Discussion on Jainism with a Computer Scientist

This is not a propaganda for or against Jainism :). Also the intention is not to start any debate or anything :). This is just a narration of the discussion that I recently had with a computer scientist who happens to be a Jain, regarding his and my own perspective on Jainism.

I was the one who started the discussion on this topic mainly because of my curiosity on a pure scientist’s perspective on the Jain philosophy. The outcome wasn’t anything shocking but I thought it might be worth sharing.

Me: So tell me CSS(Computer Science Stud) what do you think of Jainism

CSS: Not much

Me: Really! I am quite curious. I will tell you how I started getting fascinated by the philosophy and you can tell me where are the holes. I heard about karma a lot during my childhood. Never could understand what people are talking about or in other words things were very hazy. Then suddenly one day someone told me that according to Jainism Karma is real physical matter. Being interested in physics (in an amateur way i guess), I found that very interesting. So I started asking questions and got few answers and so on….What do you think about that concept? I am quite fascinated with this and some more such concepts in Jainism that give a whole physical level meaning to religion and everything then becomes physics rather than the misconception of religion being farthest from real and physical world around us.

CSS: I absolutely don’t like the funda of relating all this stuff to real world physics.

Me: I understand your reservations to a certain extent because when you talk about such things you have to start from certain fundamental assumptions that there is soul etc etc. Because without the concept of soul the whole philosophy falls apart big time. The concept of soul brings in the whole accountability thing into what everybody does. And at the physical level, provides a cause and effect relationship between thoughts and actions. Almost all of the eastern philosophies are based on it. You don’t think there is accountability of actions and thoughts in this universe?

CSS: There is. Not by way of soul and rebirth but by passing it on to our kids. We pass our thoughts (in other words the resulting actions) to our kids through genes and through the environment.

Me: Aren’t you fascinated by the physics aspect of all of it and how elaborate the whole philosophy is? Its hard to imagine such elaborate or physics minded stories being written by bunch of people hundreds of years back.

CSS: I am not fascinated. Couple of things: First of all its totally not a good idea to start relating physics. The structure of the universe in Jain philosophy doesn’t make any sense from our current findings by science. As far as the elaborate structure of the whole thing goes, there have been similar quite elaborate philosophies written to a certain extent even by some early western philosophers like xyz (Me: I forgot the names that he mentioned)

Me: I can totally understand the structure of the universe issue. Being “half” a science guy myself(considering you as a pure science guy), i feel that probably there has just been some misinterpretation of that part of the philosophy. I would suggest to ignore that part and look at other things which are extremely fascinating and mind blowing concepts.

CSS: Now you start saying one thing has been misinterpreted and tomorrow you will say another was misinterpreted. It can’t work that way. Science is based on repeated and very conclusive proofs and experiments. You can’t just start comparing these things with actual science quality work.

Me: Well. I understande your concern. But you have got to look at the big picture. How can you ignore the intricacies with which the whole process of soul, karma and universe has been described? The whole idea of how thoughts play a big role in the outcome of things is just pretty amazing and things have not been explained in a superfluous way, everything is very very carefully related to the actual physical world or universe. Anyway…how about the fact the this philosophy explains so very well the relation of your emotional and psychological behaviors with your karma and hence physical world.

CSS: I agree that the whole idea of “thoughts” has been made prime in this philosophy and there has been good amount of description of it. but thats all there is.

Me: For example, look at scientific approach to psychology, everything they say is all so much at the gross level. Jainism explains psychology at the deepest level. I should say that science has no clue of whats going on in the head.

CSS: I agree that Social Science is a rather new field of science and there is a long way to go. It doesn’t mean there has been no progress at all. Look at the theories of motivation by xyz, I find it as fascinating and anything else.

Me: Neelam has formally studied Psychology and she has some idea of the Jain concepts when it comes to Psychology. I have had several conversations with her on this topic and she agrees that the way it has been described in Jainism, makes lot of sense.

CSS: Well I am not sure if it can be so generalized.

Me: Another thing…I was recently hearing a talk on the GuNasthaan concept in Jainism and its pretty pretty elaborate and very hard to think of it as just another story really. Everything has been so well put together.

CSS: Again I would like science and Jainism as separate and not mix them.

Me: Why should they be considered as rivals. I don’t see it that way. All I am saying is that we need to use discretion in understanding Jain philosophy and its extremely hard for me to ignore all of it, not because of a fanatic following but real reasoning and understanding of the whole structure of philosophy, and also looking at the big picture. I would say that science and Jainism compliment each other in several ways. Also lets think practically, it makes lot of sense to learn and understand the good and agreeable aspects of Jainism. What is the harm if it makes someone a better person? I am sure that the behavior scientists will agree to it. After all there does exist a concept of humans being nice, ethical, non-racial, non-violent, philanthropic, humble etc. etc., there is no denial to that fact whether you look at the world in a pure science way or otherwise. And if something helps you make yourself better in those regards, I don’t see why you should keep away from it. Ofcourse I would agree that the approach of understanding religion should be very open minded and rational rather than fanatic.

Me: Anyway, this discussion was just for my curiosity and was not an attempt to force certain beliefs or anything. I hate fanaticism myself. Multiplicity of views is very important.
Me: It was very good talking to you about this topic.