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Modern Physics and Syadvada 99
function and Riemann surface. The different values of a multiform function and distributed on different Riemann planes of a Riemann surface. Similarly we may say that the different meanings of the same word belong to different planes of objectivity'. "The use of words in everyday life must be subject to the condition that they be kept within the same plane of objectivity, and as soon as we deal with words referring to our own thinking, we are exposed to the danger of gliding on to another plane. In mathematics, that highly sophisticated language, we are guarded against this danger by the essential rule never to refer to ourselves. But just as the gist of Riemann's conception lies in regarding all the branches of a multiform function as one single function, it is an essential feature of ordinary languuge that there is one word only for the different aspects of a given form of psychical activity. We cannot hope, therefore, to avoid such deep rooted ambiguities by creating 'new concepts'. We must rather recognise the mutual relationships of the planes of objectivity as primitive, irreducible ones, and try to remain keenly aware of them" (Rosenfeld p-49).
Bohr often used to tell how the ancient Indian thinkers had emphasized the futility of our ever understanding the "meaning of existence". And he would add that the one certain thing is that a statement like "existence is meaningless" is itself devoid of any meaning.
In his Gifford Lectures (1955-56) on Physics and Philosophy Heisenberg has discussed at some length the problem of language and reality in modern physics. He emphasised that the concepts of natural or ordinary language "are formed by the immediate connection with reality; they represent reality. It is true that they are not very well defined and may therefore also undergo changes in the course of the centuries, just as reality itself did, but they never lose the immediate connect!on with reality" (p.171). On the other hand becaues the concepts of science are for the precisely defined, idealized, their connection with reality is in general, only in a limited domain of nature. Heisenberg says: "Keeping in mind the intrinsic stability of the concepts of natural languuge in the process of scientific development, one sees that after the experience of modern physics-our attitude toward concepts like mind or the human soul or life or God will be different from that of the nineteenth century. Because these concepts belong to the natural language and have therefore immediate connection with reality. It is For Private & Personal Use Only
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