On science, technology, and spirituality
Answers to questions posed by the editor for an Auroville newsletter on the occasion of the centenary of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle
But first an announcement: I have added a section containing my quantum tantrums. It can be found on the navigation bar next to Home and Notes.
Here are the editor’s questions (in italics) with my answers:
The intersection of science and spirituality often provokes a deep existential doubt. As someone who has journeyed through both worlds, physics and Integral Yoga, how do you suggest one faces that moment of profound uncertainty?
This kind of doubt stems from a common misconception about the scope of science, particularly physics. What is physics? A physical theory consists of a bunch of mathematical tools for making predictions. Such a tool is like a computing machine that transforms inputs into outputs. The input is typically an observation or a specific preparation of a physical system. The output tells us what we will observe or what outcome a later measurement will yield. Per se, the theory says nothing about any mechanism or process by which the earlier observation or preparation produces the later observation or outcome.
Classical or pre-quantum physics made it possible to embellish these facts with certain fictions. It allowed us to transmogrify calculational tools into physical mechanisms or processes. Fact is that if we jiggle the electrons in this radio transmitter in a certain way, the physical theory (in this case electrodynamics) allows us to predict how the electrons in that receiver will jiggle as a result. Fiction is that the electrons of the transmitter produce an electromagnetic wave, which travels through space and eventually causes the electrons of the transmitter to jiggle as predicted.
Quantum physics does not tolerate such slights of hand. Its predictions, despite being of a purely statistical nature, are incredibly precise, but finding explanations for them (let alone passing them off as explanations) is impossible.
Quantum physics is an engineer’s dream come true. By one analysis, a modern iPhone is made up of around 2,700 component parts sourced from 187 suppliers in 28 countries, and virtually every one of them owes its existence to quantum physics. But since quantum physics explains nothing, it is also a metaphysician’s nightmare. This is strictly true for physical systems that are simple enough to be treated entirely in quantum-mechanical terms. When it comes to more complex systems, quantum mechanics must yield to a mixture of classical, semi-classical, and quantum-theoretical methods, and this makes room for fictitious explanations. We may feel as if we understood how flicking a light switch makes the lights come on.
Your question is not about science and spirituality; it is about philosophical materialism and spirituality. Contemporary physics has nothing whatever to do with materialism. It does not even know how to define “matter.” An eminent German physicist once defined it as “that which satisfies the laws of physics.” This leaves the question of what “that” is wide open. It may as well be Spirit.
Science presupposes a metaphysical framework that formulates questions, and that interprets the answers it obtains by a well-designed experiment or painstaking observation. Such a framework is not testable by the methods of science. If science and materialism are routinely conflated, it is because in academia materialism remains the default presupposition. The name of the game is to save the materialistic appearances. In reality, we have a choice. We may adopt a materialistic framework of thought, ask questions that arise in this framework, and try to make sense of the answers we obtain. Or we may adopt a spiritual framework of thought, ask questions that arise in this framework, and try to make sense of Nature’s answers to these questions. In the first case it is materialism that encompasses science, in the second it is a spiritual framework of thought. In either case we have inclusion, not intersection. Hence there is no “intersection of science and spirituality.”
A British lady once told me: “I have heard you’re working on Sri Aurobindo in the light of modern science.” “No, madam,” I replied, “I am working on modern science in the light of Sri Aurobindo.” In my book, as in some of my papers, I have adopted Sri Aurobindo’s view that the physical world is an evolving manifestation of Spirit. Evolution presupposes involution; the Spirit must subject itself to certain constraints. And it turns out that these constraints have rather the exact form that is needed to set the stage for the adventure of evolution. We refer to these constraints as “the laws of physics.”
Quantum theory is often surrounded by a list of metaphysical interpretations. In your view, how does Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga prepare us, not just intellectually, but existentially, for engaging with these shifting theoretical frameworks, especially in the context of 2025?
These interpretations have one thing in common: they are designed to save the materialistic appearances, and they do so in one absurd form or another. For the spiritual seeker, to engage with them would be a waste of time.
What initially led you to Sri Aurobindo, and how did that encounter reshape your scientific worldview?
I do not have a scientific worldview because there is no such thing as a scientific worldview. What many scientists peddle as “the scientific worldview” is a materialistic worldview. I could as well peddle my spiritual worldview as the scientific one, and for much better reasons — but that’s a subject too complex to get into here.
In my late teens certain experiences led me to question my hitherto materialistic outlook and to surmise that the fundamental reality was consciousness. One thing led to another, and a few years later I obtained the Mother’s permission to visit the Ashram and study at the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education. When I realized the enormous importance Sri Aurobindo attaches to the physical world, my earlier interest in physics returned, and I went back to Germany to study physics at the University of Göttingen — not to become a physicist but to learn how contemporary physics fits into Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy.
In Iranian spiritual traditions, the concept of Kashf (revelation) or intuitive discovery plays a central role, similar to direct gnosis. How do you see quantum physics engaging with the concept of intuition or inner knowledge?
Quantum physics does no such thing.
In one of your writings, you mention that Sri Aurobindo’s theory of the evolution of consciousness can, in principle, be supported through mathematical reasoning. Could you briefly explain how this works?
Not through mathematical reasoning. Nor does Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy of evolution (or any other spiritual philosophy for that matter) requires the support of science. What I did was to derive the theoretical framework of contemporary physics by positing Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy and figuring out what laws it would take to set the stage for the Spirit’s adventure of evolution.
There’s an ongoing generational tension regarding spiritual paths. Some elder practitioners believe younger generations must follow their same trajectory. Based on your understanding of the evolution of consciousness, how can we approach this intergenerational dialogue in a more evolutionary, rather than prescriptive, way?
When you enter the spiritual path, you are answerable to no one but the Divine or your chosen guru. Here is a relevant quote from Sri Aurobindo:
The traditions of the past are very great in their own place — in the past; but I do not see why we should merely repeat them and not go farther. In the spiritual development of the consciousness upon earth the great past ought to be followed by a greater future. [29:480]
Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle marked a radical break from deterministic thinking. Do you see any resonance between this principle and Sri Aurobindo’s idea of indeterminacy and freedom within the evolving cosmos?
Since you mentioned Iranian traditions, here is the beginning of the section in my textbook devoted to “quantum mechanics and free will”:
The question of whether we have what is commonly called “free will,” is old and complex. In the 12th Century, the Persian poet and mystic Jalalu’ddin Rumi remarked that the disputation between the necessitarians and the partisans of free will are going to continue till mankind is raised from the dead.
The physicist Pascual Jordan was one of the first to invoke quantum indeterminacy as the physical basis of free will. The flaws in Jordan’s reasoning were pointed out by Erwin Schrödinger (of the eponymous cat’s fame). He rightly considered it “to be both physically and morally an impossible solution.”
Quantum indeterminacy has nothing to do with the evolution of freedom. Heisenberg’s principle is the expression not of an indeterminate linkage between past and future states but of an objective indeterminacy in the present: complementary physical quantities like position and momentum cannot simultaneously possess exact values (nor can either by itself all things considered).
You’ve spoken of consciousness not as an emergent property, but as a fundamental reality. How does this shift, from reductionism to consciousness-first metaphysics, transform our approach to both science and daily life?
Unless or until this shift is internalized — unless consciousness itself becomes aware of its primacy — it doesn’t really transform anything in any significant way.
If Sri Aurobindo were alive today, witnessing the current developments in quantum computing and AI, what aspect of modern science do you think would interest him most, and why?
I cannot speak for Sri Aurobindo.
In a post-pandemic, climate-affected world, both science and spirituality are being re-evaluated. Do you believe the quantum paradigm offers us a new kind of ethics, or even a new sacredness, in how we relate to life and matter?
People need to be disabused of the superstitious belief that science in any way, shape, or form has privileged access to truth. Quantum physics has opened enormous horizons of technological progress, which unchecked by a commensurate spiritual progress is likely to lead to technological suicide. On the other hand, when significant spiritual progress has been made, technology can be used to prevent this and other forms of civilizational suicide. All depends on humanity’s spiritual progress. Nothing depends on the quantum paradigm, which by itself offers nothing intrinsically positive, whether it be a new ethics or a new kind of sacredness. Its offerings are value-neutral.
In the light of cultural historian and evolutionary philosopher Jean Gebser’s insights into the evolution of human consciousness, the last assertion may be challenged. According to Gebser, human consciousness mutates through different structures. Our present mental structure is one of them, and science and technology are its characteristic modes of knowing and of doing. Each structure passes through an efficient and a deficient phase, and presently we are close to the end of the deficient phase of the mental structure. There is therefore a negative aspect to science and technology. As expressions of a deficient structure of consciousness, they contribute to impede the emergence of a new consciousness, which Gebser called “integral,” and which he equated to the consciousness Sri Aurobindo called “supramental.”
The importance of technology will diminish with the evolution of this new consciousness or its manifestation in a new species of gnostic beings. The following characterization of the Vedic gods, by the Veda itself, is one of gnostic beings in a gnostic world:
Their conscious-force turned towards works and creation is possessed and guided by a perfect and direct knowledge of the thing to be done and its essence and its law — a knowledge which determines a wholly effective will-power that does not deviate or falter in its process or in its result, but expresses and fulfils spontaneously and inevitably in the act that which has been seen in the vision. Light is here one with Force, the vibrations of knowledge with the rhythm of the will and both are one, perfectly and without seeking, groping or effort, with the assured result. [Sri Aurobindo, CWSA 21:132‒33]
The emergence of such a conscious force in the physical world will gradually replace our mental modes of knowing and doing (science and technology) by its own perfect and direct knowledge and its own wholly effective willpower. It will take us from a sufficiently enlightened consciousness capable of using technology wisely to a consciousness that no longer has any use for technology.
Brilliant and clear as always.
“Unless or until this shift is internalized — unless consciousness itself becomes aware of its primacy — it doesn’t really transform anything in any significant way.”
Ah that immemorial formula, close at hand, so simple and so new, that very few have braved to embrace in all its logical and existential magnitude: The preeminence of spirit.
I would love to remember that quote from the first pages of Nishida, when he starts by putting the house upside down, or I should say: the truth way up.
best, clearest writing on the distinction between the method of science - which does not in itself support any metaphysical view - and spirituality. Much gratitude.