Refutation of Western Materialism On the basis of Jain Philosophy

Author(s): Mahendrakumar Muni Dwitiya
Publisher: Z_Kailashchandra_Shastri_Abhinandan_Granth_012048.pdf

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The modern materialists, on the basis of this theory of earth's formation, conclude that 4000 million years 17 ago, when the earth came into existence there was no life, and hence there was no existence of anything like soul or consciousness of mind. It was 2900 millions years after the birth of the earth that life came into existence. The existence of mammals and birds extend over only to 60 million years while that of man only 1.5 million years. Thus mind is only a very late production. It should therefore be considered only as a qualitative transformation of matter itself, and not as an ultimate reality,
Now the cosmological argument can be shown to be invalid not only on logical basis but on scientific basis too. Modern scientific investigations have made it clear that neither the universe nor "life" is merely confined to the earth 18 Not only this, but the recent researches tend to show that "life" is older than the earth”. The scientists of Bradford University have found in the meteorites some material identical to the one found in the living cells. Commenting on this recent development, the critic of The Times of India 19 observes : Is there life elsewhere in the universe and was there life before the earth was formed ? Sceptics and legend-lovers continue to say 'no' and would want a flying saucer with extra-terresterials in it taken to their door-step before they would believe any such thing. But they have to think again : new evidence has been gathered which shows that life did evolve independently of what happend on the eurth. Chemical analysis made at Bradford University shows that material identical with sporopollenin, which can only be formed insids living cell, has been found in meteorites. The usual argument advanced here is that it is a contaminant. But since the chemical forms four percent of the meteorites weight, the local contamination theory fails”.
"Sporopollenin is the biological material that forms the outer coating of pollen grains. Ordinary physical processes could not have created it on the planet's surface because in such conditions it is unstable and quickly decomposes. It is also felt that the theory that life on the earth evolved by natural processes out of a prebiottc soup of inorganic chemicals is not necess:irily tenable. The Bradford Researchers think that the earth wss seeded with life from outside from another world or worlds”. Thus it can be seen that the cosmological argument has got subverted on the scientific basis.
Now we shall try to clinch the cosmological argument on logical basis. It is a matter of common experience that living objects essentially differ from material objects in that former possess "consciousness" where as the latter does not. Now the law of material cause, which is accepted as a fundamental law in logic, states that the quality which is intrinsically non-existent in a substance cannot be created by any kind of transformation. But the above hypothesis of the qualitative transformation assumes the production of "life" from "matter" which essentially lacks "consciousness". Thus, it is inconsistant with the above law, and hence, it must be rejected as illogical.
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