The Philosophy of Life

by Swami Krishnananda

The World of Science

The term universe signifies the totality of space, time and matter. Modern physical science has discovered that matter has no independent existence but can be reduced to the ultimate constitution of the space-time manifold. Ordinarily, space is conceived as extendedness with three dimensions, and time as a consciousness of the succession of events in space. Thus, common perception makes an empirical distinction between space and time. But scientists like Minkowski, Einstein and Eddington have tried to demonstrate and prove that every event in the universe has a four-dimensional character. What we perceive is not space and time but a space-time continuum. Matter itself is found to owe its origin to a particular feature discoverable in the space-time manifold. A kink or twist or curvature in space-time is said to be responsible for the appearance of what is commonly called matter. The nature of this curvature is dependent upon the quality and the amount of matter that it contains. The greater the matter, the greater is the curvature. And this curvature it is that goes by the name of gravitational force.

Philosophers like Kant denied any externality to space and viewed it as a necessary mode of objective perception, a special condition of the sensibility. Space, however, is not a creation of any individual mind, for all perceptions are contained in it, though it is possible for us to believe that space may be a mode of perception by a cosmic mind. In these days, there is a tendency to reduce perceptual space to certain kinds of relationship between bodies, to position, distance and direction. Even these relations are external, objective and real to all perceiving minds and are not the creations of any particular mind. Space, thus, becomes a cosmic factor necessary for the perception of things by all minds.

Time appears as an element very necessary in the understanding of any event completely. It is not enough if we merely understand the three dimensions—right and left, up and down, far and near—related to an object or event. We also require to know, in addition to these factors, a fourth dimension—succession in terms of before and after. Such temporal succession in space is called time, and due to the peculiar manner of the reaction of our minds to events that occur in space in what we call succession, we are made to create a distinction between past, present and future. The succession is really continuous, and no genuine demarcation can be made in it. But, on account of the play of our minds in the form of sense-perception, memory and imagination, such a threefold distinction is made in the passage of time. In fact, the present is only a concept. It does not exist as distinguished from the past and the future. In actual practice the present turns out to be the subtle concept of an infinitesimal part of the succession of events, which directly appears as a content of sense-experience. The past has an infinite history and the future has infinite possibilities. The present fades away either to eternity or to nothingness.

Space, time and matter, however, have a common origin which contains all these in a unified and homogeneous form in what is designated today as the space-time continuum. The Newtonian conception of absolute space and absolute time with localised bodies in them has been abandoned, and the concept of gravitation itself has undergone a new orientation. Matter is fast losing its solidity and evaporating into an indescribable energy which is now considered to be the matrix of the universe. According to Einstein and his followers, the ultimate physical reality of the universe is space-time. The inequalities, the twists, the curved nature of space-time constitute the visible matter. This means that matter can be reduced to energy and the space-time manifold. Newton’s theory that material bodies are drawn out of the straight line which would be their natural course of motion, in the direction of other material bodies by a peculiar force called gravitation, has been now supplanted by the discovery that no such force does exist, that bodies are not pulled in that way, but that what is called the gravitational force is a peculiar curvature of space around bodies of matter. The path of any material body in the region of this curvature is determined only by this curvature, and not by any other force called gravitation.

The stable universe of Newton has disappeared into a cosmos of relativity with space-time as its ultimate basis, constructed out of lines of force and intervals of events. There are no objects, only events; no points of space, only waves of energy. The visible universe is, therefore, not the real one. In the hands of the modern physicist the real universe becomes a supersensible object. We are given, instead of a hard, tangible and visible universe with the qualities conveyed to us by our senses, a universe of mathematical point-events, symbols, which in the end clamour for being reduced to nothing but thought. To James Jeans, the universe is a construction of a cosmic mathematical mind, which may be called God; and to Arthur Eddington, the universe is of the stuff of a cosmic mind or consciousness. An enquiry into the ultimate reality of the physical universe has ended practically in a negation of it by the most advanced scientists of today, and in a return to mind and consciousness as its reality. Physics has landed itself in metaphysics, and the scientist has become a philosopher. Matter is slowly disclosing its essential psychical and spiritual being.

Inadequacy of the Mechanistic Conception of Life

Mechanism is the theory that all existence, organic or inorganic, can be explained by matter, motion and force, and that no other thing is necessary for an understanding of life. Physics and chemistry are held to be competent to explain the processes of the universe in its totality. Every event is reduced by this theory to the movements of particles of matter in space. Higher forms of life are said to differ from the lower ones only in the complexity of their structure. Physical laws and chemical elements constitute the ultimate reality of the universe. Individuals differ from one another, not in their essential constitution, but in the manner in which they manifest themselves in life. The universe is supposed to work like a machine by means of physico-chemical laws. Even living organisms are not outside the laws of physics and chemistry. Evolution is purely mechanical; nothing new is ever created.

This mechanistic scheme of life is unable to explain the purpose that is seen in Nature. There is creativity and freedom manifest in organic evolution. The continuous adjustment of internal to external conditions is not done in a mechanical way, but with a definite purpose in view. There is new creation at every step, which is observed to be directed by a conscious purpose which is entirely different from blind mechanical impulse or push. Evolution is the progressive adaptation of life to its environments, a movement towards greater freedom, an assertion of the presence of a higher Intelligence which seeks to overcome the obstruction of matter in greater and greater degrees. There is a creative synthesis involved not only in the process of organic evolution but even in the organisation of electrons and protons into atoms, atoms into molecules, molecules into cells, cells into living organisms. In all this process there is noticed a synthesising tendency which cannot be attributed to the mechanical structure of physical bodies. A movement deliberately directed to an end that is yet to be realised cannot be said to be blind. It is not difficult to see that being manifest an inherent tendency to reach a goal common to all of them, which naturally makes one believe that there is a universal force at work everywhere, actuating all beings towards the attainment of their essential existence.

The view that there is new creation at every step should not be taken to be identical with the theory of the emergent evolutionists of the West. It is held, for example, that oxygen and hydrogen are the causes of water; but as these causes do not have the characteristics of their effect even in the least, the emergent evolutionists think that there is an entirely new property manifested in the effect, which was not present in the cause. While denying the claims of mechanism, they are anxious to uphold the untenable theory that something can come out of nothing. In other words, it means that there can be an effect without a cause, for the special features appearing in water are said not to exist in its causes, viz. oxygen and hydrogen. This theory is obviously not acceptable on the very face of it, for we never see something coming out of nothing. That oxygen and hydrogen taken separately give no hint of the property of water shows, not that water has properties quite independent of those of oxygen and hydrogen, but that our observations of the essential constituent properties of the causes of water are today imperfect and very inadequate for the task. Complex organisms do not manifest entirely new characteristics, but make manifest those features that were already present in the cause, though imperceptible to and unrecognisable by even the acutest scientific examination. All hidden elements need not necessarily reveal themselves to analysis by means available at present to human beings. The new qualities that appear in effects are the results of the manifestation of a greater amount of reality, and this reality will be found to be commonly present in all things, though unevenly revealed in them. Evolution is not creation but an unfoldment of potential being. In most cases this potentiality is invisible and even unimaginable. Inorganic matter cannot express thought, emotion or understanding, and the reason for the appearance of the latter in higher organisms is to be ascribed not to physical laws but to the nature of a reality which is endowed with such properties. If, on the other hand, there is an entirely new creation at every stage of evolution, there would be no possibility of a cosmic consciousness, an instantaneous knowledge of the past, present and future, which many sages claim to have in profound meditation. God is said to be omniscient; but even He cannot be so if there is an eternal and absolutely new creation every time. There cannot even be any such thing as eternity, if only the theory of emergent evolution is to be admitted as it is presented today. Only the acceptance of the view that evolution is an unfoldment of latent existence can explain satisfactorily experience as given in the world.

Living organisms exhibit a peculiar aptitude and capacity to grow, select, adjust, feel, preserve and reproduce, which cannot be seen to be present in inorganic bodies. Freedom and choice are the special prerogatives of living organisms, which matter does not have. Highly developed organisms struggle to overcome the encumbrances of unsuitable environment and finally succeed in their attempt. They use intelligence, tactics and methods which we cannot see functioning or operating in inorganic matter. The principle that directs the process of change, transformation and evolution is held by many to be a mind endowed with a consciousness of a specific destiny. A. N. Whitehead gives voice to the tendency of the present day to go beyond the mechanistic theory to the theory of organisms. He says that science is now becoming the study of organisms and that biology is the study of the larger organisms, whereas physics is the study of the smaller organisms. Right from electrons and protons up to the highest kind of living bodies, there is to be observed a process of organisation into more complex structures. All this complicated process is ultimately under the guidance and direction of a reality that is immanent in all things,—the principle of consciousness. Whether we agree with him or not in regard to all his propositions, there is no doubt that Bergson made an epoch-making advance in the attempt to break down the old belief in the ultimate competency of mechanistic laws to explain the phenomena of life. The conception of a driving force in evolution has a long history of its own. Huxley and Loeb propounded a mechanistic theory of life. Aristotle in ancient days, and Driesch in recent times, posited a vital force or some non-material principle. Bergson brought forth his elan vital and Lloyd Morgan and Samuel Alexander a nisus, for evolution. Hobhouse is inclined to think that there is a mind at the back of evolution operating as its propelling force. Eddington comes near the Vedanta when he admits a universal mind as the highest principle reigning behind all forms of life and existence. He says that the proud knowledge which the theory of relativity has given to the scientist today is after all, in regard to the nature of things, an empty shell—a form of symbols. “It is knowledge of structural form, and not knowledge of content. All through the physical world runs that unknown content, which must surely be the stuff of our consciousness. Here is a hint of aspects deep within the world of physics, and yet unattainable by the methods of physics. And, moreover, we have found that where science has progressed the farthest, the mind has but regained from Nature that which the mind has put into Nature” (Space, Time and Gravitation: p. 200). The ingressive evolution of Whitehead throws much light on the possible truth of the fact of evolution. There is not any particular cause preceding any particular effect in the succession of events in time, but there is a universal interaction of forces, wherein each element is equally a cause and an effect when viewed with a cosmic vision of things. When the intellect functions within the framework of space-time, it is forced to look at the position of the cause as antecedence in time; but the whole question of time is finally solved in that consciousness which envisages the entire scheme of the universe in an eternal now and an infinite here.