguish the carbon which is present in both rose and caterpillar? Scientists can’t speak about what distinguishes the carbon in a rose and a caterpillar, because their focus for identity is based upon atoms and molecules only. This is foolishness. They are not realizing that they are invoking the category of identity at a very low level, or one specific level. But the idea of identity exists at the grass level, at the caterpillar level, at the cow level, at the man level, at the level of a planet and earth. We can find identities at all levels, and they cannot all be encompassed at the level of the identity of atoms.
You can browse year/month wise Streaming Satsanga MP3s at: http://mahaprabhu. net/satsanga/ .
Timing of weekly Satsanga: 6:00 PM India time, Every Sunday.
You may visit http://mahaprabhu. net/satsanga/ about/ to know the details about joining process for the online “Weekly Satsangas”.
All Glories all Sadhus, Guru and Vaisnavas.
Thanking you.
Your humble servants
Purushottama Jagannatha Das &
| Subscribe to Satsanga Mailing List | |
| Transcendental Nectar of Satsanga | |
Sir Isaac Newton
Newton ’s three laws of motion are well known in scientific literature. The first one is called the law of inertia. According to the first law an object at rest tends to remain at rest and an object in motion tends to remain in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an external force.
The second law is the one most people are familiar with in the science courses and is know as law of force. According to the second law, the acceleration of an object as produced by a net force is directly proportional to the magnitude of that force, in the same direction as the net force, and inversely proportional to the mass of the object. The same can be expressed as a = F/m.
Constant velocity is called speed but acceleration is the change in speed or change in the velocity of an object. So if the velocity is described with the symbol ‘v’ then acceleration is the change in ‘v’ with respect to time ‘t’. In calculus it is described by ‘d’ differentiation, i.e., differential symbol ‘dv’ over ‘dt’ and we can express the acceleration as a = dv/dt. This indicates that acceleration is the change in velocity per unit change in time. When we drop something from a building — say a penny, the penny is at rest (v= 0) when we are holding it in our hand but when we drop it, it immediately begins to accelerate due to the force of gravity acting upon it. As it continues to move downward (increasing x) it will move at increasingly higher velocity. If that penny should hit someone on the head it may kill him/her depending on what velocity it has reached. Normally, if we drop a penny on someone’s head it won’t cause any damage. But if we drop it from a high distance and it falls on the head that same penny can crack the skull and kill the person. Thus it is to be concluded that it is not the penny which is responsible for killing the person, rather it is the velocity.
The third law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. According to Newton ’s third law, whenever two objects interact with each other both of them apply forces upon each other. The interaction can be possible when, the objects are in physical contact with each other or they are physically separated. Thus forces in general are classified as contact forces and action-at-a-distance forces. Frictional/resistance force, tensional force and normal force are the contact forces and on the other hand, gravitational force, electrical force and magnetic force are the action-at-a-distance forces.
A devotee asked a question to His Holiness Bhakti Madhava Puri Swami (BMP), Ph.D. of Bhaktivedanta Institute, in the weekly Satsanga on 3rd of August, 2008: “What is the purpose of Newton ’s first law? Is it not true that first law is just a natural conclusion of second law? The second law states that F=ma. According to the second law, if the force ‘F’ is zero then the acceleration ‘a’ is zero, and if the acceleration ‘a’ is zero then the force ‘F’ is zero. Thus can we accept that the first law is a special case of second law and there is no need to mention it separately?” BMP explained the various details in answering this question and said that Newton ’s first law is more than just a special case of the second law. The first law describes a negative force and thus is a negative law. According to first law if we don’t apply enough force to a body, it won’t move. The first law is not merely applicable to zero force but it includes forces which are not sufficient to generate change in the speed/rest of a body. The first law tells us what force is needed to change the speed of a body, or what resistance has to be overcome. If the mass is too big as compared to the applied force then the force will be negated and thus can be called a negative law since it explains the negation of force. For example a small meteor can hit the earth with appreciable force but it may have no effect on the speed of the earth.
It is also sometimes explained in the scientific literature that that Newton ’s first law establishes the inertial frame by which we measure acceleration. That becomes important when we talk about, say, movement inside an airplane. If we drop a ball from our hand sitting in an airplane, and if the airplane is accelerating, the ball won’t drop. It will move backwards at first, i.e. it will move horizontally. Hence, apparently it is violating Newton ’s law of gravity. Thus we must know what the inertial frame of reference is, since without that Newton ’s law may not be properly applied.
Hence the first law is essential and can’t be replaced as a special case of second law. First we must know the inertial frame of reference and then we can know about the accelerating frame of reference. We know from Einstein’s general theory of relativity that Newton ’s laws are not valid at very high velocities approaching the speed of light, or for very massive bodies. This is because of the Lorentz transformation SQRT(1 – v2/c2)-1 that becomes very important when v à c, where c is the speed of light. Thus Newton ’s laws have to be replaced by Einstein’s equations.
The devotee further asked the question, “Does the concept of inertia create the notion of will that a body posses? Materialists argue that the sense of ‘I’ and instinct of survival are nothing but the manifestation of inertia, a simple property of a body of matter.” BMP explained that organic matter is a spontaneously acting dynamic system. Matter is considered inert and doesn’t spontaneously move. What is causing matter to come to a state of spontaneous dynamic equilibrium? In other wards a living body is violating the inertial laws by moving and maintaining its ‘self’ against the environment. It is violating the law of inert matter. That is why we don’t expect that matter would give rise to life. The living body is not only a dynamic system but it is exchanging matter with the environment – taking matter in through a boundary and similarly eliminating matter. Inert matter is not expected to exhibit this type of spontaneous dynamic behavior.
We don’t know how we could interpret the dynamic equilibrium of living organisms with inertia. Inertia refers to the property of matter to remain in an unmoving state, or even if it is moving how it can establish any dynamic equilibrium without assistance. Sometimes it is argued that a living organism wants to continue living, so life has also a conservation principle similar to matter. It is the property of matter to conserve itself, so life has also the property of conservation.
We also agree with that. The conservation principle of life is known as sat in Vedic literature. But that would mean that the living organism will not die. Then, how can scientists explain the conservation of life at the death of a living organism?
Big Bang Model
We know the conservation law of matter – matter can neither be created nor destroyed. Of course applying Einstein’s theory in the case of matter we can transform matter into energy and energy into matter, i.e., E=MC^2. So conservation of matter means it can’t be created or destroyed but it can be transformed. Thus the destruction of both energy and matter can’t happen at the same time. Here is a big problem. Where does this energy and matter come from if it can’t be created? The Big Bang will be in trouble if we show that the matter and energy are somehow created. Thus it seems to violate some very fundamental principle of physics – conservation of matter and energy.
But as we mentioned, for life, if the conservation principle holds there, then how can scientists explain death. And how can they explain the creation of life? How can they explain that from non-life, life comes and again from life, non-life comes? This seems to violate any law of conservation or inertia that materialists may invoke. We accept that life is a separate principle (atma) from matter and thus can be conserved. But modern science has not yet advanced to this point.
Here is the recording for 03 August 2008 satsanga.
Right-click here to Download
(downloads – 163)
You can browse year/month wise Streaming Satsanga MP3s at: http://mahaprabhu.net/satsanga/ .
Here is the recording for 20 July 2008 satsanga.
Right-click here to Download
(downloads – 247)
Peter Higgs
Here is the recording of the 11 May 2008 satsanga.
Right-click here to Download
(downloads – 399)
