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it should behave. This is the famous two-slit experiment which is the backbone of quantum mechanics and particle wave duality. If one goes to still finer constituents of nature beyond electrons, photons and even quarks, the duality may be replaced by multi-facetedness or manifoldedness. The atma is considered to be ati-sukshma, so it may be reasonable to expect that it will have more attributes, may be infinity of attributes.
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Let us first talk about Complementarity and Anekantvad. Even Neils Bohr who propounded the basics of quantum mechanics had great difficulty explaining it. And he did it through his principle of Complementarity. The principle of Complementarity, is the most revolutionary and significant concepts of modern physics. The Western philosophers and scientists had a lot of difficulty in understanding and developing quantum mechanics. The contradictory results indicated that photon (or electrons) sometimes behaves as a particle and sometimes as a wave. This could not be reconciled because of the basic problem that wave and particles were considered to be exclusive or different. Bohr explained by saying that contradictory behavior is complementary and used the Chinese concept of Yin and Yang, which are both opposite but exist together and are required for completeness. Ekantvad has been variously described as the theory of many-foldedness, non absolutism, non equivocality. Literally it is defined as the theory of non-one sided ness, implying the many sided nature of reality. Some times anekantvad is contrasted with Ekantvad which stands for definite and categorical asserted philosophical position.
In the physical world, as in philosophy, things or ideas have plurality of attributes and these can be apparently contradictory or conflicting. Anekantvad successfully harmonises or accommodates such views and completes the description of physical reality. But when we talk of manyfoldedness, the question obviously arises, how many. Certainly more than one but can it be infinite? saptbhangi or sevenfoldedness is a corollary of Anekantvad. This has been very clearly explained by D.S.Kothari in his essay on" Complementarity principle and Eastern philosophy".
Anekantvad not only explains seemingly contradictory propositions in daily life, philosophy, macroworld, mental exercises and in spiritual domain, it brought in the concept of Avyakta or inexpressibility of certain states. Questions which cannot be answered in affirmative or negative, like the existence of soul, could be dealt with in the framework of Anekantvad. It is, it is not; it is and yet it is not, it cannot be expressed and so on. This concept is common to Quantum behavior, which cannot always be expressed in language. Anekantvad is not simply a multiview perception theory. It is not a limitation of consciousness that it has limited capability of perception of the physical world. Thus it is not looking at an object from different perspectives but that the object cannot be known from all the perspectives. Anekantvad is as fundamental as the uncertainty principle, which states that some properties can
Jain Education International 2010_03
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JAINA:
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2005
In the physical world...things or ideas have plurality of attributes and
these can be apparently contradictory or conflicting. Anekantvad
successfully harmonises or accommodates such views
and completes
the description of physical reality
Extending Jain Heritage in Western Environment
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