Sunday 2 February 2014

Open Realism - The Philosophy of Bernard D'Espagnat




          Philosophy is the mother of all sciences, it is the root of all modes of thought. Science and Religion are branches of Philosophy, that's why we have Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Religion. If science studies empirical reality and religion studies the numinous, philosophy is concerned with the study of operation and principles of science and religion itself.

Philosophy is the boss, it decides how a science has to operate, what principles it has to follow and what claims it can make about reality and to what extent. I always criticized physicists for their "Shut up and Calculate" attitude without arriving at a stand on the philosophical implications of quantum physics. Of course physics should only be concerned with measurements and calculations but physicists should go on to become philosophers of science and not become like Stephen Hawking who says 'Philosophy is dead'.

I am happy that one man has turned up to bring humility into science and has outlined the philosophical implications of quantum physics in his book On Physics and philosophy. Any sort of appreciation to Bernard D'Espagnat would be very less because he has independently arrived at his philosophy of open realism based on his life long study of quantum physics, even though he is aware of the similarities between his philosophy and the great eastern philosophical systems he has arrived at open realism based on his knowledge of quantum physics.

On Physics and Philosophy - Chapter 1

Scientists should abandon objectivist language at all cost while describing their theories in textbooks and in all modes of their expression and students of science need to be taught that science is only predictive and it doesn't give an ontological objective description of the reality which exists independent of us.

Now this philosophy of open realism should not be treated as just a personal opinion or just a philosophical ramblings of an old physicist instead this should be treated as an empirical fact because it is based on facts established from experiments. No wonder why he truly deserves the Templeton prize.

Statement by Professor Bernard d’Espagnat At The Templeton Prize News Conference

Speech for the diner in Honor of Bernard d’Espagnat

I was always a realist, I am not a proponent of Idealism and it feels so good to see a physicist arguing the same thing and I always argued that Kant was wrong when he said that it is impossible to know the noumenon and even Bernard agrees with it, he thinks that the Real being can be known.

One thing is a fact that is proved from experiments, the properties of a system do not preexist prior to measurements, an empirical fact proved by the quantum information science team. This begs the question which Einstein always asked, "Does the moon exist when we are not looking at it?".

Quantum physics has proved that Einsteinian realism is not feasible, the empirical reality is just isn't the way Einstein thought and actually what QM is saying is that "What we call empirical reality is only a state of mind" - Bernard D'Espagnat.

This further begs the question if reality is only a state of mind then what is mind? This is where the role of western and eastern Esotericism will come into the picture because they already know what mind is, things which you'd have never known if you stick yourself to a scientific attitude. Science isn't everything.

10) I said to Him, Lord, how does he who sees the vision see it, through the soul or through the spirit? 
11) The Savior answered and said, He does not see through the soul nor through the spirit, but the mind that is between the two that is what sees the vision and it is [...] 
(pages 11 - 14 are missing from the manuscript)
          - The Gospel  According to Mary Magdalene

Damn pages 11 - 14 are missing.... But no problem the west might have suppressed this knowledge but we have preserved them.


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