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First Steps of Jainism
true that we will also realize that these concepts are not well defined in the scientific sense and that their application may lead to various contradictions, for the time being we may have to take the concepts unanalyze d as they are; but still we know that they touch reality. It may be useful in this connection to remember that even in the most precise part of science in mathematics, we cannot avoid using concepts that involve contradictions. For instance, it is well known that the concept of infinity leads to contradictions that have been analyzed, but it would be practically impossible to construct the main parts of mathematics wiihout this concept... Whenever we proceed from the known into the unknown we may hope to understand, but we may have to learn at the same time a new meaning of the word 'understanding'. We know that any understanding must be based finally upon the natural language because it is only there that we can be certain to touch reality, and hence we must be sceptical about any scepticism with regard to this natural language and its essential concepts. Therefore, we may use these concepts as they have been used at all times. In this way modern physics has perhaps opened the door to a wider outlook on the relation between the human mind and reality". (p. 171-73)
Modern Physics has warned us against the dangers of overestimating the value and utility of precise scientific concepts : for example, the fundamental concepts of classical physics no longer hold in quantum mechanics. In describing atomic phenomena "if one wishes to speak about the atomic particles themselves one must either use the mathematical scheme as the only supplement to natural language or one must combine it with a language that makes use of a modified logic or of no well-defined logic at all. In the experiments about atomic events we have to do with things and facts, with phenomena that are just as real as any phenomena in daily life. But the atoms or the elementary particles themselves are not as real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts”. (p. 160)
A favourite maxim of Bohr of interest in connection with Syadvada is the distinction between the two kinds of truths, profound truths and trival truths. For a profound truth its opposite or negation is also a profound truth. For a trivial truth its opposite is false, an absurdity. Statements expressing the highest wisdom often involve words whose meaning cannot be defined unambiguously. "Thus the truth of a statement of the highest wisdom is
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