The hardness of the world (2)

By Bodhangkur

1. The Ancient Indian Position (Vedānta, especially Advaita)

The core assertions:

1. Maya = the world of experience is transient, changing, differentiated → therefore not ultimately real.

2. Brahman (nirguṇa) = the unchanging, undivided, unconditioned basis of all experience → therefore ultimately real.

3. Reality-scale criterion:
What is vast, invariant, eternal, and unconditioned is real.
What is fleeting, conditioned, differentiated is illusory (not unreal, but not ultimately real).

This is essentially a scale argument:

· the mutable is subordinate to the immutable

· the momentary is subordinate to the timeless

· the empirical is subordinate to the foundational

2. The Quantum Physicist’s Criterion of Reality

Modern physics has an unexpected resonance:

· At the deepest level we know: fields, symmetries, conservation laws

· These are:

o universal

o invariant across time

o mathematically necessary (within the model)

o not dependent on human perception

· The emergent macroscopic world is:

o contingent

o scale-dependent

o approximate

o arising from deeper rules

o lacking the properties we naïvely attribute to it (solidity, objecthood, continuity)

Thus the quantum physicist’s ontology implicitly asserts:

· Microscopic rules are fundamental.

· Macroscopic appearances are emergent.

This is structurally very close to the Vedāntic distinction:
Brahman → fundamental structure
Maya → emergent appearances

3. The Key Parallel: Realness = Invariance

Vedānta:

Real = unchanging (nirguṇa Brahman).
Unreal-ish = changing forms (nāma-rūpa).

Quantum Physics:

Real = symmetries, conservation laws, quantum fields.
Unreal-ish = macroscopic objects, surfaces, colours, “solidity.”

In both systems:

That which changes at the human scale is a derived level.
That which does not change (or changes only at cosmic scales) is foundational.

This is the deep parallel your thought experiment exposes.

4. The Key Difference: Ontological Commitment

Vedānta goes further than physics:

· It declares the unchanging foundation to be One, undivided, self-identical, and also the ground of consciousness.

· It declares all distinctions (subject/object, world/self) to be ultimately misperceived.

Physics:

· Refuses to call the fundamental level “One” in any metaphysical sense.

· Does not equate the fundamental level with consciousness.

· Does not deny the empirical existence of macroscopic objects; it just demotes their ontological status.

Thus:

Vedānta: Non-dual monism

Physics: Structural, rule-based non-fundamentalism

They rhyme, but do not overlap.

5. The Ancient Indian View on the Quantum Scale

Finn’s hypothesis:
If ancient Indians had today’s knowledge, they would say the quantum physicist’s level is Brahman-like because:

· It is universal

· It is timeless (relative to human scales)

· It is invariant

· It is prior to appearances

· It generates the empirical world

· It is not directly observable

· It is not composed of “things”

This is largely correct.

The ancient Indian philosophers would say:

· The quantum world is the substrate (adhisthāna).

· The classical world is appearance (pratibhāsa).

· The experience of “a wall,” “a self,” “objects” is nāma-rūpa (name-and-form impositions).

· The deep rules and invariant structures are nearer to Brahman than the empirical world.

They would simply go one step further:

Quantum fields are still “descriptions,” not Brahman.
They are still in time, still relational, still definable.
Thus they are subtle Maya, not the ultimate.

6. The Evaluative Core: What Does “Illusion” Mean?

Vedānta never meant illusion = nonexistence.
It meant:

Illusion = something whose appearance is real but whose interpretation is mistaken.

This maps perfectly onto:

· colour perception

· solidity

· object boundaries

· continuous trajectories

· time flow

· classical causation

All of which physics treats as appearance-level constructs, not fundamentals.

Thus:

Ancient Indian Maya = modern emergence / interface reality.

Not wrong.
Just differently articulated.

7. Final Analysis

Did the ancient intuition anticipate the quantum worldview?**

Yes, in two powerful ways:

(1) The scale argument

What is fleeting at the human scale cannot be ultimate truth.
What is invariant across cosmic scales must be more fundamental.

Quantum physics reaches the same conclusion via mathematics.

(2) The appearance vs. foundation distinction

Vedānta:

· empirical world = dependent

· foundation = independent

Physics:

· macroscopic world = emergent

· microscopic rules = governing structure

Same structure, different expressions.

8. Where They Diverge

Vedānta insists on:

· a unified, undivided real

· consciousness as fundamental

· liberation from misperception

Physics insists on:

· no metaphysical commitments

· no claims about consciousness

· empirical adequacy only

One speaks from ontology-experience,
the other from mathematical-empirical minimalism.

9. One-sentence verdict

Ancient Indian philosophy got the structural architecture right —
that the changing world is not fundamental —
but grounded it in metaphysics, whereas quantum physics grounds it in mathematics.

The hardness of the world (3)

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