________________
A Critique
207
SECTION VI BASIC UNITY OF PHYSICS AND
PHILOSOPHY
A. REALITY AND EXPERIENCE
Knowledge through Physics
In Physics, knowledge is acquired through the process of scientific investigations. Experimental facts about the observed phenomena are correlated and a mathematical model theory is worked out. Eventually, for the benefit of the nonphysicists, a model/theory, in ordinary language, interpreting the mathematical scheme is formulated. Very often, the theories have to be modified or sometimes even dropped altogether, if the experimental evidences continue to contradict the model/theory. Abstraction is a crucial feature of the whole process and consists a map of reality. This can represent only some features of reality ; and is very much ambiguous and inaccurate, having many contradictory meanings. The realization that all models and theories are approximate is basic to modern science. They can never explain all the aspects of reality, and will, therefore, never give a complete description of the real situation.
Knowledge through Supervision
All schools of philosophy in India are agreed that philosophical speculation is a necessary discipline of the mind which strengthens convictions and attenuates doubts. But the ultimate truth cannot be realized by philosophical discipline alone, which is only a means to that end. Indian philosophers are, also, agreed that the plenum of knowledge can be attained by the development of a super-vision which is a potentiality in all of us. The Jains are emphatic that omniscience is the condition as well as the result of perfection. And however much we may advance in our philosophical enquiry and scientific pursuit (which are not antagonistic in their aim inspite of their difference in method and lines of approach), it cannot by itself bring about the final consummation.
Ist
