How can knowledge of God be understood in scientifically acceptable terms?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, science looks for facts in order to get reliable, verifiable knowledge. But for God and spirituality, we rely on Shabda Pramana. So, is there any way we can acquire knowledge about God in a way that science can accept? There are two different points over here.
One is the method of acquiring knowledge and the second is the reality of what knowledge is acquired. So, science, when we acquire knowledge through science, at one level, science seems to give us knowledge of reality. Newton observed a fruit falling and he tried to postulate, what is the cause of it? Why did this fruit fall? He came up with the principle of gravity.
But you see over here, science began, people say science depends on facts. But what do we mean by facts? Are we talking about tangible, touchable, visible, real things? If that is what we are talking about, then science actually progresses by moving from the visible to the invisible. The visible was what? Newton observed the fruit falling.
But from that he postulated something invisible. That is the principle of gravity. And in fact, the whole progress of knowledge happens by, in any field we take it, in science also, we move from visible specifics to invisible principles.
Science progresses like that. And in fact, if instead of Newton there had been a monkey who had observed the fruit falling, the monkey would have just eaten the fruit and gone away. So, animal is called as pashu.
And one of the etymologies of pashu is pashyati iti pashu. One who relies on seeing too much, one who over relies on visual perception, that is a pashu. So, even scientific knowledge cannot be acquired if we insist on seeing is believing.
Science actually moves from the visible to the invisible. Now, there are three modes of acquiring knowledge. There is prateksha pramana, there is anuman pramana, there is shabda pramana.
In terms of modern modes of acquiring knowledge, there is prateksha pramana is empiricism. Anuman pramana is rationalism. So, empiricism means we focus on empirical visible realities.
Rationalism means there is more of reasoning and thinking. And by that we acquire knowledge. So, in classical Newtonian physics, empiricism and rationalism, they are married together.
Both of them are going together. But at the turn of the 20th century, when the black body radiation was discovered and the source of gravity, where was it coming from? Those unanswered questions, they were answered through the development of quantum physics on one side and the development of relativity physics on other side. And these basically caused a divorce between empiricism and rationalism.
So, for example, relativity focuses on things as they exist. We see particles, we see objects. And how do the objects move about? That is what relativity tries to explain.
So, relativity basically begins with observed reality and then tries to have theories that explain the observed reality. Quantum physics begins primarily with mathematics, begins with theory. And then it looks for the coherence of the theory.
It looks for the accuracy of the mathematics. And it focuses on rationalism. Rationalism means theoretical coherence.
How rationally, mathematically, logically, reasonably intelligible it is. But the result of this is quantum physics comes up with a worldview which we can’t view. That means quantum physics basically says everything is just waves.
And Einstein himself was exasperated with the worldview that emerged from quantum physics. One of his most famous quotes critiquing quantum physics is, he says that, if everything, quantum physics is complex. But the point is that quantum physics says everything depends on, there is no such thing as this wall existing.
There is no such thing as ceiling existing. When I look at it, the wave collapses into a perception of a wall. So now Einstein said, you know, I would like to believe that the moon continues to exist even if I am not looking at it.
Is it? So what he means is actually quantum physics implies that if I am not looking at it, the moon doesn’t exist. It is just basically a wave which collapses. I am using very simple language over here.
These are technical subjects. The point I am making, when I am saying I am using simple language, I am just making broad statements that, so quantum physics basically focuses on, it just says that what you see doesn’t matter. So quantum physics rejects pratyaksha and focuses only on anumaya.
And it tries to say if you cannot harmonize with pratyaksha, then just reject pratyaksha. So as long as the theory makes sense, there is a famous mathematician, one of his students, he came and asked him. Physicist basically, quantum physicist.
He asked him, sir, this quantum physics, how do I visualize it? How do I perceive this? He says, shut up and calculate. So he says, you know, as long as the maths works, it’s fine. So the problem now is that quantum physics and relativity, these two are two very different ways of looking at the world.
They are not just different, they are contradictory. According to quantum physics, the world is made simply of waves. According to relativity, it is actually made of particles.
Now what is it actually? Since 1920s, 1930s, researchers have been trying to find out, there is a science author who wrote a book, basically the story of the history of science over the 20th century. And the title of the book he gave is, From Certainty to Uncertainty. From Certainty to Uncertainty.
So what has happened is, previously scientists thought that we are acquiring knowledge of reality. When we study, we are acquiring knowledge of reality. But now this conflict between quantum physics and relativity is so great.
And Steven Weinberg is a prominent atheist. He said that by the turn of the 20th century, in 1980s he said, by the turn of the 20th century, we will have answers to all the questions of how quantum physics and relativity will coincide. But by the 20th century he said, we have made great progress, but the more progress we have made, the more we have understood how big the problem is.
So the more quantum physics has advanced, the more relativity has advanced, the more the difference between the two has become bigger and bigger. So Stephen Hawking, he also in 2004, he said, he just gave up, he said, he gave up, but he concealed his in a typical spin-doctoring way. He said, I am happy to announce that humanity’s quest for knowledge will never end.
What that means is, we will stay in ignorance. Basically, so the point is, scientists now, if you look at them, they basically say that science is not a quest for knowledge of reality. Science is basically a quest for knowledge of correlations between observed features of reality.
So quantum physics offers a certain kind of correlations and relativity offers a certain kind of correlations. So science is basically offering us a map of reality. Quantum physics offers us one kind of map, which is useful in one way.
Relativity offers another kind of map, which is useful in another way. But those two maps just don’t match. And what is the reality that they are mapping, that is completely out of our scope.
That is just, you know, it is, most scientists say they don’t talk about reality. So science basically gives us a model of reality. It does not give us a reality.
And that model depends on which kind of theory which we are using. So just like, if I have India, I can have a physical map of India, which describes, okay, here there is a hill, there is a mountain, here there is this, there is rivers. That is one kind of map.
And I can have a political map of India, this is Maharashtra, this is Karnataka, this is Madhya Pradesh. So the different maps have different focuses. But suppose we use a map, suppose, you know, say I have to go from here to Pune to meet a friend.
And I take a map and I find that the map is precise. It tells go here and come to a bridge, then you come to a river, then you go left, then you come. Every single landmark that it gives is fine.
It works very well. And then finally I reach Pune, I knock on my friend’s door, and my friend opens the door and says, Oh, welcome. And I look at my map.
You don’t exist in the map. Therefore, you don’t exist. Now my friend will say, your intelligence doesn’t exist.
Isn’t it? I am not meant to be there in the map. So the map gives us something which is connected with reality. But the map is not an exhaustive depiction of reality.
So now, why I am talking about all this is, the map is describing physical features. It does not describe people. So like that, when science starts studying reality, it begins by focusing on matter and material things.
And that non-material is left out of the map. So we as conscious beings are not there in the map of science. We are just not there in that map.
So what we need to do is, spirituality and science, they are not contradictory. They are basically having different focuses. So if you consider spiritual knowledge or scriptural knowledge to be like a big circle, within that there will be one sector which agrees with science, there will be one sector which disagrees with science.
But there is a huge section which is actually beyond science. So beyond science means, that science just can’t address issues which are non-material. So our focus in studying scripture is primarily to experience the non-material reality.
So can spirituality offer us something which can be verified by science? See by definition itself, spirituality is beyond matter. And science focuses on matter. But there is a field, that is the area of the mind.
The mind is matter but it is subtle matter. Spirit is transcendental. Now science itself is finding it very difficult to deal with the mind.
The biggest health crisis in today’s world is mental health problems. And all the psychiatry is trying to deal with it, often a very perplexing because what is the mind is not understandable. So at the level of the mind, when there is tangible transformation that happens.
Now people, they are irritable, they become peaceful. People have uncontrolled emotions, their emotions become calmed down. Martin Luther King had said that our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power.
Talk about modern society, our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men. So what that means is, that science is offering us a particular kind of knowledge which is very powerful in particular ways.
But the current frame of science does not allow anything non-material to be introduced. And that’s why to try to prove God or soul through the current frame of reference of science is trying to show a color picture through a black and white TV. It’s intrinsically impossible.
But what can be done is, the frontiers of science can be expanded. That means, does science necessarily have to stick to material reality? That is not necessary. The definition of science can be expanded.
And that requires a lot of work. So when you talk about bhakti, it is a spiritual science, it is not a material science. Spiritual science means, this is when bhakti, the experiment is on the consciousness.
The experiment is an experience. And when we, by the process of bhakti, we ourselves become purified, we ourselves become transformed. Transformed in a way that people can appreciate.
People ask, what makes you tick? Scientists are also not just unidimensional experiment performers. Scientists are also human beings. And they also want to become better human beings.
Scientifically minded people also, they see, we are human beings, we can use science as a source of knowledge, we can use spirituality as a source of knowledge. Whichever empowers us to become better. So today technology is showing that science, technology is showing how there are better ways in which we can control the outward.
And people are attracted by that. But through spirituality, if we demonstrate, that spirituality empowers us to control the inner world. And then we demonstrate ourselves as transformed people.
We become transformed and we share that process of transformation with others. That is also scientific. Scientific not in the sense that it can be empirically demonstrated.
It is not in terms of experiments can be done as controlled experiments in a scientific laboratory. Rather, it is something which is verifiable. It is something which is repeatable.
It is something which is reasonable. So that way we can offer, in the expanded sense of science, in the transformation of individual beings, we can offer something which people, even scientifically minded people and even scientists can appreciate. And then they can become open to the transforming power of spirituality.
One last question. Thank you very much. Shri Prabhupada Ki Jai.