I will be more of a Bohr than an Einstein

Re: Re: Mantric Poetry (SA & postmodernism?) by RY Deshpande on Sat 10 Feb 2007 06:15 AM PST Profile Permanent Link I think we should meticulously avoid the danger of slipping into the Grecian kind of speculative explorations or discussions. I will be more of a Bohr than an Einstein. The strong pillar of the physical sciences has been empirical rationalism and walking away from it will be straying into the marshy-foggy places. That is why I detest all talk about quantum mechanics coming from sachchidananda.

Re: Re: The Zero-Point Field (Lab verifications?) RY Deshpande Fri 16 Feb 2007 07:55 AM PST Profile Permanent Link I think, linking up philosophy with science or science with philosophy should always fall in the purview of empirical rationalism if it has to have any meaning for science. To see quantum behaviour of an electron as Shiva’s dance is mixing up issues which belong to different domains—a risky business popularised by Fritjof Capra. Empirical rationalism is a precious gain and should not be frittered away by extraneous considerations. Which also is not to mean that it can abrogate all judgement to itself. Hawkins would like to tell us again and again that, in the imaginary time in which the big bang occurs, there is no need for a God to create a world. Here he is not talking science, and in fields other than science his opinion need not have any value. Similarly, we have to also guard from the opposite tendency.

But there are deeper issues—in science itself. One of them is how to get out of the Newtonian trap into which we have fallen. Can we apply our old geometrical notions of gross space and time to a world where things have become too subtle—yet material—for us to figure out. 10:07 PM