Philosophy Study, May 2021, Vol. 11, No. 5, 379-382 doi: 10.17265/2159-5313/2021.05.007 D D AV I D PUBLISHING

Status of the Evaluation of the Cosmological Inquiry “What Is It All About?”

M. Radh Achuthan Long Island University, Brooklyn, N.Y., USA

In general, members of all different cultures are concerned about the cosmological query “What it is all about”. In the literature, many commentaries are available to us on the question. Nevertheless, a comprehensive, brief summary, as below, of the state of this inquiry on the subject may be helpful.

Keywords: , Maya, process, ,ONI1, kin altruism, reciprocal altruism, empathetic altruism, SAI (strong artificial intelligence)

Introduction Contributions to this query have come from the eastern culture and the western culture. This article strives to present the outcome of the two approaches, and suggests an avenue for consideration of consolidation.

The Time-Line for BRAHMAN and MAYA From the East 1. The theistic Vedic influence is recorded from 1500-1100 BC. The theistic classical vedas (along with Samhitas, Brahmanas, Aranyakas, and Upanishads) came into thought during the 5th century BC. The non-theistic outlook as in Jainism was known in 800 BC, as in Buddhism in 500 BC, and as in Hindu Purva Mimamsa around 250 BC. During the Mauryan period, (322-184 BC), Emperor Asoka (268-232BC) promulgated Buddhism in India (Wiki). Further, the nontheistic, Uttara (later) Mimamsa was introduced during the Gupta period (320-520 AD) and Shankara contributed to Vedanta around 800 AD (Internet). 2. Vedanta asserts that the Self is different from the inquiring system, (ONI), is Atman (Spirit), Self is pure Consciousness. Atman is not the body, mind, or intellect. 3. There is a fundamental reality called BRAHMAN. 4. Though BRAHMAN is the Source and hence the foundation, it is without intent, goal or purpose. ONI cannot negotiate or transact with BRAHMAN. 5. BRAHMAN is beyond space, time or causality. It simply is. It is pure Existence, SAT. 6. BRAHMAN is not conscious itself; it is Consciousness, CHIT. 7. BRAHMAN is not peaceful, it is Peacefulness, ANANDA. 8. This triad combination of SAT-CHIT-ANANDA is -like, affirms Advaita Veda (last of the Vedas), or Vedanta. The original theistic Vedas and Upanishads also claimed the conceptual formulation of BRAHMAN:

M. Radh Achuthan, Ph.D., Professor, Physics, Long Island University, Brooklyn, N.Y., USA. 1 Organic Natural Intelligence (ONI) is known to be present in all Flora and Fauna, the animals and Humans (Internet). The term ONI as used below refers to Human ONI.

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Tat tvamasi, That thou art, says the Chandogya Upanishad, That Consciousness is BRAHMAN says the Aitareya Upanishad, Aham Brahamasmi, I am BRAHMAN, says the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, Ayam Atma , I am BRAHMAN, says the Mandukya Upanishad (Internet). We have to interconnect Vedanta with our temporal cognitive experiences. Our temporal manifestations include: energy interchangeable with matter in the form of elementary particles, atoms, molecules, inorganic compounds, organic compounds, matter organizing itself for functional vitality, life resulting in organisms, people, relationships, society, governance, all together posing a holistic reality. This joint manifestation that ONI sees and has to deal with, is referred to as MAYA. But Vedanta asserts one’s true self to be divine. 9. Religion seeks answers to “What” and “How”; Philosophy seeks answers to “Why”; Though ONI is besieged in Life by a multiplicity of such queries on phenomena, Vedanta claims their roots are in BRAHMAN. 10. A JNANI uses the body, mind and intellect as instruments and jointly sees an indivisible oneness in them; Rama and are examples and viewed as incarnations of the (the Divine). 11. Thus the Jnani experiences, but transcends the inevitable suffering brought by Maya. 12. Can ONI expect to achieve Sat-Chit-Ananda? YES, if ONI truly wants it, and persists in the effort. BRAHMAN is not uncommon, its momentary examples are: creativity in any form, poetry in motion, a rendering by a musician, a human lost in love, a baby looking into her mother’s eyes where each experiences BRAHMAN for a little time; hence, why not seek continuation? The points 1 through 12 above, are articulated via: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9HnkiSeqm4. (10 min, Advaita Veda, Vedanta). MAYA is Lila (just Play, not a Necessity) of BRAHMAN. The basic recurring theme in Hindu mythology is the creation of the world by the self-sacrifice of God—“sacrifice” in the original sense of “making sacred”—whereby God becomes the world which, in the end, becomes again God. This creative activity of the Divine is called Lila (Internet). The Vedanta asserts characteristics of BRAHMAN, MAYA and further asserts there is an interconnection.

The Time-Line of PROCESS and REALITY From the West

Monotheism is simply defined as the belief in one god and is usually positioned as the polar opposite of polytheism, the belief in many . ... In the Western tradition, this “belief in one god” specifically refers to the God of the Bible; the God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (and is always written with a capital G). God is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient, and intervenes in the world. (Wiki)

However, formative contributions to PROCESS , and PROCESS Philosophy have been advanced in the West from Heraclitus (475 BC), Plato (429-347 BC), Hume (1717-1786 AD), Kant (1724-1804), Hegel (1770-1831), C. S. Pierce (1839-1914), William James (1842-1910), Nietzsche (1844-1900), Heidegger (1889-1971), leading to A. N. Whitehead (1867-1947). The Doctrine of Flux and the Unity of Opposites: According to both Plato and Aristotle, Heraclitus held extreme views that led to logical incoherence. For he (then) held that (1) everything is constantly changing and (2) opposite things are identical, so that (3) everything is and is not at the same time.2 The three Greek Philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates are famous even today for their thoughts and

2 https://iep.utm.edu/heraclit/#:~:text=3.-,The%20Doctrine%20of%20Flux%20and%20the%20Unity%20of%20Opposites,not% 20at%20the%20same%20time.

“WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT?” 381 teachings. Socrates is considered being the father of western philosophy. ... Plato was a pupil of Socrates and established the academy of philosophy. He is characterized as an idealist and a rationalist. Like most other ancient philosophers, Plato (429-347 BC) maintains a virtue-based eudaimonistic conception of ethics. That is to say, happiness or well-being (eudaimonia) is the highest aim of moral thought and conduct, and the virtues (aretê: “excellence”) are the requisite skills and dispositions needed to attain it.

David Hume (1717-1786) is famous for the elegance of his prose, for his radical empiricism, for his skepticism of religion, for his critical account of causation, for his naturalistic theory of mind, for his thesis that “reason is...the slave of the passions,” and for waking Immanuel Kant from his “dogmatic slumber,” as Kant himself admitted.3 The most famous work of Kant (1724-1804), is the Critique of Pure Reason, which was published in 1781 and revised in 1787. It is a treatise which seeks to show the impossibility of one sort of metaphysics to lay the foundations for another. His other books included the Critique of Practical Reason (1788) and the Critique of Judgment (1790).4 Hegelianism is the philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831) which can be summed up by the dictum that “the rational alone is real”, which means that all reality is capable of being expressed in rational categories. His goal was to reduce reality to a more synthetic unity within the system of absolute idealism.5 Pragmatism is a principle of inquiry and an account of meaning first proposed by C. S. Peirce (1839-1914) in the 1870s. The crux of Peirce’s pragmatism is that for any statement to be meaningful, it must have practical bearings.6 The belief of William James (1842-1910), in the connection between mind and body led him to develop what has come to be known as the James-Lange Theory of emotion, which posits that human experience of emotion arises from physiological changes in response to external events.7 Nietzsche (1844-1900), without God, we are alone, exposed to a natural universe devoid of the comforting idea of a God-given purpose to things. According to Nietzsche, this state of nihilism—the idea that life has no meaning or value—cannot be avoided; we must go through it, as frightening and lonely as that will be.8 Phenomenology, is a philosophical movement originating in the 20th century, from Heidegger (1889-1971), the primary objective of which is the direct investigation and description of phenomena as consciously experienced, without theories about their causal explanation and as free as possible from unexamined preconceptions and presupposition.9 In the system of Whitehead (1861-1947), only actual entities can have causal efficacy. ... The tension in the process conception of God between an eternal and unchanging evaluation of eternal objects and a temporal entity internally related to every other actuality, led to Whitehead’s “dipolar” doctrine of God. For Whitehead, the term “prehension” indicates that the perceiver actually incorporates aspects of the perceived thing into itself. In this way, entities are constituted by their perceptions and relations, rather than being independent of them. For example, the word “prehension,” which Whitehead defines as “uncognitive apprehension” (SMW 69) makes its first systematic appearance in Whitehead’s writings as he refines and develops the kinds and layers of relational connections between people and the surrounding world.10 Process theology (also known as Neoclassical theology) is a school of thought influenced by the metaphysical processphilosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. The concept of process theology includes that God is not omnipotent in the sense of being coercive. The divine has a power of persuasion rather than force. What is it for something to be an actual entity? An actual entity is a general philosophical term for an utterly determinate and completely concrete individual particular of the actually existing world or universe of changeable entities

3 https://www.britannica.com/biography/David-Hume. 4 http//www.brittanica.com. 5 https://www.definitions.net/definition/hegelianism. 6 https://iep.utm.edu/peircepr/. 7 https://psychology.fas.harvard.edu/people/william-james#:~:text=His%20belief%20in%20the%20connection,in%20response% 20to%20external%20events. 8 https://theconversation.com/explainer-nietzsche-nihilism-and-reasons-to-be-cheerful-130378. 9 https://www.britannica.com/topic/phenomenology. 10 https://iep.utm.edu/whitehed/#SH2e.

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considered in terms of singular causality, about which categorical statements can be made.11

Conclusion In the West, there is an objective requirement, to interweave PROCESS and REALITY as represented by models from Physics, Chemistry, the evolution of inorganic and organic matter, Biology, life, and mathematical insights into physical evolution of the universe from the Beginning. A proposition should enable “cosmology” to respond to “what is it all about?” How that proposition would be tested is not known. In the East, Vedanta, has not been able to locate specific integration of mathematical models of the physical universe with BRAHMAN. There are assertions (no evidnce) in Jnana Yoga that MAYA is a play, namely Lila, of BRAHMAN, the Source. Further, in these formulations of the East and the West, the analogies of BRAHMAN to PROCESS and MAYA to REALTY, may seem reasonable to ONI. In the aforementioned integrations, there must have been ongoing historical constraints due to technological limitations on “retrieval capability” of data by ONI. However mathematical integration is yet to be achieved. Was the provision for the First Amendment to the US Constitution, “Freedom of Speech”, 1791, also a secular acknowledgement of the anticipated strivings of ONI to access the Source? But so far ONI has not demonstrated its ability to interconnect BRAHMAN and MAYA or PROCESS and REALITY. ONI’s ability for performance beyond its natural assignment on KA (Kin Altruism) and RA (Reciprocal Altruism), as in creating and engaging with EA (Empathetic Altruism) is in question. Has evolution in nature “moved on” seeking a higher level of organization in comprehension, as in Strong Artificial Intelligence, SAI in inorganic matter, for an eventual resolution of the cosmological question “What is it all about?”12

11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_and_Reality. 12 http://www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/sshsr/article/view/3571.