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Indian Idealists! You have evolutionary work to do.


The kind and quality of books being generated by western philosophers of science is awe inspiring. But as a well wisher of Indian philosophy, it also evokes an old sorrow.
This is sad because proto-Idealism and Idealism were both Indian inventions. And it was exported to Greece, China, Japan and Renaissance Europe in multiple waves, triggering great intellectual movements there. This fact is admitted by foreign scholars themselves (Diogenes Laertius, Philostratus, Voltaire, Schopenhauer etc)
Question to Indian Idealist Thinkers- (O ye Cittamātravādins my fellows!!) Why are you not even trying to incorporate Evolutionary biology into the now ossified and adamantly stagnant Indian systems of thought?
When will we see an Indian work with the title- "Universal biology after Aitareya, Kapila, Buddha and Shankara"? Oh the agony of waiting!
Question to Indian 'Realists' (Dvaita, Jaina, Samkhyas, Navya-Nyaya etc whom I place under class 'Sarvāstivāda'--"All exists")- For thousands of years, all of you have argued that "Karma" (Causality) is the reason for all variation in Nature. This is resoundingly challenged by recent discoveries. In my interactions with some truly erudite researchers in the now defunct forum 'Anthrogenica'- I learned a rather worldview shifting FACT--> "Variation in nature is because of Entropy. It is calorifically impossible to error- correct all mistakes in DNA propagation"- This is nothing but the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Humans will have to eat at least three times more food if evolution wanted to ensure DNA is passed on without errors. A huge ATP burden just to ensure all errors are corrected. An effort that is not worth the squeeze. Hence naturally non-selected. And this is the reason every generation will always be different from the previous. THIS is the Origin of Species. How will modern Sarvāstivādins salvage the ancient and chaotic 'Theory of Karma' in the light of facts like these? Indian Idealists (the cittamatravadins) never accepted Karma as a Paramartha (Thing-in-Itself), hence I think we can easily assimilate Evolutionary Biology into Indian philosophy. But I am not sure 'Indian Realism' is compatible with it. Hence I eagerly wait with philosophical popcorn to see Sarvastivadins struggle to pull it off. What-if anything- connects Entropy and Karma?
As of now, no writer in India from any side of the Thougt-spectrum is even remotely interested this glorious but unfinished business of Indian philosophy.


 

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