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| Science and Spirituality Jahangir Satti, Ph.D. |
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| “Do you also study science?” Once I inquired from a teenage beard sprouting seminary student seated next to me while travelling from Kohala to Muzaffarabad, Azad Kashmir in 1990s. “No, science is infidel”, he replied. I could not dare to tell him that I was a student of science on my way to teach Physics at the University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir. Science neither endorses nor rejects religion. Science tries to interpret our physical world and scientific theories may not be consistent. We have gaps in our theory of biological evolution. We have many sets of sciences in Physics to describe phenomena at different levels. Our classical mechanics is appropriate to explain things at macro scales. Yet we have to discard classical mechanics and adopt other tools, such as quantum mechanics, to explain material properties at particle levels. Not yet enough to unify the fundamental energies, physicists have developed string theory or the Theory Of Everything (TOE). String theory assumes that our universe is composed of extremely small strings of dancing matter. Mathematically such formulation satisfies the fundamental requirements to explain everything. Is it possible to prove string theory? May be never. If we expand an atom to the size of our solar system, then a string will be the size of a tree on our planet earth. Any theory that can be proven mathematically but impossible to verify practically falls into the domain of philosophy rather than physical sciences. Our reductionist models are good to explain some properties of matter but lack universal applications. We cannot use our string, quantum or classical physics to explain biological processes. Further, we have hard time to understand phenomena associated with photons, which we will discuss later. Does this mean science is imperfect or faulty? Or let’s put it this way, ‘there is a lot more in this cosmos which needs explanation than our existing knowledge can offer’. There are billion of stars, such as our sun, in our galaxy also known as Milky Way. There are billion of such galaxies in this universe. How much is a billion? If you sit down and start counting, it will take you over 95 years to count one billion. How far apart these galaxies are? Billions of light years. If you travel at the speed of light, which is 186000 miles per second, then it will take you billions of years to travel across some galaxies. And this universe is expanding in space which is curved. If it is curved then there should be wormhole where one can travel from one curved corner to another in relatively short time. A naive example can be: One can travel from Pakistan to Bangladesh via India in short time compared to travelling via Europe, Atlantic, North America, Pacific, South-East Asia and then to Bangladesh. The planets in the space are like dense metallic balls spread over a tightly stretched sheet of cloth representing as space. Our universe is filled with unimaginable things such as green stars which are million times more brighter than our sun and black holes which do not let even light to escape from their gravitational pulls. This is one side of the picture of our universe. At the particle level, an atom is a very small unit. Consider there is 5 kilograms of sugar and we just pick up one grain out of it. The number of atoms in this one-grain is almost equal to total numbers of grains in 5 Kg sugar. Yet each atom has over 200 waves/particles in it. While comparing oneself with this huge cosmos, one departs from his/her commonsense approach. People, who use a reductionist approach to ascertain this universe, end up believing that an individual human, not to speak of an animal, plant, bacteria, or a particle, has no or an extremely insignificant role in this great cosmic machine. If we compare our life span with the cosmic age, it appears as an insignificant event of some quantum order. If we compare our size with respect to our universe it appears meaningless. If we try to ascertain our role in this giant cosmic scheme our every action seems of zero impact. To a reductionist the entire cosmos appears as a mechanistic scheme. To a religious person such a mechanistic explanation seems infidel. Such an approach rules out any role or even the existence of any deity. This is also true with those physicists who understand the limitations of their discipline. In fact at this stage we enter into a contradictory world of science.
If a similar contradictory approach were adapted in other disciplines,
as we do in Physics, it would be conveniently described as hypocrisy.
Interestingly J.P. Thompson won Nobel Prize in 1937 for showing
that an electron is in fact a wave (diffraction of electrons by
crystal.) Earlier in 1906, his father J.J. Thompson already won
Nobel Prize for showing that an electron is a particle (conductivity
of electricity through gases). Who was right, father or son? Was
the first Nobel Prize awarded in error? This is where you have to
walk, talk and live with eternal contradictions in sciences. How
one thing can be wave and particle at the same time? It is either
day or night, not together. In fact, both father and son were right,
as an electron is a particle and a wave at the same time. Scientists
call it duality of matter or more precisely complementary theory.
We have wave and particle, algebra and geometry, day and night,
zero and infinity, organic and inorganic, classical and quantum,
etc. as examples of complementarity. These phenomena are mutually
exclusive but coexist in their domains. In fact they are not ‘contradictory’
but complementary. The complementary theory features a “wholeness”
of our cosmos or also known as holistic approach. Nature is unpredictable, indeterminate, illogical, random, chaotic and haphazard at quantum levels which we want to avoid for our routine living functions. You plan a project to achieve certain results. No one will support a project that claims unpredictable results. If you know the velocity and total time of a moving object then your formula should be able to accurately calculate the traversed distance. However, such an accuracy is not possible at quantum levels. And if indeterminacy is the law at quantum level then how this cosmos operates? Where is our scientific accuracy? Even our universal constants are not so much “constant” and change with time. But for some scientists this is an unacceptable truth – the bitter one. Even Einstein fought against complementary theory for thirty-five years and miserably failed. His famous quote, “God does not play dice” was his ultimate frustration with this bizarre and indeterminate behavior of our universe. It is also interesting to note that V. I. Lenin, who tried to apply reductionist analytical approach toward social issues, vehemently rejected quantum approach. Social arena is one of the best examples to notice the indeterminate concepts of quantum world. Despite huge strides in material arena and global appeal the rigid social system collapsed due to the lack of flexibility, dynamism and spirituality. If things are random and the outcome is like tossing a dice then how accurate are our scientific theories at fundamental levels, is the perplexing question? And if such a chaotic and randomness exist at most fundamental levels then how science can accept or reject (for that reason) religious beliefs. Einstein, like Newton and many other scientists, was religious. Here we have another dimension in scientific interpretation rather than practicality of our theories. How do scientists try to interpret science while maintaining their beliefs? Can they be impartial? The matter of fact is that measurements of quantum particles with macro instruments itself are partial and the outcome is affected by what people used to describe as the law of uncertainty. Even the intentions of the experimenter can influence the outcome. If that is true, which it stands to be, then how can we be impartial in our any scientific inquiry? |
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