Studying Beliefs Scientifically

While science and esoteric have always been at loggerheads, each claiming superiority over the other, Shri Madhu Pandit Dasa, president of ISKCON Bengaluru, makes a strong case for studying ancient beliefs scientifically in order to harness their power for scientific and spiritual advancement of man.

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We reproduce here, the text of his keynote address given at the conference on Beliefs and beyond in March 2018, in Bengaluru.

Is belief relevant in the modern scientific age? There is no better way to answer this question than by simply narrating the role played by intuition, belief, premonition, and mysticism behind two of the most important modern discoveries of 20th-century physics, which have changed the world in the last century. We are all aware of the theory of relativity by Albert Einstein and quantum mechanics by Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrodinger, and Werner Heisenberg, which were two incredible breakthroughs in scientific history. These two theories have changed science itself by shaking the deterministic mechanistic world-view of Newton, held to be true for centuries. It was overthrown to give way to a non-mechanistic, probabilistic world-view. Practically every technology we see today, from mobiles to information technology, is derived from these two discoveries of physics. You will be surprised that both these theories had their origins in a dream that the two scientists (Einstein and Bohr) had. In other words, what has changed the scientific world, had its origin in the dream of the scientist.

Einstein himself acknowledges that a dream he had as an adolescent was an inspiration for what was to become the theory of relativity. The dream in his own words: I was sledding with my friends at night. I started to slide down the hill but my sled started going faster and faster. I was going so fast that I realised I was approaching the speed of light. I looked up at that point and I saw stars. They were being refracted into colours I had never seen before. I was filled with a sense of awe. I understood in some way that I was looking at the most important meaning in my life.