The Creative Principle in Science

Garry Jacobs

The Mother's Service Society

Oct. 2003

1.      The Twin-Gods of Science

Akbar the Great, the 16^th Century Moghul emperor of India, had a wise minister named Birbal with whom he frequently conversed and sparred on matters of state. On one occasion Akbar boasted with pride to his minister how all aspects of the Holy Koran are practiced by the subjects of his kingdom and he illustrated by reference to the subordinate role which married women have rightfully accepted in relation to their husbands. Birbal’s challenged this assertion, so Akbar asked him to justify his disbelief. Birbal, therefore, instructed the general of the army to assemble all of the married men of the city before the palace gates, so that he could ascertain from them directly whether their wives were properly obedient and submissive to their husbands. When all the husbands were assembled, Birbal instructed them to form two lines in front of the gate, one line for all those who ruled as masters of their own households and another for those who were subject to the dictates of their wives. To Akbar’s great surprise and annoyance, all but one of the men joined the second line with their heads lowered, confessing their subordinate position at home. A single man stood in the line reserved for husbands whose rule at home. The emperor tried to find some hope in this dismal situation by eulogizing the manliness of this one strong soul who ruled the domestic roost. Birbal, who had stood silently trying to suppress all signs of superior wisdom, stepped forward and asked the sole hero why he was standing in that particular line. The man responded, ‘My wife told me to.’

This story illustrates the age-old quest of humankind to discover the real determinants in life. As Akbar found in this instance, the real answers can sometimes be surprising and unsettling to our conventional view of things. During the 20^th Century, the quest for fundamental determinants has preoccupied the minds of great scientists in many fields. In physics, relativity theory and quantum theory emerged as very powerful conceptual and predictive tools, so powerful that the formulation of a single theory that could unify the four fundamental physical forces seems to be within reach. In biology, the unraveling of the genetic code has led some to believe that the secret of life will soon to be deciphered. In neuro-medicine, advances in understanding of the brain and nervous system have convinced some scientists that the mystery of consciousness itself is almost resolved.

These achievements have been so impressive and the hope of arriving at ultimate answers regarding the nature of matter, life and mind is so exciting that there has been a tendency to overlook the fact that all these current theories are only superstructures built on the common foundation of a more fundamental theory of determinism in the material universe. Much like Akbar’s stylized view of marriage relations, this theory of determinism is unquestioningly accepted by most as established truth and rarely re-examined in the light of new ideas and further discoveries to reconfirm its validity. Yet unless the foundation is confirmed to be both fully rational and fully valid in practice, there is no firm edifice on which a final theories of matter, life and mind can be constructed.

Current scientific thought is based on a dualistic theory of creation implicit in all its formulations. The theory can be briefly summarized in the following manner:

All phenomena in the universe are the result of the interaction of two factors, Necessity and Chance, a factor which determines the orderly fixed pattern of things and a factor which results in apparently random variations in those determinations. Necessity is responsible for the laws of Nature discoverable by science as well as the characteristic properties of energy, matter and life forms. Chance is responsible for the apparent randomness and variation, for the evolutionary mutations and differences found within each category of occurrence. Science lives in a world in which things are rigidly determined, yet in some manner are free to vary randomly from those rigid patterns.

Although efforts have been made from time to time to formulate a monism of Necessity based on Natural Law or a monism of Chance based on pure randomness, neither by itself has proved satisfactory to explain the diversity of natural phenomenon. The compulsions of natural law are quite suitable to explain the immutable sameness in Nature, the limited number and type of material forces, atomic elements, chemical molecules, and biological species, their uniformity of design and characteristic patterns of behaviour. But this Necessity, whatever its source or power, fails to explain the enormous variation we find within each group of phenomenon down to the uncertain movements of subatomic particles and the infinite variation in the facial characteristics, fingerprints and personality traits of human beings. Chance easily explains the variations and individuality of phenomenon, but fails to account for the commonality of types and categories, be they types of molecular structures, categories of star clusters, genus of the same animal species or distinct types of human personality. Although it convincingly accounts for differences within groups, Chance fails to explain the evolutionary direction apparent in Nature, the continuous unfolding of higher, more complex and adaptive forms. Why does randomness result in a progressive evolution of complexity rather than a progressive slide into chaos? Chance fails also to explain how the long evolutionary spiral of life on earth should result in the manifestation of the human mind, whose natural propensity is for order, classification and organization. Only when they are both taken together can science hope to account for both the apparent orderliness and the apparent randomness of nature.

Chance and Necessity, according to this implicit view of science, are the twin Gods which have given rise to all material energy and substance, life forms and varieties of conscious experience in the universe. A combination of quantum mechanics and uncertainty characterizes the behaviour of subatomic particles. A Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest augmented by a neo-Darwinian principle of random mutation of DNA molecules characterizes the mechanism for the evolution of all species of living things. The random impact of sensory and physiological stimuli on the electrical circuitry of the human nervous system and its computer-like brain account for all mental activity. The interaction of inherited propensities with random environmental impacts determines the character of human personality. All properties are derived from these twin gods as well as all variations from those properties. Stated philosophically, all things appear to be governed by a set of fundamental determinates, yet possess some degree of freedom or indeterminate quality that accounts for variations within a common pattern and evolution from one pattern to another.

These twin hypotheses rarely comes up for scrutiny, despite the fact that fundamental questions remain unanswered regarding the adequacy of the underlying assumptions. Thus accepted, science perceives its primary task is the discovery, cataloguing and elucidation of laws, qualities and properties, their variations and exceptions, and the mechanisms through which randomness introduces new variations. The most fundamental question is, of course, that of the religionist who asks, “What is it that determines the nature of the determinates?” Science responds by insisting that such a question cannot be answered and therefore need not be asked. The laws of nature and properties of energy and substance are simply the given conditions from which the universe has arisen. They are what they are. But this answer is unsatisfactory. Science does not know the given conditions from which the universe arose. It knows or theorizes only about the conditions that may have existed sometime more than 10 or 15 billion years ago shortly after the Big Bang from which our present universe was born. It knows in those first few instants of the universe, neither matter nor energy as we know it today existed. There were no atomic elements, no molecular structures, and certainly no life forms or conscious beings. Scientists may surmise the temperature, energy and other properties of that primordial existence, which is the material origin of all that has since manifested. But how can it be said that all the properties, laws, qualities and characteristics of what has since manifested are somehow contained in that primordial existence?

If the types and classes of phenomenon in nature are somehow determined, we are forced to postulate that the laws governing the combination of oxygen and hydrogen to form water as well as the individual and resultant properties of these substances were somehow present or determined before either their separate elemental or their combined molecular forms existed in the universe. More troubling, we are forced to conclude that the characteristics of living forms, including the various species of plants and animal are also implicitly governed by determinates that existed before the first appearance of life in the universe. Taken still further, it would mean that the pollination rituals of bees, the imprinting behaviour of baby geese, the hunting instincts of the lion and the common behavioural characteristics of human beings such as anger, greed, ambition, aspiration, affection, loyalty and courage are all the results of determinates implicit at the time of the Big Bang.

Alternatively, we may say, that such determinates were not present and existent at that time, but have arisen over time on the basis of earlier determinates. But this explanation only aggravates the problem, for it supposes that higher order, more complex laws of nature somehow spontaneously emerged from lower order, less complex laws. It is one thing to say that an animal is composed of cells which are constructed from organic molecules which themselves consist of chains of atoms composed of whirling units of subatomic particles. It is quite another to state that all the characteristics of the animal, including its size, shape, and instincts are somehow predetermined by properties inherent in the primordial subatomic particles and their resultant combinations.

The emergence of higher order, more specific determinates from lower order, more general determinates presents a serious problem to the rational mind which cannot be readily addressed by resort to science’s second God, Chance. For chance may adequately explain variations from a given pattern, but how can it explain higher order patterns that are not implicit in the lower order phenomenon from which they arise? Chance may explain why one person’s hair is blond and another’s is black, but how can it explain the instinctive sexual attraction of either colour hair among animal species or the aesthetic value which human beings accord to the length, shape and color of hair, which represent higher order behaviours, not just variations in color? What combination of primordial chance and necessity can account for the symbiotic relationship between bees and flowers?

The same difficulty arises in explaining the emergence of the forms of the tree, fruit and flower from the seed. Science may trace the process by which that primordial single cell divides and multiplies. It may detect the mechanisms by which it synthesizes various chemicals and differentiates into stem cells, root cells, flower and leaf cells. But when we strive to understand what determines that process of differentiation and what makes it occur in an orderly manner, we come back to the same phenomenon of lower order general determinates in the seed giving rise to higher order, specific determinates in the leaf, fruit and flower. We are forced once again to call in the God of randomness to explain the process of differentiation to higher order forms. The fact that we can reproduce this process under certain conditions in the laboratory only proves that such differentiation does occur, but does not explain the underlying process of determination that makes it possible. Again we risk mistaking knowledge of the process and its mechanism for a discovery of their ultimate source. We fall back on the gods of Necessity and Chance to explain how such a marvellous mechanism and capacity have manifested. We have uncovered the extrinsic how without getting any closer to the intrinsic how or why that determine it. We know the formula but we do not know how it was determined.

The problem of determination pervades all fields and aspects of science, yet it is often cloaked by confusion between the description of processes and the explanation of causes. Science has acquired profound insight into many of the processes of nature. It knows precisely how atoms of oxygen and hydrogen gas bond to form molecules of liquid water, yet that description does not adequately explain why water possesses properties and qualities that are not found in either of its parent elements. This question is of much more than mere academic interest. Take, for instance, this observation by a distinguished scientist about some of the fortuitous but inexplicable properties of matter.

The [LJ1] categorization of the properties of the elements in the periodic table adequately describes their common and divergent characteristics, but does not explain why these and not some other characteristics are the result of their differences in subatomic structure. Often such a description passes for an adequate explanation. For example, the excited quantum energy state (resonance state) of an electron in carbon and oxygen are just right for the creation of stable carbon atoms needed for the creation of stars and life on earth. Minor changes in the excited energy state of beryllium and of alpha particles by even one percent would mean that no carbon or heavy metals ever form in the universe, because there would be no resonance to make carbon stable. Resonance enables the electrons of carbon to absorb the extra energy of an incoming alpha particle without bursting apart until it subsides into its normal energy state. If the excited energy level of oxygen were one percent higher, all carbon would be converted to oxygen. There would be no stable organic molecules or life forms as we know them in the universe.[GJ2]

What determined the precise value of these constants? Can it be adequately explained as chance? [GJ3] 

The emergence of life forms poses a more serious challenge to this world view. For we are forced along with the scientist to conclude that all life forms are simply mechanical assemblies of physical parts that have spontaneously assembled themselves and commenced operating in such a manner as to sustain the integrity of their structure, nurture its growth, reproduction and adaptation. Biology with the help of genetics has discovered the entire list of material ingredients needed to create life forms as well as the overt mechanism for reproduction and evolution by mutation, but what combination of chance and necessity could possibly account for the ingenious complexity of such a mechanism? As yet there is also no substantial evidence that a combination of material ingredients mixed ever so long could possibly constitute itself as a living organism.

Science [LJ4] knows the ingredients, but not the recipe for life. It has placed itself in a position like that of a fictitious space traveller who is the first to arrive on a barren planet void of life and discovers a TV and VCR powered by solar cells playing the movie Gone with the Wind. Confident that no space craft or life form had ever visited the planet in the past and that no TV could pass through the planet’s atmosphere without self-destructing, the traveller pulls out his computer and writes a program to calculate the probability that the TV, VCR, solar cells and film could have spontaneously constituted themselves out of the material stuff of the planet and its atmosphere and commenced playing. Unsurprisingly, he finds that such an event is so unlikely that it could have occurred spontaneously only once or twice in 10 billion plus years since the Big Bang. Undismayed, our traveller recognizes that this is approximately the same probability that has been estimated for the spontaneous emergence of life and conscious life forms in the universe that are capable of constructing scientific theories and producing romantic historical films, a similar improbability that has already acquired acceptance as scientific dogma.

The challenges posed by extending the materialist formula to life forms has spurred the search for a third factor that could account for the orderliness, adaptation and capacity for evolution so apparent in Nature. This search has led to examination of the capacity of material energy for self-organization. Systems science sees all matter, living and nonliving, as fundamentally ordered and organized. It explains the emergence of life forms out of inanimate matter by showing that what we regard as ‘living’ is actually a self-generating network, a self-organizing open physical system in active relationship both with the components of which it is the whole as well as the environment of which it is itself a part. All the order we witness in life is the result of spontaneous thermodynamic processes. It views all living systems, be they living organisms, ecosystems or social systems, as integrated wholes whose properties cannot be reduced to those of smaller parts. Systems theory attributes the characteristics of living organisms to self-organizing properties inherent within them and to their capacity to respond and adapt to the context in which they are placed.[GJ5] 

Yet systems theory still leaves us to ponder unsatisfied over the question which is insufficiently addressed by more mechanistic theories. How are these systems so determined or constituted in the first place? We find ourselves forced to resort back to the original Gods of Necessity and Chance. Nor does its explanation of all creativity as the spontaneous emergence of bifurcation points resolve the issue.[GJ6]  The theory merely describes an apparent characteristic of material systems without revealing the underlying determinate that makes it so. Systems theory is an admirable attempt to show that the evolution of complexity does not follow a pre-established plan and need not result from the intervention of a conscious will in Nature. [GJ7] 

Still more troubling are those questions pertaining to the emergence of consciousness out of an inconscient and inanimate energy and substance. Consciousness, according to the prevalent current view, is a mere extension and elaboration of sensation, sensation a product of energy transmission and chemical reaction triggered by impact of inconscient[3] energy from the environment on inanimate material substance in our bodies. Granted that such an explanation may prove adequate to explain a simple electrical circuit with sensors, what determined the formation of the circuit or the sensors in the first place? And assuming it did somehow occur spontaneously, still we must enquire by what properties of material energy and substance do higher mental faculties such as perception, symbolic language, abstract thinking, association, judgement, memory, values and imagination arise, which only by a far stretch of that imagination can be reduced to electrical circuitry? By what combination of chance, necessity and self-organization do human minds synthesize the grandeur of Beethoven’s symphonies, the illuminating insights of Einstein, or the dramatic poetry of King Lear? What inherent determinates in material energy and substance account for these creative faculties?

Taken individually and together, these difficulties must compel rational minds to explore alternative hypotheses in the search for more satisfactory explanations. Rather than striving to fit everything within the ill-fitting formulas of material necessity and chance, we are compelled to ask whether there is any alternative hypothesis that will more adequately account for both the fixed patterns and infinite variation in Nature. Thus far, religion and philosophy, those allied fields of humanity’s quest for knowledge, may have failed to project a rational hypothesis worthy of contention, but that is no reason to stop the search. Chance and necessity may be relegated to the realm of philosophy by practical and experimental scientists fascinated by the power of technology and the predictive power of its theories. But no one in search of ultimate answers and rational understanding of the universe can afford to dispense with an inquiry into the soundness of the theological basis for modern science.

2.      Infinity as the Creator

According to current scientific thought, chance, necessity, and self-organizing systems acting independently, in combination or in synergy are the fundamental determinants of material existence, life and consciousness. Yet these God-like powers imply the existence of something else from which they have arisen and on the basis of which they act in the universe. Chance, necessity and self-organization are merely principles to explain the apparent order and variation in the world. They are principles of action or creation that may satisfactorily or unsatisfactorily explain the evolution of complexity in the universe, but they cannot explain the origin of the universe itself or of those many trillions of forms and forces of which it is constituted and populated. By all accounts, both material and spiritual, we are forced to posit an infinite existence or at least an infinite potential as the basis for all that exists. The true god of both science and religion is Infinity.

No matter how far we are able to trace back the origin of the present universe in time or how far we are able to project our imaginations into the future, we are unable to conceive of either a beginning or an end to temporal existence. Our universe may have been born, but if so, it was born of some prior condition, however unknowable or indescribable it may be by the methods of modern science. It may be that this is the first and only universe or, as some now suspect, one of perhaps millions of real or possible, successful or unviable universes that have been or will be born. Our universe may be presently confined and expanding within a limited sphere, but if it continues to expand indefinitely as recent evidence suggests, it is impossible to conceive of any spatial end or limit to its possible expansion. Even if it does reach a spatial limit or begin to contract, that in no way places a limit on the real or potential spatial expansion of other universes existing before, after or conterminous with our own. An Infinity of space and an Eternity of Time appear as the origin and foundation for all that has, does and will exist in future.

This infinite existence is not confined to mere spatial and temporal characteristics. For from it also have emerged the countless numbers and varieties of energy vibrations, particles, elements, molecules, stars, planets, forms, shapes, designs, and patterns that populate our universe. The numbers of each may be very large yet finite, but the potential number that might have existed, may exist now or may come in to existence can in no conceivable way be limited. So too, the number and variety of life forms with their infinite mutations cannot be subject to any limits. Nor the number and variety of elements of conscious human experiences – impulses, sensations, feeling, emotions, sentiments, attitudes, beliefs, values, thoughts, ideas. All these have arisen from something. We may not be able to say what it is or how they have arisen, but we are forced to conclude that it cannot be limited to any finite characteristics in space, time, number, property or quality. Science implicitly accepts this infinite foundation as the source and basis for all the materials out of which inconscient, inanimate chance, necessity and self-organizing complexity weave the warp and weft of universal existence.

What more can we say than this about the origin? Logic compels us to also conclude that all that has emerged or manifested as material existence, life form or conscious experience, all the energy, substance, forms, properties, qualities, designs and patterns must in some way pre-exist in potential in that origin, for if no such potential existed, they could not have emerged from it. They must be inherent characteristics or inherent potentialities of the Infinite. This Infinite must in some manner of speaking be or have the potential to create living conscious beings. How can something evolve out of something else unless it pre-exists at least as potential in that from which it has emerged?

If this line of thought is rational, then we are forced to reconsider not only the nature of the origin but also the nature of the instruments of chance and necessity through which it appears to effectuate an evolution of its involved potentialities. If life and consciousness are inherent characteristics or potentials of this infinite, then they may also be inherent characteristics of the forces or instruments through which this infinite manifests its potentialities. Such a line of reasoning ultimately runs up against the contradictory evidence of our senses and our science. To our experience, chance is only our way of describing the random acts of an inconscient material energy. Necessity is only our way of describing the fixity of inanimate automatic mechanism. We find not grounds for attributing life or consciousness to either, other than the fact that complex order, perfect precision, flawless design, mathematical architecture, intelligent adaptation, vibrant life and evolving consciousness apparently emerge by the actions of these instruments. The world is so precisely perfect in so many ways[LJ8] that it is easy to attribute, as countless civilizations and ages have done, intelligence and conscious intention to its creator .

The religious conception of an all-knowing, conscious divine will that creates and directs all things to fulfil its own intentions does not satisfy the modern scientific mind, for science does not find sufficient evidence in material nature to conclude that such a conscious will exists or intervenes in material or life processes. It observes complex works of nature that might well be the acts of a conscious will, but sees no glimpse of such a creator. On the contrary, it finds the universe populated by an infinite number and variety of apparently inconscient forces and forms contacting, interacting and evolving by their own motive force and according to their own inherent propensities without need of any intervention by a conscious being. Life emerges only millions of years after the first appearance of inconscient matter and conscious experience follows millions of years after that. Still we are left contemplating the mystery of how an inconscient, inanimate material force can ultimately give rise to living, conscious beings.

One way out is to assert, as science presently strives to do, that life and consciousness are merely complex expressions of material force and substance that have evolved through the inherent tendency of material systems to adapt and grow more complex. There is undoubtedly much in the behaviour of living beings that is so closely allied to physical processes and mechanisms that it is difficult to distinguish from action of physical energy. The response of Pavlov’s dog to the bell exemplifies the type of automatic and repeatable phenomenon widely observed in material nature, if only we ignore the fact that the dog’s response is learned and not innate. But an alternative hypothesis is possible that provides a more satisfying way out of this dilemma, which has not yet received sufficient consideration.

According to Sri Aurobindo, who presented this alternative hypothesis in its most complete and satisfying formulation in his magnum opus The Life Divine, the origin from which all matter, life and mind emerge is not an inconscient Infinite, but rather a Conscious Infinite. Life and mentality are higher order levels or planes of conscious existence that emerge out of material energy and substance because they are previously involved and inherent in all material energy and substance.

This alternative hypothesis fully explains the apparently inconscient, inanimate nature of material force as well as its capacity to give rise to the evolution of living beings and conscious experience. Rather than depicting life and mind as more evolved mechanisms or systems of material form and energy, it conceives matter as a less evolved form of conscious energy and substance in which life and mind are involved. Instead of reducing life and mind to complex mechanisms of matter, it elevates matter to the status of a simpler, less overt form of conscious existence which does not give full expression to its own inherent characteristics. The materialist hypothesis views matter as the first starting point for evolution of life and mind out of matter. The alternative hypothesis views matter as the final step of a complex creative process of involution of life and mind in matter. It is in this process of involution that it differs most strikingly from both the materialist hypothesis adopted by science and the hypotheses adopted by religions that affirm a conscious being as creator of the world.

It will be apparent from a review of the difficulties confronting the materialist hypothesis that no such problems arise when the origin is conceived of as a conscious infinite. The orderliness, extraordinary precision, architectural symmetry, beauty of design, purposeful interaction and interdependence of things and beings are easily explained when we concede the existence of a conscious creator. So also, the infinite variation, evolution and increasing complexity of things would be equally intelligible, since creativity is an inherent characteristic of conscious will and an infinite conscious should be capable of infinite creativity. The emergence of animate life and conscious mind would also be readily explained.

The real difficulty in accepting this alternative hypothesis lies not in explaining how life, consciousness, and complexity can arise out of an apparently inconscient energy but rather how an inconscient material energy and substance can arise out of a conscious infinite so very different from it in their apparent nature. The problem then would not be how to explain a conscious world built from inconscient materials, but how to explain finite, inconscient energy as the first expression and instrument of a conscious Infinite. It is this process which Sri Aurobindo describes as involution. He explains by it not only the origin and true nature of material energy but also the appearance of those ‘moral’ elements in earthly existence which are so inconsistent with our concept of divine will –wastefulness, ignorance, suffering, falsehood, and evil.

The scientist raised in the empirical tradition of Francis Bacon, the mathematical certainty of Descartes, and the experimental philosophy of Isaac Newton may hasten to dismiss such a hypothesis on the same grounds that science dismisses all metaphysical and religious views as essentially untestable, unmeasurable and therefore outside the realm of science. But these attributes apply with equal or greater validity to the hypotheses currently in vogue which assert that life arose spontaneously some time in the distant past on earth or in outer space by a fortuitous combination, assembly and activation of organic compounds; or to the current hypothesis in psychology which asserts that all mental activity and conscious experience are simply chemical and electrical activity in material substance; or to the recent quest for a grand unified theory in physics based on the concept of superstrings, which postulates the existence of a vibrating resonance 100 billion billion times smaller than a proton[GJ9]  and which depends for its theoretical consistency on the existence of a material universe consisting of a minimum of 10 physical dimensions.

None of these propositions can be tested or proven valid. Superstring theory postulates a reality that is smaller than the necessary minimum size for physical measurement as defined by the Planck constant, and is, therefore, untestable. Even if we succeed in creating the most primitive form of viral organisms out of chemical compounds in a laboratory, we cannot thereby prove that the same process is sufficient for the creation of unicellular and higher forms of life or that all these higher forms have evolved spontaneously from that primitive species. Even if we succeed in fully mapping the neural centers in the brain that are associated with various mental faculties, we cannot prove that those centers are the source of those faculties, anymore than we can prove that the radio is the source of the soundwaves that it receives and broadcasts by discovering the function of each of its parts. All that we will have shown is that the different states of consciousness are correlated with different brain functions.

Despite these limitations, science does not hasten to dismiss these apparently untestable and unscientific hypotheses, because while the hypotheses themselves may ultimately be discarded, they stimulate fruitful exploration of uncharted territories in biology, psychology and physics. By the same token, Sri Aurobindo’s hypothesis of involution can not only explain countless experiences and experimental observations inconsistent with or unexplained by current theories, but also generate a vast range of fruitful inquiry and experimentation in the fields of matter, life and mental experience. Whether or not it can ever be tested is a subject we will examine later in this paper.

Scientists, when they study really fundamental problems, expects to find beautiful answers, answers worthy of descriptions such as elegance, simplicity, symmetry, logical completeness and inevitability[LJ10] . By all of these parameters, Sri Aurobindo’s hypothesis far excels current contenders for a final theory.

3.      Sri Aurobindo’s Hypothesis

According to Sri Aurobindo’s hypothesis, an infinite, omnipresent, omniscient consciousness-force is the creator of the universe and all that is in it. The universe is not a creation by the creator of something outside and other than itself, but a progressive and evolutionary manifestation by the Infinite of that which it contains within itself as unmanifest potential. The universe and all it contains is a portion, expression and manifestation of an infinity that is not limited to or confined by this manifest field, which is both a spatial infinity and a temporal eternity. That Infinite is also a formless infinity and timeless eternity that transcends all relative conceptions and experiences of space and time. This conception of the Infinite appears compatible with the speculation of Superstring theorists regarding a vacuum or void from which everything can emerge.[4] But in the case of the alternative hypothesis it is quite clear that this ultimate source is not a physical plane of existence as normally conceived. It is something more subtle and undetectable by physical instrumentation.

Science is making a concerted effort to unify our conceptions of matter, life and mind by representing that all three are expressions of material energy-substance, be that energy the wave particles of quantum theory or the vibrating strings of Superstring theory. These theories split matter into its tiniest measurable or conceptual parts to arrive at an intangible energy-substance and then construct the entire material, living and conscious universe out of this basic ingredient. The reality of matter is so compelling real to our senses that long after physicists have exploded the myth of a solid and stable material substance, there is still a compelling urge to explain all life, mind and conscious experience in material terms, no matter how radically our experience as living and conscious beings may differ from our experience of inanimate matter.

Sri Aurobindo also presents a unifying conception of matter, life and mind by representing that all three are expressions of a common energy-substance. Here too, the constituting energy-substance is intangible, yet forms the basis for all sensual, perceptual and conceptual experience. But in this case that energy-substance is not inanimate or inconscient. This pure fundamental reality is what he terms Consciousness-Force, which is itself an expression of a more subtle reality he refers to as Self-conscious Being or Pure Existence. While some scientists would have us believe that all life and consciousness can be reduced to inconscient energy-substance, Sri Aurobindo asserts that all matter, life and mental experience are limited or veiled expressions of this fundamental Consciousness-Force. In his view, we are not compelled to reduce our deepest emotions, highest ideals and self-awareness to electrical impulses. As our mental activity may be reflected as electrical impulses by the oscillating waves on an electroencephalograph without revealing the actual content of our thoughts, the observable impulses of matter, life and mind which we experience are superficial expressions of a more fundamental reality that possesses the inherent characteristics of consciousness, will and being.

According to Sri Aurobindo, Conscious-Force manifests as mind, life and matter through the process of involution. According to current scientific theory, material energy has an inherent capacity to take on the behavioural characteristics that we associate with life and mental consciousness, characteristics not only very different but even contrary in nature to the inherent qualities of inconscient, inanimate material energy-substance. This is possible according to current theory because life and mind are merely more complex expressions of material energy-substance with no unique characteristics or separate existence of their own. According to Sri Aurobindo, Consciousness-Force has the inherent capacity to take on the behavioural characteristics that we associate with inanimate, inconscient material energy-substance. This is made possible by an involution of the inherent properties of consciousness-force so that it assumes the appearance to our sense experience of inconscient material energy-substance, subconscious life and conscious mentality.

Why, we may ask, this dual terminology of consciousness-force? According to Sri Aurobindo, the capacity to be aware and the capacity to will represent two complementary aspects of a single power, consciousness-force. We tend to think of consciousness as a power of awareness or knowledge, not as a power of action. We reserve a separate term, will or choice or decision, to denote the power of consciousness to exert itself in a particular direction. This division of knowledge and will results from the fact that in the normal human mind, the capacity to know and the capacity to will coexist but appear as separate faculties. We are capable of knowing without the capacity to will or willing without the capacity to know. But this is not the case either when human consciousness rises above the normal level or when we examine the consciousness of animals as it expresses in subconscious instinct. Both above and below the normal level of human mentality, awareness and will for action are unified as a single capacity. The animal does not reflect on his sensations as humans do and then decide to act in a particular manner. The reception of the sensation and the will for action are one and inseparable. In fact, the act of a mediating consciousness between the sensation and the action is barely perceptible, because the awareness of sensation is itself involved or subconscious. Sri Aurobindo maintains that even our normal human consciousness is an involved state of the conscious-force of pure existence. It is involved in the sense that it possesses only very limited knowledge and negligible power in comparison with the knowledge and power inherent in pure consciousness-force. This is analogous to the fact that the kinetic energy of physical forms is infinitesimal in comparison with the power involved in atomic structure. Even the energy released by nuclear reactions represents only a tiny portion of the total energy involved in matter. In the subconscious instinct of the animal, we see the play of a severely limited (involved) but almost infallible knowledge expressing with a decisive power uncharacteristic of human beings. Note that, at the same time, animals possess a power of vitality not found in mentalized human beings, in whom that energy is absorbed as mental consciousness. In higher mental states, the knowledge component is much greater than normal and it is unified with a self-effectuating will. In the thinking mind, the knowledge or consciousness component is primary, the force is secondary; while in life, force is primary and knowledge has become subconsciousness.

The Process of Involution

While science wants us to believe that all our conscious experience can be reduced to characteristics of minerals and electricity, Sri Aurobindo’s hypothesis only requires us to extend to matter and lower forms of life known capacities of consciousness validated by our own experience, the capacities for self-limitation and self-absorption, which are two of the three essential powers responsible for involution.

We know from our own experience that when we concentrate our attention on a particular object – be it a thought, a feeling, sensation, external object or event – our attention is simultaneously drawn away from other fields of perception so that we may not display the normal awareness of what is going on around us and we may not respond to external stimuli as we do in a normal waking state. We know that this apparent lack of awareness and responsiveness are the result of a conscious self-limitation or concentration of our attention on a particular field. Concentration or self-limitation is an inherent power of consciousness.

We know also from our own experience that when we are in dream sleep, we may be very actively aware and intensely responding to stimuli occurring within the dream, yet totally unaware and unresponsive to stimuli from the physical environment. Our motionless state of self-absorbed dream sleep may appear to a second person as an inanimate, inconscient state of death.[GJ11]  Self-absorption of consciousness-force so that it is not at all manifest in surface behaviour is also an inherent power of consciousness.

We know too that our bodies possess a capacity for self-awareness that far exceeds the limits of our conscious mental activity. Psychology tell us that the body is capable of acting in direct opposition to our conscious will to express subconscious urges or tendencies. In times of emergency it may act so instinctively to preserve itself that our conscious mind cannot recollect its actions after the fact. The instantaneous reflex responses of the professional athlete have this character. Without our conscious awareness, the body routinely senses and responds to physiological conditions within its organs and systems, issuing chemical and electrical messages to support continuous respiration, metabolism, and countless other functions. While biology may wish to reduce all these subconscious functions to mere physical feedback systems, they possess characteristics of awareness similar to those found in conscious mentality, while differing in the extreme from mere physical processes in nature. Our bodies as well as those of other animal and plant species possess, so long as they are ‘alive’, a subconscious awareness and subconscious capacity for response arising from the fact that what we term ‘life’ is actually a partially involved status of Consciousness-Force.

[GJ12] As quantum theory, relativity theory and superstring theory have radically altered our conception of matter and material energy, Sri Aurobindo’s hypothesis requires a radical change in our conception of consciousness. In normal parlance consciousness is an attribute of self-awareness and mental activity associated with human beings.[5] Although higher animals demonstrate awareness of their environment, we have no evidence that they are self-conscious. Plants also demonstrate ‘sensory awareness’ of their environment, in the sense that they can detect and move toward light and water, which science attributes to purely chemical processes rather than conscious awareness in the plant. With regard to material substance, we conceive of it as completely lacking even in the most physical capacity of sensation. Neurophysiology is striving to prove that the sensory perception of the plant, the instinctive behaviour of the animal, the conscious as well as the subconscious perceptions and activities of human beings are all of a type, being expressions of electrical and chemical processes. Sri Aurobindo concurs that all these manifestations of consciousness are fundamentally expressions of a single process, and therefore correlations between physical, vital and mental activities are to be expected, since they all have a common foundation and are closely interwoven in their development. But in his view that single process is a process of consciousness, not a material process. Although it certainly does manifest as exchange of electrical and chemical energy, these are only material expressions of a subtle process that are perceptible on the surface. He goes even further by concluding that even material substance itself possesses an intrinsic consciousness, but it is so fully involved or self-absorbed as to be undetectable on the surface. In material forms, the consciousness is unperceptible and the force expresses as inconscient energy moving in fixed patterns that are also unperceptible to our senses. As life is partially involved, subconscious status of Consciousness-Force, matter is a fully involved, inconscient status in which the Consciousness-Force takes on the appearance of inconscient and inanimate energy-substance.

Our primary concern here must be with the lower and purely material end of the spectrum, where we observe no visible signs of consciousness at all. For if consciousness is the very stuff of our existence, we have no difficulty in conceding that mental consciousness is an expression of that fundamental nature. We may even concede that the awareness and responsiveness observed in higher animals is a more limited expression of the same consciousness. But when it comes to material substance, we have difficulty associating its properties with the quality of consciousness. Here is where Sri Aurobindo’s conception of involution comes in, for it explains the process by which pure consciousness through its capacities for self-limitation and self-absorption can take on the form and appearance of inconscient material substance-force.

In matter, both the awareness and the will are so deeply involved and imperceptible on the surface that Sri Aurobindo adopts the term inconscient to describe them. By inconscient he means not a complete absence of consciousness, but rather a complete absence of consciousness as manifest on the surface as reception of sensation or response to sensation. As we go down the ladder from mentality to vitality to physicality, consciousness becomes more involved and concealed, while energy becomes more evolved and manifest; but since the consciousness associated with that energy is involved and acting behind the scenes, the more manifest the energy, the less conscious it appears.[GJ13] 

An analogy from physics may make this proposition more intelligible than it initially appears to our sense-laden mind. Through the senses we view matter as solid, stable, inanimate substance, although we know since early in the last century that actually our perception is only an appearance. What we perceive as solid, stable matter actually consists of millions of atoms whirling around in constant motion at high velocity with huge interstitial spaces separating the particles from each other.[GJ14]  Yet on the surface, neither the empty spaces nor the movement are perceptible. One could say that the energy is involved, in the sense that it is self-absorbed in maintaining what appears as the stable form of matter. Quantum theory goes even further, telling us that actually the atom itself consists of much smaller particles moving in stable orbits at high speed around a central cluster and that vast amounts of energy are so absorbed in this orbital movement, but not normally free to escape from their captive movement. This energy too is involved and normally unmanifest on the surface. Similarly, we know that the nucleus of the atom contains much greater amounts of energy locked within the structure of each atom.