Kiran S Pillai’s knowledge unified theory

New Delhi : What if there comes a day when the boundaries between Science, Art, and Philosophy all collapse? You’ll be able to practically grasp and cope with any field of knowledge once you get to that stage in your voyage of inquiry.

Advaita Vedanta is based on this concept. There is only one, and there are no others. The apparent disparities between thoughts and things are the origin of duality, or Maya (the divine illusion), and everything originates from a single point.

For the sake of argument, let us grant that Advaita Vedanta is correct. In this view, the boundaries between fields of study like Science and the Arts are blurred, despite their apparent differences to the untrained eye.

Math is sometimes said to be “the language of the universe,” and this is well known. Many scientific and engineering topics might be defined in terms of mathematical ideas. For almost a century, colleges have been able to teach various subfields of engineering using just the mathematical notions of calculus, linear algebra, statistics, and probability as the foundations for engineering. Therefore, mathematical notions at the foundational level serve to obscure the distinctions between the many fields of engineering.

If you’re interested in engineering, whether it’s civil, mechanical, or electrical, you may use mathematics to better comprehend the ideas and concepts behind these fields. The origins of other types of engineering may be traced back to these.

This way, we bring about the unity of engineering branches.

Consider Science.

Let us take the basic concepts of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, for instance. Will there be a common ground on which these concepts could stand? Possibly we could say logic behind laws and theorems might be a common point of intersection between branches of science.

So, we come to the common ground of logic.

Let us now get back to Mathematics. What governs the laws of Mathematics? It is logic.

Consider Humanities – Economics, Sociology, Psychology, Political Science, Anthropology and their relatives such as Philosophy and Epistemology.

What governs the fundamentals of these branches of study? We could safely say these are governed by logic.

Consider creative arts.

We could see from a distance that arts do not work purely on logic. We could imagine anything and everything in the arts. It is possible to draw about ships that sail in the sky or sing about love after death.

So, arts could be governed by imagination.

What is logic? Logic could be defined as realistic imagination. Creativity could be defined as unrealistic imagination.

So, we come to the point of imagination or thought.

With no thought, there is no imagination. Hence, we could argue that all knowledge comes from the point of thought.

Take one more step back. Imagine the space of deep sleep. That is the state when there is no thought. Or consider the state of death. It is also a state of no thought.

How would you call it a state of no thought? You just call it “it is”.

A lot of Masters of Advaita Vedanta point people to that state which is beyond thought and cannot be named or experienced. There are states of life that come beyond names and forms, which are achieved in deep meditation or in a deep sleep.

The argument presented here is that knowledge often reaches a point where differences between branches of knowledge blurs off.

I try to present perspectives such as these on various branches of knowledge on my website www.vastuta.co