Jaina Logic

Author(s): T G Kalghatgi
Publisher: Raja Krisen Jain Charitable Trust New Delhi

Page 93

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Jain gode Consider an idealized situation which brings out the agentials. There is an 'atom' in a closed box'. The box is divided by a partition into two equal compartments. The partition has a very small hole so that the atom can pass through it. The hole can be closed if desired. According to classical logic the atom can be either in the left compartment (L) or in the right compartment (R) There is no third alternative. But the new physics forces us to admit other possibilities to explain adequately the results of experiments. If at all we use the word 'box' and 'atom', then there is no escape whatsoever from admittingin some strange way which totally defies description in words - that the same atom is, at the same time, in both the compartments What we are speaking of is not a case of the atom being sometimes in the left compartment and sometimes in the right compartment; but being in both the compartments at the same time It is an idea crazy beyond words. And so it is But there is no escape
In this way, Dr. Kothari analyses the situation in respect of the position of an atom in a closed box and shows that to talk in the language of atomic reality, and not from the plane of everday reality, it is important to recognise that to talk of things in the plane of everyday reality in the language of the plane of atomic reality is to talk nonsense. “In terms of the plane of everyday reality it is inexpressible or avaktavya. It is this inexpressibility or avaktavya-property that provides a clue, a pointer to the existence of the plane of atomic reality
Dr. Kotharı further analyses the seven modes of syadvada and shows how the quantum mechanical representation can be presented in the Syadvada models of description.
Professor N. Umakantha, Department of Physics, Karnatak University, Dharwad, has prepared a paper on the epistemological significance of Syadvada with special reference to the theory of probability. In that paper he has made use of a new concept "Represental" in addition to the particular denoting an individual and the universal connoting the universal signifying