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110 First Steps to Jainism
Syadvada should keep us not to continue the search. For example, in the geometry of Euclid, the sum of the three angles of triangle is two right angles. The negation of this theorem is a new geometry in which the sum of three angles of a triangle is not equal to two right angles. It was some two thousand years after Euclid that non-Euclidean geometry was discovered in the nineteenth century.
Einstein's theory of general relativity is based on this geometry. When we know that both 'A' and not-A are correct, we are ready to move on to a deeper layer or a plane of reality which corresponds to the simultaneous existence of both A and its negation. The deeper plane cannot be described in terms of the conceptual framework which describes 'A' and not-A : In this framework it is avayakta. In the conceptual framework of 'A' and not-A, for any particular situation, either A is true or not-A is true. The two being mutually exclusive cannot be simultaneously true. Think of the example of an atom in a box. In the framework of classical physics, as described earlier, the atom is either in the box or it is outside the box. There is no third possibility at this level or plane of reality. We have called this plane Lo. The Syadvada assertion of the simultaneous existence of 'A' and not-A, in some, strange, not explicable in the plane Lo, leads us on to the search for a new deeper framework, or new dimension, of reality characterised by features not explicable in L. Call the new framework L. An understanding of L, will eventually lead on to a still deeper layer L,, and so on. Syadvada is a dynamic dialectic taking us ever deeper and deeper in the exploration and comprehension of reality. What is now and of the utmost significance as vividly brought out by modern physics, is the fact that Syadvada provides a valuable guide and inspiration for fundamental studies in science and mathematics. The Syadvada, indispensable for ethical and spiritual quest and for ahimsa, is also of the greatest value for the advancement of natural science. In case this seems surprising we may remind ourselves of the profound words of Erwin Schroedinger : "I consider science an integrating part of our endeavour to answer the one great philosophical question which embraces all other, the one that Plotinus expressed by his brief-who are we? And more than that : I consider this not only one of the tasks, but the task, of science the only one that really counts".
For the quest of truth, scientific, moral and spiritual, what is
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