Space and Time, Zeno's Paradoxes and Permanaides' Way of the Truth

The ancient Greek philosopher Permanides of Elea, said to have lived around fifth BC, is credited with impacting the thoughts of Plato who in turn influenced the whole of Western Philosophy.

In his work On Nature, the first part called the Way of the Truth deals with the changeless and timeless nature of the world. His student Zeno created three paradoxes that supported these ideas.

• Achilles and the Tortoise divides space into infinite points and says it is impossible for Achilles to catch up with the Tortoise ever so infinitesimally.
• The Dichotomy paradox says it is impossible to move because you can keep on dividing the remaining distance by two and you can never complete the first part.
• Arrow Paradox says it is impossible for anything to move, since any object such as an arrow at any instance during its apparent movement is static.

These paradoxes points to the strange nature of the reality. Contrary to our intuitive experiences, these ideas point us to the true nature. While we  now have accepted a reality that can only be explained through probabilities and mathematics, this somehow seems to be delegated to the infinitesimally small world of particles.

While these ideas talk about the impossibility of motion , or change, we can relate it to the impossibility of action. Our actions can be classified into voluntary/conscious and involuntary. 

A muscle twitch, or scratching our skin, closing our eyelids at a dust particle are done without much conscious involvement. one can say it just happens.

On the other hand we act at times with intention, planning and fully conscious. while it appears we do act, one must take a step backward and look at the intention. If we look at how our thought of intention occurred to us, we can easily see that the though simply happened. we really do not have control over thoughts occurring to us. but we easily accept that the action that follows is ours. So it is clear that all actions which we falsely claim ownership are simply happening. 

Permanides followed in his second part The Way of the Opinion, how our senses leads us to falsely believe in a world that appears to be changing, and where there is space and time and there is movement.

A contemplation on who I am, by eliminating all the things that are not me, such as my possessions, name, body etc.. including the thoughts that I seem to get, I realize that I am not connected with this world. Eliminating this false notion of reality, I abide as my Silent , Inactive Joyful Self.

What should one do after Enlightenment ?

In the Bhagavad Gita, there is an interesting verse, in chapter 5, verse 54 : Arjuna asks Krishna about the state of an enlightened person, how he will conduct himself, how he will sit, how he will walk, what will he talk,etc. He is not merely curious about some enlightened person and his behavior. His question is indirectly a question about himself. After knowing about enlightenment, Arjuna is curious about how the enlightened will behave. In a way he is checking out what he ought to be doing once he is enlightened.

Interestingly Krishna goes about saying several things, obviously not very specific but seemingly distinct.

The inclusion of this dialogue and several such are indeed the genius of the Vedantic texts. The objective of the Vedantic texts are to pave a path for enlightenment. and this is a journey. a long hard journey at that. Instead of merely declaring things as such and such in an axiomatic manner, starting from an imaginary nothingness, these texts mimic the inquiry, introspection and inner transformation of the seeker,every step of the way.

Enlightenment in a way can be elaborated as obtaining the ultimate understanding to our questions in life and beyond, about the world, life, people, events, the space, time and everything that the mind can think and ask about, as well as things that it is not capable of asking about. This is the ultimate quest. The ultimate destination is one and the same no matter how many paths one takes. 

Finally one good morning (or evening ,or most likely in the very middle of the night), when all the studies and teachings of the Guru fructifies and the seeker gets the Aha moment, he is baffled, feels a little bit stupid as well, and eventually completely at peace with the consistency of everything. Whether a simple proof that fits the margin of a notebook, or an elaborate and excruciatingly painful 1000-page proof the Fermat's Last theorem, fact is, it is proved, and finally the integrity of the axiomatic foundations of mathematics are preserved along with the cozy framework of Logic.

After basking in this moment of glory, the enlightened mulls over the post-enlightened phase. What am I supposed to do, 

now that I have known that knowing which I am incapable of knowing anything,

now that I have experienced that, experiencing which I am incapable of experiencing anything further,

now that I have seen that, seeing which I no longer see anything ...etc etc..

kind of perplexing situation, especially for the one who is supposedly enlightened..  this is where Arjuna's question comes into the picture.

Enlightenment means realizing you are not the doer, after realizing it, if one wonders what to do, perhaps the only thing to do is go back and start over the journey of enlightenment again with the hope that it might work this time around.

Why a Scientific Theory of Everything can never be a theory of 'Everything'

One of the quests of science is to have an explanation for everything. It is famously known as the Theory of Everything. ToE.

The 'everything' that science deals with is limited to the observable phenomena. Anything that is observable, measurable, describable forms part of the realm of science. 

Size, weight, speed, volume, etc are phenomena that can be 'observed'. By observation, it is meant perception. An act that suggests the existence of something.

Even abstract notions are observable. For instance a complicated mathematical theorem, exists in the form of symbols. the symbols are not necessarily pen and ink on paper, or the electrical/mechanical impulses in a system. It could exist as a sound, or a thought, and as long as it is observable, they belong to the concrete realm of science.

Emotions, and other psychological phenomena can be observed through the behavior of a person, and can be postulated and proven to exist.

So, science in its quest for an explanation of Everything, only seeks things that are observable.

One might question, if something exists that is not observable, then where is the proof for its existence? Why are we going to bother about science not dealing with a non-existing entity?

If say there exists an entity A, and it is not observable, then we can say that the science is not including everything. Because it ignored A, since its not observable.

Now, How do you 'find' an example of such an entity that is not observable?

In other words, an entity that does not have any physical attribute is impossible to find! by definition it is not observable.

Science concludes, since we will eventually explain everything that is observable, and only observable things exist, we will eventually have a Theory of Everything.

Well, here is a simple experiment. Ask yourself this simple question. Do I exist? If you answered 'Yes', try to find that 'You'. Try to find You in this observable Universe.

You might in a simplistic sense say well, here am I, pointing to your body, and say this is Me. But is it that simple? Every single organ that you have is some thing that 'you' 'have'! 

I have a Hand. so I am distinct from the Hand. 

I have a body, so I am distinct from the body. 

I have life, the physiological energy, and hence I am  distinct from life. 

I have a mind, I am distinct from my mind. 

I have thoughts, so I am distinct from thoughts.

you can go on like this, and will conclude that 'Everything' that you think is part of you, and is Observable, is distinct from you. 

I am in Chennai, I am distinct from Chennai, 

I am in San Francisco, I am distinct from San Francisco,

Wherever I am, I am distinct from Space.

I am in such and such a place, at such and such a time, So  I am associated with Time. 

Wherever and Whenever I am , I am distinct from Time.

Every single such attribute that is observable, is distinct from me. and yet I exist. How?please refer to the point where you admitted to it.

So, there you go. You have a rather important entity, which is You, which is not observable, and hence Science will not include you in its future Theory of Everything!

Hence the Theory of Everything, when its there, will never be a Theory of Everything :)

Btw, if you had negated your existence, then none of this really matter.

How many are there actually?

In the Quest for Myself, after a significant investigation and probing, I can find that I do not exist in the world that I perceive. Sounds Strange indeed.

Now , Who am I first of all? By definition "I" am the one that is the true Me. the changeless, Observer. Everything that I can observe, is not me. Observation is nothing but an awareness of existence. I observe a painting, I observe a book. I perceive the book, I am aware of its existence. so I am not this book, or that painting.

Because, anything that I can observe, and I can perceive, is independent of the true Me, since if we remove it, or make it non-existing, I still exist.

This if I continue to do to my Body, Life, Mind, Intellect, Experience, ad infinity, I conclude that I cannot be anything that I can perceive.

OK. fair enough. .. Then lets go figure out where this non-perceivable Me is? What is non perceivable? what is un-Observable? it goes back to the question of What is perceivable, what is Observable?

In order to be aware of the existence of anything, we need to perceive it. Primarily we depend on our sense organs for sensory perception. Only objects that have certain properties can be sensed by these organs.

We can classify all such objects as sense objects. So we can say all sense objects fall under the observable category. Then there are things beyond sensory perception . Thoughts, Ideas, Emotions... I do feel their existence at times. They do create a certain experience.. and they do have intellectual content. "Red is a color". Though this may not create any emotional experience, there is information. This thought is distinctly different from " The Sky is Blue" thought. the information distinguishes these two thoughts. So we can say information is the property which makes thoughts observable. As we continue this route we can conclude that any object is Observable only if it has some property.

The property can be anything, sensory such as color, smell, taste, shape, sound, texture, etc, or non-sensory such as location, time, information etc.

So for any object to be Non-Observable, then we can say, it should not have "any" property whatsoever.

But every single thing on this world that we exist, has some property of some sorts. All sensory objects have clearly their respective properties. all non-sensory objects such as thoughts also have properties of information, time or space. this simply means that there are no Non-observable objects at all in this Universe.

This leads us to the alarming conclusion that "I" am not in this Universe.

But I do exist. Don't I? Yes I do. Else who is doing this thought exercise?!!
This will lead me to the conclusion that the Universe that I experience is a different order of reality.

What is interesting further is that, This same experiment can be applied to each and every human being! It will be found very easily that the true Self, in each and every individual is not present in this Universe at all.

Ok .. all sounds fantastic. each real "I" is in their own separate order of reality, while this Universe is some sort of a virtual reality playground.

Here is the most interesting part. the "I" is property less, meaning it cannot have anything that will make it Observable, or distinguishable. non-temporal and non-spatial, non-anything! How many such "I" can actually be there?! if there are two of them , say I1 and I2, there is the suffix "1" and "2" this contradicts the property less-ness!

Well I can say I and I ! can't I? NO!! the two Is are separated in this document distinctly in space!! No matter how much I try it is impossible to have two non-property-less objects.

So there is only One and that is Me !

what if the world is not an illusion?

Relative and absolute reality.

The distinct feeling of difference in the nature of reality of the world and Me is described as similar to the relationship between a dream and me. we say the world is an illusion. In a dream, I eat ice cream. I wake up. Who ate the ice cream? certainly not me. It appears that my dream-self ate it. But there is no way my dream-self could have known it, since it simply does not exist. I am the only person who knows it. But... I did not eat the ice cream! and hence nobody ate it. Similarly we say nobody experienced/experiences the world.

What if the world is not a dream. what is the basis to say world is a dream? Is just the temporariness/impermanent-ness alone qualify it to be a dream world? dream world is unreal not because it is impermanent. but because it is different order of reality. howsoever infinitesimal the life time is, how so ever infinitesimal the size is(subatomic particles, energy-matter transformation) there is an experience which we cannot deny. the body and everything in the world appears to be impermanent. does it mean it is unreal? it only means it is temporary. its life span is short. what if every cell/atom/particle gets replaced? it is still the same body/mind. the individuality is not lost. so we cannot say it is an illusion just on the basis of its temporariness. we cannot equate it just because of the impermanence of the body, or of anything in the world.

So is this world real?

Now the enjoy er comes into the picture. If I assume that this is 'the' real world, and I begin an enquiry on who am I..after negating everything to be 'me', hoping to find myself after going deeper and deeper, in search of the ultimate reality to be some mysterious magical thing, I realize that the fact of the matter is 'I' am nowhere to be found!!!

In this world I do not exist!! I simply cannot find me. As long as this world is real, I will not be able to find me anywhere. this is a great truth that just dawned on me. this gives great clarity. I do not exist in this world. but.... I know I exist!!


This world then is simply a different order of reality. and since I know I exist for sure, this world must be a lower order of reality and 'hence' an illusion similar to the dream. and even if for the sake of argument there are several such worlds existing, they all will be lower orders of reality since I will not be found in any of them, but I will still be existing.