Uncommon Wisdom: Fault Lines in the Foundations of Atheism

by Ashish Dalela

The rise of militant atheism has brought to fore some fundamental issues in our conventional understanding of religion. However, because it offers science as an alternative to religion, militant atheism also exposes to scrutiny the fundamental problems of incompleteness in current science. The book traces the problem of incompleteness in current science to the problem of universals that began in Greek philosophy and despite many attempts to reduce ideas to matter, the problem remains unsolved. The book shows how the problem of meaning appears over and over in all of modern science, rendering all current fields—physics, mathematics, computing, and biology included—incomplete. The book also presents a solution to this problem describing why nature is not just material objects that we can perceive, but also a hierarchy of abstract ideas that can only be conceived. These hierarchically ‘deeper’ ideas necessitate deeper forms of perception, even to complete material knowledge. The book uses this background to critique the foundations of atheism and shows why many of its current ideas—reductionism, materialism, determinism, evolutionism, and relativism—are simply false. It presents a radical understanding of religion, borrowing from Vedic philosophy, in which God is the most primordial idea from which all other ideas are produced through refinement. The key ideological shift necessary for this view of religion is the notion that material objects, too, are ideas. However, that shift does not depend on religion, since its implications can be known scientifically. The conflict between religion and science, in this view, is based on a flawed understanding of how reason and experiment are used to acquire knowledge. The book describes how reason and experiment can be used in two ways—discovery and verification—and while the nature of truth can never be discovered by reason and experiment, it can be verified in this way. This results in an epistemology in which truth is discovered via faith, but it is verified by reason and experiment.

Genres: Philosophy

214 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 17, 2015

About the author

The idea that everything in our experience can be explained based on physical properties is a thesis whose time has passed. There are now problems in mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, computing, neuroscience and artificial intelligence, where physical properties are known to be inadequate. But are these problems separate, individual concerns for their respective fields, or are they somehow interlinked in ways we don’t yet fully see or appreciate?

I believe that in every field of science forward movement can happen only by incorporating meaning as a foundational principle. Through my writing I explore the connection between meaning and science.

The problem of meaning has historically been equated with the study of the mind, which is quite unnecessary because meanings can also be seen in books, pictures, music and art. The latter are material objects too, although they cannot be described in current science. In what way are symbolic objects different from meaningless objects? What changes to science must be made in order to describe symbolic objects scientifically?

The need to incorporate meaning into nature requires a conceptual overhaul in science. Unlike modern science which treats meaning as an epiphenomenon of matter, the new view would require matter to be treated as an epiphenomenon of meanings. Meanings can exist independent of matter, but matter cannot exist independent of meaning. To create material objects, some meaning must exist prior.

The foundational principles of this semantic view are found in Vedic philosophy, which describes matter as symbols of information. Mind in this view, is prior to matter and creates material objects by objectifying meanings. Upon objectification, the material objects become symbols of meaning. If these symbols are described as objects, the description of nature would be incomplete. To complete science, nature has to be described as symbols rather than objects.

I write about two broad themes: (1) the problems of indeterminism, incompleteness, uncertainty and inconsistency in different fields of science (mathematics, physics, computing, linguistics and biology) and their relation to meaning, and (2) the manner in which meaning and matter are integrated in Vedic philosophy entailing a different view of matter.

I welcome your comments and suggestions, in case you find these ideas interesting.

Reviews

[Leslie Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful and Paradigm Shifting

What a clear and succinct explanation of science and religion with a compelling conclusion. Religion should not be seen as personal belief, but a study of the reality of the universe and the source of knowledge and why, how, and who causes its iterations in the world, closing the rift with scientific thought.

Ashish Dalela's writings are truly groundbreaking. His ideas are novel yet deeply comprehensive and resonate.

[Alan Fuller · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book examines the origin of the new atheism in modern scientific theories, how those theories created additional unsolved problems and why a solution to those problems will invalidate the ideas on which atheism is founded. The incompleteness of science requires revisions, and once those revisions happen the conflict between religion and science will also cease to exist.

Mr. Dalela offers a different notion of God than the one in Abrahamic religions. “God” in Vedic philosophy is the space of all conscious observers and primordial ideas from which more complex ideas are generated. God itself is defined as reality and knowledge.

"God in Abrahamic religions is someone who stands apart from the universe, so much so that He cannot be understood from the study of His creations. God in Vedic philosophy creates the universe out of His own personality and His nature and existence can be understood from the nature and existence of the universe itself."
Dalela, Ashish. Uncommon Wisdom: Fault Lines in the Foundations of Atheism (Kindle Locations 3596-3598). Shabda Press. Kindle Edition.

In Christian theology, general revelation, or natural revelation, refers to knowledge about God and spiritual matters, discovered through natural means, such as observation of nature (the physical universe), philosophy and reasoning. It is based on such Bible verses as Romans 1:20 and Psalms 19:1.