u/NH2111

In the sixth century BCE, early Greeks asked the first metaphysical question: “What is the fundamental nature of reality? Is there an underlying essence or element from which everything comes into being?”

Around second century BCE, the Nasadiya Sukta¸ the ‘Hymn of Creation’ in Rigveda highlighted the impossibility of finding an answer. It said:

But, after all, who knows, and who can say,

Whence it all came, and how creation happened?

The gods themselves are later than creation,

So who truly knows whence it has arisen?

________

What is the cause of causes? Is there an objective reality – independent of observation? The question of ‘being’, the question that Aristotle thought to be “first philosophy."

When Einstein posed such a question to fellow scientist Neil Bohr, it wasn’t out of curiosity, but frustration. “Does the moon exist when nobody is looking at it?”

Quantum Mechanics had somehow dragged science back into the arena of metaphysics and the greatest minds of 20th century were asking the same questions which the philosophers of the past did – what truly exists?

_________

Reading ‘Quantum’ by Manjit Kumar has been humbling to say the least. What started as a curious deep dive into physics brought me to this book and some of the most mind-bending scientific discoveries and enquiries of the past century.

The fact that everything, at its core, is just an empty cloud of possibilities, that both realities of the vast universe and the unimaginable quantum point towards the same insignificance of human experience, is extraordinary.

As the Buddhist nun Upacālā said: “Sabbo pajjālito loko, sabbo loko pakampito.” (The whole universe is burning; the whole universe is trembling.)

Once exposed to this, one is forced to wonder if anything truly matters?

Yet, the truth is that it does. We might be the burning and trembling clouds of empty space. But our experience exists within the boundaries of emergent reality – the reality that is born from interaction of these probabilities.

We exist, as much as the moon does.

It is easy, in fact tempting, to use metaphysics (and its modern cousin spirituality) as a convenient escape from our crisis-ridden world – an excuse to detach. If everything is in flux, if nothing as any intrinsic meaning, then why should we even care?

We care.

We care because our lived reality is concrete. We care because we cry when we are hurt. We care because there are children being bombed somewhere in the world. We care because everything is political, including science.

Albert Einstein – the greatest physicist to have lived – hung a portrait of Mahatma Gandhi in his study, alongside those of his scientific inspirations: Michael Faraday and James Clark Maxwell. During his lifetime, he was forced to leave a country because of his identity, his work was targeted as “Jewish science.”

Even he, who visualized the universe as a space time continuum, who gave the world relativity, who brought us closer to the absurdity of existence, knew that as humans we ought to be political beings.

Reading about everything, starting from cosmic expansion to quantum entanglement, has taught me one thing – nothing, including science, is immune to politics. Yes, every now and then, it should remind us of our inconsequentiality, but never should it be used as an excuse for abandoning our social responsibility.

Everything is burning and trembling, but everything is breathing and living too.

In the sixth century BCE, early Greeks asked the first metaphysical question: “What is the fundamental nature of reality? Is there an underlying essence or element from which everything comes into being?”

Around second century BCE, the Nasadiya Sukta¸ the ‘Hymn of Creation’ in Rigveda highlighted the impossibility of finding an answer. It said:

But, after all, who knows, and who can say,

Whence it all came, and how creation happened?

The gods themselves are later than creation,

So who truly knows whence it has arisen?

________

What is the cause of causes? Is there an objective reality – independent of observation? The question of ‘being’, the question that Aristotle thought to be “first philosophy."

When Einstein posed such a question to fellow scientist Neil Bohr, it wasn’t out of curiosity, but frustration. “Does the moon exist when nobody is looking at it?”

Quantum Mechanics had somehow dragged science back into the arena of metaphysics and the greatest minds of 20th century were asking the same questions which the philosophers of the past did – what truly exists?

_________

Reading ‘Quantum’ by Manjit Kumar has been humbling to say the least. What started as a curious deep dive into physics brought me to this book and some of the most mind-bending scientific discoveries and enquiries of the past century.

The fact that everything, at its core, is just an empty cloud of possibilities, that both realities of the vast universe and the unimaginable quantum point towards the same insignificance of human experience, is extraordinary.

As the Buddhist nun Upacālā said: “Sabbo pajjālito loko, sabbo loko pakampito.” (The whole universe is burning; the whole universe is trembling.)

Once exposed to this, one is forced to wonder if anything truly matters?

Yet, the truth is that it does. We might be the burning and trembling clouds of empty space. But our experience exists within the boundaries of emergent reality – the reality that is born from interaction of these probabilities.

We exist, as much as the moon does.

It is easy, in fact tempting, to use metaphysics (and its modern cousin spirituality) as a convenient escape from our crisis-ridden world – an excuse to detach. If everything is in flux, if nothing as any intrinsic meaning, then why should we even care?

We care.

We care because our lived reality is concrete. We care because we cry when we are hurt. We care because there are children being bombed somewhere in the world. We care because everything is political, including science.

Albert Einstein – the greatest physicist to have lived – hung a portrait of Mahatma Gandhi in his study, alongside those of his scientific inspirations: Michael Faraday and James Clark Maxwell. During his lifetime, he was forced to leave a country because of his identity, his work was targeted as “Jewish science.”

Even he, who visualized the universe as a space time continuum, who gave the world relativity, who brought us closer to the absurdity of existence, knew that as humans we ought to be political beings.

Reading about everything, starting from cosmic expansion to quantum entanglement, has taught me one thing – nothing, including science, is immune to politics. Yes, every now and then, it should remind us of our inconsequentiality, but never should it be used as an excuse for abandoning our social responsibility.

Everything is burning and trembling, but everything is breathing and living too.

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