Dr. N.L. Kachhara
Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.
Confucius
1 The Universe
The creation of the universe has always been a point of human inquisitiveness and various theories have been proposed for it. According to one school of thought Brahma or God is the Creator of the universe. Jain Philosophy does not accept any Creator; according to it the universe (Loka) is beginning less and endless. The most widely accepted theory in science is Big Bang theory, which states that the universe came in existence with an explosion. According to this theory the universe is expanding continuously. A theory of oscillating universe has also been proposed which anticipates a Big Crunch in which the universe reduces to a dense mass from which the Big Bang takes place. This theory supports a beginningless and endless universe, Big Bang and Big Crunch repeating in a cyclic manner. The second law of thermodynamics predicts a heat death of universe. This aspect requires further examination.
While dealing with the universe the scientific enquiry has focused primarily on matter, space and time and has neglected the living systems. Living systems have an important bearing on the state of the universe and their omission gives an incomplete picture of the universe. Without including soul the fate of organisms and hence the fate of the universe cannot be predicted successfully. We make an attempt to examine the fate of the universe in the light of Jain philosophy considering the existence of soul, matter and other substances.
2 Jaina Cosmology (Loka)
The loka contains six kinds of substances as noted in chapter 1. Akasa is infinite and a small fraction of it contains the other five substances. This part is called loka and the rest of akasa, which is infinite, is called alokakasa (aloka). The division of akasa into loka and aloka is due to two of the substances, dharmastikaya, the passive agent for motion, and adharmastikaya, the passive agent for rest position, that are present only in loka and are absent in aloka. Without these two agents no substance, pudgala or jiva, can enter aloka. The aloka is infinite spread of empty space.
The loka is finite and has a shape. The most probable shape is constructed by three bowls, one bowl is in inverted position at the bottom, the second bowl is placed upright on it and the third bowl is placed inverted on the second. The first bowl has a height of 7 raju, and diameter of 7 raju at the bottom and 1 raju at the top. The second bowl has a height of 3.5 raju, diameter of 1 raju at bottom and 5 raju, at top. The third bowl is also 3.5 raju high and has a diameter of 5 raju at bottom and 1 raju at the top. A raju is a very large measure of distance whose magnitude is not exactly known but according to one estimate it should be more than 1.45x1021 miles. The loka is divided in three parts that below the junction of 1st and 2nd bowl is called lower loka, that situated at the junction is called middle loka and that above this junction is called upper loka. A region known as trasnadi is defined as the space of diameter of 1 raju and running axially in the middle of the loka for the entire height of 14 raju. The total volume of loka is supposed to be 343 cubic raju.
One sense beings are found in the whole loka but beings with two to five senses are found only in the trasnadi. The part of the trasnadi in the upper loka contains heavens and the part in the lower loka contains infernal lands. Only the central part of trasnadi known as middle loka contains animals and human beings. The middle loka consists of innumerable number of circular islands, circumscribing one after the other, with spaces between them known as oceans. These islands could be conceived as galaxies rotating in circular orbits. The central island known as Jumbudweepa with a diameter of 100000 yojana can be compared to Milky Way Galaxy. The Jambudweepa is divided in seven regions parallel to the diameter; we live in the last part, farthest from the center, known as Bharat Ksetra. This region is the land of action where the living beings employ various kinds of skills for their livelihood. Another region diametrically opposite to Bhatrat Ksetra is also a land of action. The other five regions of Jambudweepa are supposed to be lands of enjoyment where living beings do not use any kind of skill for their living, implying that they have forest based life meeting their needs of food and other necessities from trees. There are only 15 lands of action in the entire middle loka, the other thirteen being in the neighboring islands (galaxies). Thus the life in the middle loka is more or less forest based except for 15 small regions of lands of action.
The heavenly beings in upper loka and infernal beings in lower loka have fluid body and therefore the lands there should be different from the lands in middle loka, where beings have a material body. The loka is beginning less endless and eternal. All the substances in the loka are eternal as no substance can be created or destroyed.
3 Universe: Scientific view
Customarily, the universe, or cosmos or nature, is defined as everything that exists, has existed and will exist. According to this definition, The universe consists of three elements: space and time, collectively known as space time or the vacuum; matter and various forms of energy and momentum occupying space- time; and the physical laws that govern the first two. The universe is very large and possibly infinite in volume; the observable matter is spread over a space at least 93 billion light years across. For comparison, the diameter of a typical galaxy is only 30000 light years, and the typical distance between two neighboring galaxies is only 3 million light years. Our Milky Way galaxy is roughly 100000 light years in diameter, and our nearest sister galaxy, the Andromeda Galaxy, is located roughly 2.5 million light years away.
The observable matter is spread uniformly (homogeneously), throughout the universe, when averaged over distances longer than 300 million light years. However, on smaller length - scale, matter is observed to form "clumps", i.e., to cluster hierarchically; many atoms are condensed into stars, most stars into galaxies, most galaxies into clusters, super clusters and, finally, the largest - scale structures such as the great Wall of galaxies. The observable matter of the universe is also spread isotropically, meaning that no direction of observation seen different from any other; each region of the sky has roughly the same content. The universe is also bathed in a highly isotropic microwave radiation that corresponds to a thermal equilibrium black body spectrum of roughly 2.725 Kelvin.
The present overall density of the universe is very low, roughly 9.9x10-30 grams per cubic centimeter. This mass- energy appears to consist of 73% dark energy, 23% cold dark matter and 4% ordinary matter. Thus the density of atoms is of the order of a single hydrogen atom for every four cubic meters of volume. The properties of dark energy and dark matter are nearly unknown. Dark matter gravitates as ordinary matter, and thus works to slow the expansion of the universe; in contrast, dark energy accelerates its expansion.
Throughout their recorded history, humans have proposed several cosmologies and cosmogonies to account for their observations of universe. The presently accepted Big Bang theory accounts for all the available data. According to this theory everything in the universe - all forms of matter and energy, and even space time itself - came into being at a single event, a gravitational singularity; as space expanded with time, the matter and energy cooled sufficiently to allow the stable condensation of elementary particles into primordial nuclei and atoms. Once atoms formed, matter became transparent to most wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation.
The universe is old and evolving. The most precise estimate of the universe's age is 13.7+0.2 billions years old, based on observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation. Independent estimates, based on measurements such as radioactive dating, agree, although they are less precise, ranging from 11-20 billion years to 13-15 billion years. The universe has not been the same at all times in its history, for example, the relative populations of quasars and galaxies have changed and space itself appears to have expanded. This expansion accounts for how Earth - bound scientists can observe the light from a galaxy 40 billion light years away, even if that light has traveled for only 13.7 billion years; the very space between them has expanded. This expansion is consistent with the observation that the light from distant galaxies has been redshifted; the photons emitted have been stretched to longer wavelengths and lower frequency during their travel. The rate of this spatial expansion is accelerating, based on some studies. The universe appears to have no net electric charge, and therefore gravity appears to be the dominant interaction on cosmological length scales. The universe appears to have no net momentum and angular momentum. The absence of net charge and momentum would follow from accepted physical laws, if the universe were finite.
The universe appears to be governed throughout by the same physical laws and physical constants. According to the prevailing Standard Model of physics, all matter is composed of three generations of leptons and quarks, both of which are fermions. These elementary particles interact via at most three fundamental interactions. The electroweak interaction, which includes electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force; the strong nuclear force described by quantum chromodynamics; the gravity, which is best described at present by general relativity. The theory of special relativity is believed to hold throughout the universe, provided that the spatial and temporal length scales are sufficiently short; otherwise, the more general theory of general relativity must be applied.
Of the four fundamental interactions, gravity is dominant at cosmological length scales, that is, the other three forces are believed to play a negligible role in determining structures at the level of planets, stars, galaxies and larger scale structures. The effects of the two nuclear, the weak and strong nuclear forces, are mainly confined to sub-atomic length scales, because their strengths decrease very rapidly with distance. In principle, electromagnetism could be significant, being equally as long - ranged as gravity; however, the effects of positive and negative charges tend to cancel one another, leaving only a small residue. By contrast, all matter and energy gravitate, causing gravity's effects to be cumulative.
The steady - state theory of cosmology, which was popular in the 1950s, states that the universe has been the same at all times, as well as being homogeneous and isotropic. This theory predicts that the conservation of energy is violated, albeit very slightly. This theory made admirably precise predictions, which have since been disproved by experimental observations.
4 Entropy and Cosmology
The second law of thermodynamics conventionally describes physical systems. An important law of physics, the second law of thermodynamics, states that the entropy of any system cannot decrease except insofar as it flows outward across the boundary of the system. As a corollary, in an isolated system, the entropy cannot decrease. By implication, the entropy of the whole universe, assumed to be an isolated system, cannot decrease; in fact the entropy of the universe is always increasing. It has been speculated that the universe is fated to a heat death in which all the energy ends up as a homogenous distribution of thermal energy, so that no more work can be extracted from any source.
However, the role of entropy in cosmology remains a controversial subject. Recent work has cast extensive doubt on the heat death hypothesis and the applicability of any simple thermodynamic model to the universe in general. Although entropy does increase in the model of an expanding universe, the maximum possible entropy rises much more rapidly-thus entropy density is decreasing with time. This results in an "entropy gap" pushing the system further away from equilibrium. Other complicating factors, such as the energy density of the vacuum and macroscopic quantum effects, are difficult to reconcile with thermodynamic models, making any predictions of large - scale thermodynamics extremely difficult.
Entropy has often been associated with the amount of order, disorder and / or chaos in a thermodynamic system. Entropy serves as a measure of how close a system is to equilibrium that is, to perfect internal disorder. The value of the entropy of a distribution of atoms and molecules in thermodynamic system is a universe of the disorder in the arrangements of its particles. Solids which are typically ordered on the molecular scale usually have smaller entropy than liquids, and liquids have smaller entropy than gases and colder gases have smaller entropy than hotter gases. At absolute zero temperature, crystalline structures are approximated to have perfect "order" and zero entropy.
Mathematically, entropy S is defined as
S= -K ∑ Pi ln Pi (1)
The sum runs over all microstates consistent with the given macrostate and Pi is the probability of the ith microstate and, K is a constant. According to this definition highly-ordered states have low entropy and disordered states may or may not have high entropy. For microcanonical system where all accessible microstates have the same probability, equation (1) givesS= K ln W (2)
Where W is the number of possible states in which a system can be found.
Some scientists have questioned the relationship between entropy and disorder. If entropy is associated with disorder, and if the entropy of the universe is headed towards maximum entropy, then many are often puzzled as to the nature of the "ordering" process and operation of evolution. In the recent book SYNC - The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order, Steven Strogatz writes, "Scientists have often been baffled by the existence of spontaneous order in the universe. The laws of thermodynamics seem to dictate the opposite; the nature should inexorably degenerate towards a state of greater disorder, greater, entropy. Yet all around us we see magnificent structures galaxies, cells, ecosystems, human beings that have all somehow managed to assemble themselves."
The most general interpretation of entropy is as a measure of our uncertainly about a system. The equilibrium state of a system maximizes the entropy because we have lost all information about the initial conditions except for the conserved variables; maximizing the entropy maximizes our ignorance about the details of the system. This uncertainty is not of the everyday subjective kind, but rather the uncertainly inherent to the experimental method and interpretive model.
Locally, the entropy can be lowered by external action. This applies to machines such as a refrigerator, where the entropy in the cold chamber is being reduced, and to living organisms. This local decrease is, however, only possible at he expense of entropy increase in the surroundings.
5 Entropy and life
Some scientists draw a parallel between physical systems and biological systems. As a biological ecosystem evolves by the process of natural selection, it disperses energy, increases entropy, and moves towards a stationary state with respect to its surroundings. According to them whether an object is animate or inanimate, science does not make a distinction. In both cases, energy flows towards a stationary state, or a state of equilibrium, in the absence of a high-energy external source.
Erwin Schrödinger in his 1944 book What is Life? explains that most physical laws on a large scale are due to chaos on a small scale. He calls this principle "order- from disorder". He states that life greatly depends on order and that a naive physicist may assume that the master code of a living organism has to consist of a large number of atoms. He further states "... living matter, while not eluding the "laws of physics" as established up to date, is likely to include "other laws of physics" hitherto unknown, which however, once they have been revealed, will form just as integral a part of science as the former."
Schrödinger concludes the book with philosophical speculations on determinism, free will, and the mystery of human consciousness. He is sympathetic to the view that each individual's consciousness is only a manifestation of a unitary consciousness pervading in the universe. In the final paragraph, however, he emphasizes the uniqueness of each human being's store of memories, thoughts and perceptions.
The argument that life feeds on negative entropy or negentropy by Schrödinger served as a stimulus to further research. In the popular 1982 text book Principles of Biochemistry by American biochemist Albert Lehninger it is argued that the order produced within cells as they grow and divide is more than compensated for by the disorder they create in their surroundings in the course of growth and division. Thus, according to Lehninger, "living organisms preserve their internal order by taking from their surroundings free energy, in the form of nutrients or sunlight, and returning to their surroundings an equal amount of energy as heat and entropy.
In a study titled "Natural selection for least action" published in the proceedings of the Royal Society A, Ville Kaila and Arto Annila of the University of Helsinki describe how the second law of thermodynamics can be written as an equation of motions to describe evolution, showing how natural selection and the principle of least action can be connected by expressing natural selection in terms of chemical thermodynamics. In this view, evolution explores possible paths to level differences in energy densities and so increase entropy most rapidly. Thus, an organism serves as an energy transfer mechanism, and beneficial mutations allow successive organisms to transfer more energy within their environment.
Entropy has been associated with disorder and disorder, has been linked to disorganization by some workers; higher entropy means higher disorder and also higher disorganization. But this kind of relationship has been questioned by others, particularly in context with living systems. Living creatures are a very significant sub-class of open systems. An individual cell continuously takes up metabolites through its enclosing membranes and this material undergoes chemical reactions within the cell interior resulting in a variety of low- and high - molecular weight products, some of these pass out of the cell: others contribute to the cell's growth and to its eventual division. It is really difficult to make an accurate entropy balance on an organism with its environment. But the experimental evidence available does not reveal any violation of the second law.
K.G. Denbigh has cited an example of a fertile bird's egg inside an incubator. The latter contains a sufficiency of air and was initially raised to a temperature high enough for the hatching of the egg. The incubator was thereafter surrounded by perfect thermal insulation so that its total entropy can only increase or remain constant. However there remain two possibilities concerning a different aspect of the system's temporal development: (1) the egg dies; (2) the egg lives and eventually gives rise to a live chick. Now it is true that in case (1) there is an entropy increase accompanied by a process of disorganization, localized in the egg. But the opposite is the situation in case (2): for although the egg is certainly a highly organized system, the live chick must surely be deemed to be much more so. Entropy again increases but now there is an increase in the degree of organization as well. This example thus provides a clear instance of its being false to suppose that entropy increase is equivalent to a process of disorganization. This does not mean that organisms operate in a manner contrary to the second law. That is not the case at all. The irreversible processes of metabolism, heat conduction etc., occurring within organisms are entropy producing like any others. It is only to say that changes in amount of organization and of entropy can occur quite independently of each other.
A similar conclusion was reached by Denbigh about changes or 'orderliness' and of entropy being mutually independent. He thinks that in addition to entropy there may well exist other 'one way functions' which add to the overall description of the worlds' temporal development.
6 Physical Systems
According to Jain philosophy the smallest constituent of all matter and energy is paramanu. The modes of energy of the paramanu change spontaneously[1] and so we have paramanus in which the electric energy is very small compared to thermal energy and also paramanus in which the thermal energy is very small compared to electric energy. So theoretically we can describe the cosmos in three ways.
The state of a free paramanu is unpredictable, it can move with different velocities, from zero to very high velocity, and can occupy any position in the cosmos. The paramanu is thus associated with highest uncertainty. With the formation of clusters in a vargana the freedom of motion of the paramanu is subjected to restriction thereby reducing its uncertainty. This reduction in uncertainty gives rise to some order in the arrangement of paramanus in the vargana. The order is increased in those vargana, which have paramanus in the bonded state. The order is still high in matter which is comprised of largest mass type vargana. According to rules available in Jain philosophy bonding between two paramanus takes place when the difference in their electric charge exceeds a minimum level. This shows that a high electric charge (or magnetism) increases order in the system.
The processes taking place in varganas like clustering, declustering, bonding and separation are spontaneous. In the smaller mass less varganas the paramanus simply cluster without bonding and decluster easily. The process is going on randomly and is not expected to change the overall order in the cosmos. In the larger mass type varganas, which are in the form of energy, bonding and debonding is an electrical activity, which must be reversible in nature without disturbing the overall order in the system. Scientific theories indicate that 73 percent mass in the universe is in the form of dark energy. According to Jain philosophy the varganas must comprise this part of energy. We therefore expect that this 73 percent mass does not change order in the universe. Amongst the rest of the mass about 23 percent is said to be dark matter and the remaining 4 percent is visible (luminous) matter. Over 99 percent of the visible mass is contained in the stars and therefore their activities are important from the view of prevailing order in the universe.
The thermal processes taking place in matter are subjected to the second law of thermodynamics, according to which in an isolated system like universe the entropy is always increasing pushing the system towards an equilibrium state where no useful work is possible. We have stated above that the universe can be regarded both as a thermal system and an electrical system and that the system can change its mode from one type to another spontaneously. This has important implications regarding the overall order in the universe.
There is scientific evidence that verifies a spontaneous change in the mode of a system. In a process known as adiabatic demagnetization a reversible change in temperature of a suitable material is caused by exposing the material to a changing magnetic field. In this type of refrigeration process, a sample of solid such as chrome - alum salt, whose molecules are equivalent to tiny magnets, is inside in insulated enclosure cooled to a low temperature, typically 4 Kelvin or 2 Kelvin, with a strong magnetic field being applied to the container using a powerful external magnet, so that the tiny molecular magnets are aligned forming a well-ordered "initial" state at that low temperature. The magnetic alignment means that the magnetic energy of each molecule is minimal. The external magnetic field is then reduced, a removal that is considered to be closely reversible. Following this reduction, the atomic magnets then assume random less-ordered orientations, owning to thermal agitation, in the "final" state. The "disorder" and hence the entropy associated with the change in the atomic alignments has clearly increased. In terms of energy flow, the movement from a magnetically aligned state requires energy from the thermal motion of the molecules, converting thermal energy into magnetic energy. Yet, according to the second law of thermodynamics, because no heat can enter or leave the container, due to its adiabatic insulation, the system should exhibit no change in entropy. The increase in disorder, however, associated with the randomizing directions of the atomic magnets represents an entropy increase? To compensate for this, the disorder (entropy) associated with the temperature of the specimen must decrease by the same amount. The temperature thus falls as a result of this process of thermal energy being converted into magnetic energy. If the magnetic field is then increased, the temperature rises again.
One variant of adiabatic demagnetization is nuclear demagnetization refrigeration (NDR). In NDR the cooling power arises from the magnetic dipoles of the nuclei of the refrigerant atoms, rather than their electron configurations since these dipoles are of much smaller magnitude, they are less prone to self- alignment and have lower intrinsic minimum fields. This allows NDR to cool the nuclear spin system to very low temperatures, often 1mK or below.
The above example of adiabatic demagnetization shows that:
- The thermal energy and magnetic energy can mutually interchange spontaneously in an adiabatic system.
- The order in the system depends on both the thermal energy and magnetic energy.
- At low temperature the thermal energy and magnetic energy have opposing effect on ordering.
These observations though made under specific conditions do support the views that the universe can be regarded both as thermal system and electrical (or magnetic) system and that the overall order in the universe is jointly determined by these two modes.
7 Living systems
Living systems are characterized by soul. We know that in the development process the soul initially exists in impure state and takes birth as one sense being. At this stage the soul can take birth anywhere in the universe making its occurrence highly uncertain. From this point of view the life as one sense being is a highly disordered system. As the soul develops and progresses on its journey the regions and scope of its birth are subjected to restrictions, the uncertainty is reduced and the order is increased. Finally when the soul is liberated the soul cannot take birth again and the uncertainty is reduced to zero giving a perfectly ordered system. Thus life in the universe proceeds temporally from a highly disordered system to a perfectly ordered system.
The above hypothesis is supported by history of evolution of species on Earth. Biodiversity found on Earth today is the result of 4 billion years of evolution. Until approximately 600 million years ago, all life consisted of bacteria and similar single celled organisms. The cell structure was prokaryotic. More complex creatures arose sequentially after this prokaryotic beginning, first eukaryotic cells, perhaps about two billion years ago, then multicellular animals about 600 million years ago. This was followed by the age of invertebrates. Then in sequence we had the age of fishes, age of reptiles, age of mammals and finally humans. The complexity of DNA increased through these sequences starting from simple DNA found in virus to highly developed DNA in humans. The structure of DNA can be considered as a representative of order in the living systems and we find that evolution of life on Earth has proceeded from disorder to order. Some scientists are of the view that this order in the world must be the result of intelligence (or an intellect being).
DNA is an organic superconductor that can work at normal temperatures. Artificial superconductors require extremely low temperatures of between 2000K and 1400K to function. All superconductors are able to store light and thus information. This is further explanation of how the DNA can store information. Bio photons responsible for the ability to communicate at all levels within cells, between cells, organization of metabolic activities within the cell, the operation of the immune network and host of other biological functions, also have high efficiency of energy transfer and transformation which often approaches 100 % in DNA, which undergoes physical resonance.
The above scientific information helps us to understand how life proceeds from disorder to order. First, some scientists also find it necessary to believe in the presence of intelligence in life, which we know is the property of the soul. In a soul the prana energy must produce the organization in a cell; in fact this may be the main function of prana energy. The entropy balance is difficult to make as we are not able to account for the subtle prana energy in the energy audit. Lehninger assumed that internal order in organisms is preserved by taking free energy in the form of sunlight and nutrients from their surroundings. This may be true of plants but the mobile beings are not expected to benefit much from sunlight. Instead in their case it should be the prana energy that preserves the order. The prana energy may constitute the “other laws of physics” Schrödinger has referred to. Second, amazing structure, like super conductor DNA holding large amount of information and a weak light in DNA accomplishing feats like 100% energy transfer and transmission efficiency and superb organization of metabolic activities in the cell etc are features which minimize entropy increase and maintain order in a living being. This kind of performance is not expected of innate matter; clearly it is the soul whose powers produce the order in DNA and organization in the cell. As the soul progresses in its journey from one sense microorganism it creates better order and organization in the biological systems which we see as evolution on Earth like planets. After the stage of human beings further increase in order has not been explored by science as yet as this falls in the realm of spiritual world. According to Jain philosophy the order continues to increase in spiritual personalities, hopefully producing improved metabolic and other biological states which are endowed with many kinds of supernatural powers. The journey of progress ends in liberation, a state of perfect order of the soul. Such a state is not possible with physical body, which has inherent limitations, and therefore the soul drops the body at the last stage, becoming free forever. The total number of liberated souls is infinite and this number is increasing as more souls get liberated.
According to Jain philosophy one - sense microorganisms are found all over loka and mobile beings, 2-sense to 5-sense beings, are found in the central region of loka. All these organisms produce order from disorder as has been rightly recognized by Schrödinger. They take in matter and energy in various forms from the environment and assemble them to produce the body structure. The body is maintained with minimum increase in entropy. The processes taking place in body are primarily electrical and chemical both of which are energetically more efficient than thermal processes. Thus organisms are means of producing order from disorder.
8 Spatial and Temporal Variations in Order/Disorder
A relationship between order/disorder and quality of life can be established. Forests are order producing systems for they receive thermal energy from sunlight and convert it into chemical and electrical energy with the help of nutrients. As chemical and electrical systems are better ordered than thermal systems, plants produce order from disorder. Burning of fuel converts chemical energy into thermal energy and increases disorder. Atomic energy power plants convert electrical bonding energy into thermal energy and also increase disorder. A forest based life style where all requirements of living beings are met from forests conserves order in the environment. From this consideration animals do not contribute to disorder. Human beings burning fuel produce disorder the magnitude of which increases with increasing rate of burning fuel. Industrialization, using fossil fuels and atomic energy, increases disorder, a higher disorder must be associated with a low quality of life and vice versa.
Jain philosophy describes in detail the quality of life in the universe. There are two types of lands in the universe, the lands of enjoyment where the life is forest based, and lands of action where the living beings employ various kinds of skills for living, which may involve burning of fuel. The lands of action are found only in that part of universe which is inhabited by human beings, and human beings are found only in a small part of the universe, which is comprised of Jambudweepa and two more similar regions in the neighborhood. Jambudweepa and these two lands have not been identified in the modern context but in my opinion they are our Milky Way Galaxy, Andromeda Galaxy and a part of Triangulum Galaxy. In this part of universe there are 15 lands of action and our planet is one of them. This means that there are 15 planets or regions in the universe, 3 in Milky Way Galaxy and 6 each in Andromeda and Triangulum Galaxy, where human beings employ advanced skills for living. Most of the lands of action maintain a constant standard of quality of life, at different levels, but there are few others, like our Earth, which experience a temporal cyclic change in the quality of life. We are presently passing through the descending phase of the quality cycle that is the quality of life is going down. This means that disorder must be increasing on our planet, a fact that cannot be disputed. This downward trend is supposed to continue for about 40,000 years when the disorder shall reach the maximum level and the quality of life shall be at a minimum level. Thereafter a reversal in the trend shall occur and disorder shall start decreasing, eventually producing conditions for better quality of life.
In those lands of action which maintain a given quality of life, the human beings must be wiser not indulging in activities that increase disorder. As stated above human beings are found only in a small part of the universe, in the remaining part only animals are supposed to exist, where life must be forest based producing no disorder. Thus the scenario which emerges is that in most part of the universe the living systems produce no disorder, only the physical systems may disturb the balance of order and disorder. As the physical systems involve electrical and chemical processes, besides thermal, there is a good possibility of order/disorder being maintained at a constant level on a galactic scale.
From above we see that Jain philosophy allows for local variation in disorder, as we find on Earth, but that should not be a matter of alarm as far as the universe is concerned. The universe being endless maintains a stable condition of order/disorder and life is respectfully maintained on a continuous basis.
9 Is Universe Expanding?
The Big Bang theory, which is widely accepted by scientists, is predicted by red shift given by Hubble’s law based on astronomical measurements. The red shift is supposed to occur mainly due to expansion of space, which causes emitted photons to stretch to longer wavelengths and lower frequency during their journey of millions and billions of light years. The Jain philosophy offers an alternative explanation for stretching of photons in such long journeys.
A photon is made of vargana of mass category. A photon is supposed to be charge less and so it must be an aggregate of two or more varganas (a vargana has a charge). In fact photons of different frequency must contain differing number of varganas. These and other kinds of varganas of both mass less and mass category are found all over middle loka. These varganas travel in all directions at any given location. A photon traveling in space may encounter and collide with other photons or varganas traveling in different directions. The possibility of collision will certainly exist when the travel is on galactic scale involving millions of light years. As a result of such collisions it is expected that some of the varganas or paramanus will be knocked off reducing the number of paramanus and hence the energy of the photon. A photon with less number of varganas or paramanus also becomes less dense and shall occupy more space than before. Consequently, the frequency of photon shall decrease and the wavelength shall increase, when considering travel of photon on galactic scale. The frequency decrease can be expected to be more with greater distance of travel and more number of collisions of photon. Thus there is no need to make rather an unrealistic assumption of expansion of space to explain the Hubble's law. Jain philosophy supports a steady state universe; the concept of expanding universe is not acceptable.
Akasa in Jain philosophy is real, infinite, eternal and one indivisible unit and it cannot have any expansion. The expansion of space, assumed by scientists obviously raises the question; it is expanding in what? There can be no expansion without the presence of space and if the space is already present what is the meaning of expansion of space. Jain philosophy offers a way out for all such confusing assumptions. Is the Big Bang inferred by extrapolation of Hubble's observations not imaginary?
10 Comments
The active universe is comprised of two basic components, (1) matter and energy and (2) jiva, the living substance. The state of the universe is jointly determined by these two components. The inanimate component is bigger than the animate component. The 73 percent of the inanimate component is recognized as dark energy by scientists and not much is known about it. According to Jain philosophy this part of inanimate energy must comprise of varganas which are clusters of paramanus, some of them are in bonded state and others are unbounded. The bonding between paramanus is an electrical activity and therefore varganas are not supposed to contribute to disorder in the system.
The luminous matter, made up of one specific type of vargana, ultimately consists of paramanus, whose total energy comprises of electric energy and thermal energy (including kinetic energy of motion). The paramanu undergoes self-transformation and one mode of energy may change into another mode spontaneously. The second law of thermodynamics applies to thermal processes of gross matter that increases entropy in the universe. This is supposed to increase disorder. However the processes taking place in electrical mode are seen to increase order in the system (like ordering of molecular magnets). There remains a possibility of change of matter from thermal mode to electrical mode in some part of the universe producing order from disorder.
Organisms are systems that produce order from disorder. The order and organization seen in cells is not possible in non-living systems and it is surely a result of intelligence contained by the soul. The soul which proceeds from a highly disordered state to a perfectly ordered state also produces order in the body it occupies. It is because of the soul that the processes in the body are highly efficient minimizing entropy production in the environment. In most part of the universe organisms do not disturb the order; there are only a few regions where human beings resort to activities that increase disorder.
So, we have systems producing order from disorder and disorder from order in the universe. The galaxies, star systems, cells, organisms, etc. are examples of beautiful order in the universe. The two components, living and non-living, together give a steady and stable universe according to Jain philosophy and there is no fear of heat death or end of the universe.
11 References
- “Jain Metaphysics and Science: A Comparison”, Dr. N.L. Kachhara, Prakrit Bharati Academy, Jaipur
- Universe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Steady state theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Entropy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
- Entropy (order and disorder) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
- What Is Life? - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Note on Entropy, Disorder and Disorganization, K.G.Denbigh
- Magnetic refrigeration - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
- Evolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Spiritual Science: DNA is influenced by words and frequencies, Grazyna Fosar and Franz Bludorf