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In the God Particle We Trust (?):Understanding the Collisions, Emissions & Omissions

Overview1. Background Physics:2. What is the Higgs Boson?3. Science is a map of reality4. The incompleteness of the map5. What makes science tick…6. Casualties in the century of Science7. The World Needs a Game Changer8. Parallels: Particle Physics & Vedic Spirituality

Background Physics - I

Four fundamental forces : • The force of gravitation,• The electromagnetic force, • The weak nuclear force &• The strong nuclear forces.

Background Physics - II

Additionally a remarkably large number of elementary particles, so many that American physicist Enrico Fermi complained that had he wished tomemorize their names, he would have become a botanist.

Background Physics - III

Two great theories of modern physics, general relativity & quantum mechanics, are violently contradictory. Neither describe nature fully.Eg Two aging matadors facing a powerful bull

The Standard Model

It attempts to unify these forces and elements into one theoretical framework. It does not incorporate the force of gravity & so leaves general relativity apart.

The Standard Model

Higgs Boson is an elementary particle predicted by the standard model. As it is supposed to give mass to other particles, the proof of its existence may bring gravity within the purview of the standard model.

Understanding Higgs Boson

Fritjof Capra – Tao of Physics

Science is a map of reality – depicts only selected & limited features.

Procedure of Science

1. Observation: Pratyaksha2. Theory: Anumana3. Experiment: Pratyaksha4. Inference: Anumana

The world of physicsOver there, fields are pregnant with latent energy, particles flicker into existence and disappear, things are entangled, and no one can quite tell what is possible and what is actual, what is here and what is there, what is now and what was then. Solid forms give way. Nothing is stable. Time and space contract into some sort of agitated quantum foam. Nothing is continuous. Nothing stays the same for long, except the electrons, and they are identical, like porcelain Chinese soldiers. A pointless frenzy prevails throughout.- Dr David Berlinski in The Devil’s Delusion

The world we live inOver here, space and time are stable and continuous. Matteris what it is, and energy is what it does. There are solid andenduring shapes and forms. … Changesappear slowly, but even when rapid, they appear in stable patterns. There is dazzling variety throughout. The great river oftime flows forward. We anticipate the future, but we rememberthe past. We begin knowing we will end.- Dr David Berlinski in The Devil’s Delusion

No connection between the two

“No idea whatsoever how the ordered physical, moral, mental, aesthetic, and social world …. could have ever arisen from the seething anarchy of the elementary particles. It is like imagining sea foam resolving itself into the Parthenon.”- Dr David Berlinski in The Devil’s Delusion

And no idea of how to connect the two!

‘I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is very deficient. It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously.’ - Noble Laureate Physicist Erwin Schrodinger

Modern Physics as a Pointless Map?

“The more comprehensible the universe becomes, the more it also seems pointless.” - Physicist Steven Weinberg

Modern Physics as a Pointless Map?

“Shut up and calculate” – a phrase first uttered by physicist David Mermin – has become the mantra of quantum physics

The Scientific Worldview is Partial & Optional

"There is no obligation upon anyone framing a view of the world to take into account what twentieth- century science has to say”….[it is] "a culturally specific product ... a commu nally congenial representation of reality.” - Andrew Pickering, Sociologist of science at

the University of Illinois, in his book Constructing Quarks

Yes, but who makes it work?

Not the scientists!They are only discovering the workings of nature.Who or what is behind the workings?

What or who enforces the laws?

Joel Primack, a cosmologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, once asked physicist Neil Turok: “What is it that makes the electrons continue to follow the laws?”Turok had no clear answer, nor does any scientist in the world.

Three Possible Answers

1. Logic2. Nothing / Chance3. God

1. Logic?

• The laws of nature, as Isaac Newton foresaw, are not laws of logic, nor are they like the laws of logic.

• Eg. There is nothing logical about F = G M1*M2/R^2

2. Chance? It is an explanation…

When there is a well-defined repeatable process with a known probability of certain result.

Eg. Dice falls 6Ref: Signature in the Cell by Stephen

Meyer

2. Chance? It is an excuse…

When there is no well-defined repeatable process & no known probability of a particular result

Eg. Bridge collapseRef: Signature in the Cell by

Stephen Meyer

2. Chance Possible through Parallel Universes?

“How is the existence of the other universes to be tested? To be sure, all cosmologists accept that there are some regions of the universe that lie beyond the reach of our telescopes, but somewhere on the slippery slope between that and the idea that there are an infinite number of universes, credibility reaches a limit. As one slips down that slope, more and more must be accepted on faith, and less and less is open to scientific verification…The multiverse theory may be dressed up in scientific language, but in essence it requires the same leap of faith.”— Paul Davies, A Brief History of the Multiverse

3. God?“No!” say some scientists.“We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of itsextravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the toleranceof the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories…because we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”- Geneticist Richard LewontinThis is not science, but atheism masquerading as science.

3. God?

The explanability of the universe requires an explanation: Why do the fundamental particles behave in ways that are comprehensible and predictable through laws and equations?

3. God?

The explanability of the universe requires an explanation: Why do the fundamental particles behave in ways that are comprehensible and predictable through laws and equations?

“An equation for me has no meaning, unless it

represents a thought of God.”

- Srinivasa A. Ramanujan

An alternative worldview: better

"It is good to be constantly reminded of the fact that science as we know it today is not inescapable and that we may construct a world in which it plays no role whatever (such a world, I venture to suggest, would be more pleasant than the world we live in today)”- Noted historian of science Paul Feyerbend in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge

A better world?

• What has been the human effect of the scientific worldview?

• Science may have improved our lifestyle, but has it improved our life?

Casualties in the Century of Science

“The twentieth century was the most violent century in known human history. Indeed, three times more people died in wars of the twentieth century than in the entire history of warfare between A.D. 1 and 1899.” - Ending Violent Conflict, Worldwatch Institute (Washington D.C.)

Casualties in the Century of Science - I

First World War (1914–18): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 millionRussian Civil War (1917–22): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 millionSoviet Union, Stalin’s regime (1924–53): . . . . . . . . . 20 millionSecond World War (1937–45): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 millionChinese Civil War (1945–49): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 millionPeople’s Republic of China, Mao Zedong’sregime (1949–75): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 millionCongo Free State (1886–1908): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 millionMexico (1910–20): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 millionTurkish massacres of Armenians (1915–23): . . . . . 1.5 millionChina, Nationalist era (1928–37): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 millionKorean War (1950–53): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.8 million

Casualties in the Century of Science - II

North Korea (1948 et seq.): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 millionRwanda and Burundi (1959–95): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.35 millionSecond Indochina War (1960–75): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 millionNigeria (1966–70): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 millionBangladesh (1971): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.25 millionCambodia, Khmer Rouge (1975–78): . . . . . . . . . . . 1.65 millionMozambique (1975–92): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 millionAfghanistan (1979–2001): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.8 millionIran–Iraq War (1980–88): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 millionSudan (1983 et seq.): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.9 millionKinshasa, Congo (1998 et seq.): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.8 million

Humanity needs a game changerWill the discovery of the Higgs Boson change this disastrous course? Unlikely.It may have its utility, but it doesn’t bring meaning, purpose, value and direction to our lives.The Vedic literature offer us that through a science of its own.

“India has a well-developed academic community with a surplus of highly creative scientists, perhaps with a special inclination towards the more theoretical aspects of science and still maintaining a link to the ancient Indian culture...”

- Dr Richard Ernst, 1999 Noble Laureate in

Chemistry

The World Needs India’s wisdom

“I am convinced that India could become once again the cradle of a new school of thought that may significantly influence the fate of the globe during the third millennium. Perhaps the contribution of India to nuclear power technology and space science will turn out to be irrelevant, but the contributions toward a new ethical foundation could be turning the wheel ofhistory in the proper (balanced) way."

- Dr Richard Ernst, 1999 Noble Laureate in

Chemistry

But is the Vedic wisdom scientific?

Bhagavad-gita (9.10): The laws of nature work under the direction of God.Bhagavad-gita (9.2): The spiritual level of reality can be realized by direct experience.Modern science is experimental, whereas spiritual science is experiential.But both are equally scientific.

Parallels in Modern Science & Vedic Spirituality

(1) Things are not as they appear;(2) The unapparent is stunningly greater than the apparent; (3) This unapparent can be known not by ordinary ways, but only by ways appropriate to it;(4) These appropriate ways require instruments and cultivation

1. Things are not as they appear

Particle Physics: The desk in front of me is not solid, but is mostly empty space. It is not static, but is filled with electrons whirling around their nuclei a million billion times a second

Vedic spirituality: Life is not based in the material body, but in the spiritual soul beyond the body and there is

2. The unapparent >> the apparent

Particle Physics: The molecules in half an ounce of water number 6.023 X 10^23-roughly 600,000 billion billion.

Vedic spirituality: The spiritual Life is not based in the material body, but in the spiritual soul beyond the body.

3. The unapparent can’t be seen by ordinary means, but only by means appropriate to it

Particle Physics: If scientists are asked to show us Higgs Boson, they won’t be able to show it; they will reject “seeing is believing” and say that the particle requires other appropriate ways.

Vedic spirituality: The spiritual level of reality can’t be seen, but can be inferred by appropriate means.

4. Understanding the unapparent requires instruments & cultivation

Particle Physics: Higgs Boson requires the ultra-expensive Large Hadron Collider and extensive education in physics Peer review in physicsVedic spirituality: The spiritual level of reality requires a consciousness in samadhi and extensive philosophical educationGuru-sadhu-shastra is spiritual peer review

Soul Subtle Body

Gross Body

Consciousness routed till the subtle material realm: Svapna

Consciousness routed through gross material

body to the world: Jagruti

Consciousness not routed anywhere: Sushupti

Consciousness routed to the spiritual realm: Turya

The world needs Indian wisdom

“It is already becoming clear that a chapter which had a Western beginning will have to have an Indian ending if it is not to end in the self-destruction of the human race. At this supremely dangerous moment in history, the only way of salvation for mankind is the Indian Way.”

-- Dr Arnold Toynbee

(British Historian, 1889-1975)