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Syntropy 2013 (2): 243-279
ISSN 1825-7968
talk of spiritual evolution which essentially talks of evolution of consciousness. In view of several problems faced by the modern world, there is a need to have an extensive comparison between these two types of evolution so that some better model of evolution and direction of development can be evolved.
In view of these issues, it is observed that most of the development in science and technology and their economic exploitations have resulted in a large increase in the entropy at all levels starting from the human brain to the whole biosphere. Hence the concept of "order" as defined in the case of General Systems Theory needs to be closely examined in view of irreversibility of the human systems. It is proposed that the Jain concept of evolution of consciousness might be closely related with some kind of order at different levels.
The importance of consciousness is explained using an example through extraordinary memory of Swamy Vivekananda and two examples of satavdhanies who have amazing mental capabilities. An evidence is also given to mention that ancient Indians through this knowledge of consciousness might have even tried to estimate the size of the smallest particles of matter, This may inspire the scientific community to take up the concept of consciousness in a serious way, because its evolution might be directly lead to new concepts of even development. It is also illustrated that spiritual processes mentioned in Jain philosophy could provide new direction for development and concepts of knowledge and evolution which may be accompanied by a reduction in entropy production in the brain as well as in the society and the atmosphere at different levels (Pokharna 2012).
Not only this, the role of consciousness and thought processes isalso elaborated by David Bohm (1951). His concept of the implicate order and explicate order provides a new way of looking at the world. Also we should emphasize that the process based thinking and interconnectedness of various components of nature is most essential to understand the modern problems in a systematic way. Hence Jain philosophy needs to be reexamined in the modern perspective.
Section 2 briefly summarized the consequences of scientific, technical and economic development in producing entropy production in the world. Section 3 illustrates the limitations of scientific methodology due to conservation laws. Section 4 highlights further limitations of scientific methodologies in handling any system and mention the Godel's incompleteness theorems which describe such approaches and hence a need to develop an abstract concept of consciousness. Section 5 and 6 elaborates limitations of science as applied to living systems and need to use General Systems Theory. Section 7 explains that there is a need for a concept of consciousness and its evolution in the modern science if we look at these issues in a systems perspective. This section deals with the possibility of knowledge through consciousness as mentioned in Indian philosophies and recognized by many
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