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		<b><font face="Times New Roman"><i>The Observer and the Observed</i> </font>
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		<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">&nbsp;</p>

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<font face="Times New Roman">SCIENCE means objectivity, that is to say, elimination of the
personal element—truth as pure fact without being distorted
or coloured by the feelings and impressions and notions of the
observer. It is the very opposite of the philosopher's standpoint
who says that a thing exists because (and so long. as) it is
perceived. The scientist swears that a thing exists whether you
perceive it or not, perception is possible because it exists, not
the other way. And yet Descartes is considered not only as the
father of modern philosophy, but also as the founder of modern
mathematical science. But more of that anon. The scientific
observer observes as a witness impartial and aloof: he is
nothing more than a recording machine, a sort of passive
mirror reflecting accurately and faithfully what is presented
to it. This is indeed the great revolution brought about by Science in the world 
of human inquiry and in human consciousness, <i>viz;</i> the isolation of the observer from the observed.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In the old world, before Science was born, sufficient distinction or discrimination was not made between the observer and
the observed. The observer mixed himself up or identified
himself with what he observed and the result was not a
scientific statement but a poetic description. Personal feelings,
ideas, judgments entered into the presentation of facts and the
whole mass passed as truth, the process often being given the
high-sounding name of Intuition, Vision or Revelation but
whose real name is fancy. And if there happened to be truth
of fact somewhere, it was almost by chance; Once we thought of
the eclipse being due to the greed of a demon, and pestilence
due to the evil eye of a wicked goddess. The universe was born
out of an egg, the cosmos consisted of concentric circles of
worlds that were meant to reward the virtuous and punish the</font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">sinner in graded degrees. These are some of the very well-known instances of pathetic fallacy, that is to say, introducing
the element of personal sentiment in our appreciation of events
and objects. Even today Nazi race history and Soviet Genetics
carry that unscientific prescientific tradition.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Science was born the day when the observer cut himself
aloof from the observed. Not only so, not only he is to stand
aside, outside the field of observation and be a bare recorder,
but that he must let the observed record itself, that is, be its'
own observer. Modern Science means not so much the observer
narrating the story of the observed but the observed telling its
own story. The first step is well exemplified in the story of
Galileo. When hot discussion was going on and people insisted
on saying—as Aristotle decided and common sense declared—that heavier bodies most naturally fall quicker from a height,
it was this prince of experimenters who straightaway took
two different weights, went up the tower of Pisa and let them
drop and astounded the people by showing that both travel
with equal speed and fall to the ground at the same time.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Science also declared that it is not the observation of one
person, however qualified, that determines the truth or otherwise of a fact, but the observation of many persons and the
possibility of observations of all persons converging, coinciding,
corroborating. It is only when observation has thus been tested
and checked that one can be sure that the personal element has
been eliminated. Indeed the ideal condition would be if the
observer, the scientist himself, could act as part of the machine
for observation: at the most he should be a mere assembler of
the parts of the machine that would record itself, impersonally,
automatically. The rocket instruments that are sent high up in
the sky to record the temperature, pressure or other weather
condition in the stratosphere or the deep-sea recording machines
are ingenious inventions in that line. The wizard Jagadish
Chandra Bose showed his genius precisely in the way he made
the plant itself declare its life-story: it is not what the scientist
thinks or feels about the plant, but what the plant has to say
of its own accord, as it were—its own tale of growth and decay,
of suffering, spasm, swoon, suffocation or death under given
conditions. This is the second step that Science took in the
direction of impersonal and objective inquiry.</font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It was thought' for long a very easy matter—at least not
extraordinarily difficult—to eliminate the observer and keep
only to the observed. It was always known how the view of the
observer, that is to say, his observation changed in, respect of
the observed fact with his change of position. The sun rises
and sets to the observer on earth: to an observer on Mars, for
example, the sun would rise and set, no doubt, but earth too
along with, in the same way as Mars and sun appear to us now,
while to an observer on the sun, the sun would seem fixed while
the planets would be seen moving round. Again, we all know
the observer in a moving train sees things outside the train
moving past and himself at stand-still; the same observer would
see another train moving alongside in the same direction and
with the same speed as stuck to it and at stand-still, but as
moving with double the speed if going in a contrary direction:</font>

<font face="Times New Roman">and so on.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The method proposed for eliminating the observer was
observation, more and more observation, and experiment,
testing the observation under given conditions. I observe
and record a series of facts and when I have found a sufficient number of them I see I am, able to put them all together
under a general title, a law of the occurrence or pattern of the
objects observed. Further it is not I alone who can do it in any
peculiar way personal to me, but that everybody else can do<br>
the same thing and arrive at the same series of facts leading to
the same conclusion. I note, for example, the sun's path from
day to day in the sky; soon we find that the curves described
by the sun are shifted along the curve of an ellipse (that is to
say, their locus is an ellipse). The ecliptic is thus found to be
an ellipse which means that the earth moves round the sun
in an ellipse.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But in the end a difficulty arose in the operation of observation. It proved to be not a simple process. The scientific observer
requires for his observation the yard-stick and the time-piece.
Now, we have been pushed to admit a queer phenomenon
(partly by observation and partly by a compelling deduction)
that these two measuring units are not constant; they
change with the change of system, that is to say, according to
the velocity of the system. In other words, each observer has
his own unit of space and time measure. So the elimination of</font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">the personal element of the observer has become a complicated
mathematical problem, even if one is sure of it finally.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; There is still something more. The matter of calculating
and measuring objectively was comparatively easy when the
object in view was of medium size, neither too big nor too small.
But in the field of the infinite and the infinitesimal, when from
the domain of mechanical forces we enter into the region of
electric and radiant energy, we find our normal measuring
apparatus almost breaks down. Here accurate observation can-
not be made because of the very presence of the observer,<br>
because of the very fact of observation. The ultimates that are
observed are trails of light particles: now when the observer
directs his eye (or the beam of light replacing the eye) upon the
light particle, its direction and velocity are interfered with:</font>

<font face="Times New Roman">the photon is such a tiny infinitesimal -that a ray from the
observer's eye is sufficient to deflect and modify its movement.
And there is no way of determining or eliminating this element
of deflection or interference. The old Science knew certainly
that a thermometer dipped in the water whose&nbsp; temperature it is
to measure itself changes the initial temperature. But that
was something calculable and objective.<b> </b> Here the position of the
observer is something like a &quot;possession&quot;, imbedded, ingrained,
involved in the observed itself.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The crux of the difficulty is this. We say the observing eye or
whatever mechanism is made to function for it, disturbs the
process of observation. Now to calculate that degree or measure
of disturbance one has to fall back upon another observing
eye, and this again has to depend upon yet another behind.
Thus there is an infinite regress and no final solution. So, it has
been declared, in the ultimate analysis, scientific calculation
gives us only the average result, and it is only average calculations that are possible.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Now we come to the sanctum, the Shekinah,<b> </b> of the problem.
For there is a still deeper mystery. And pre-eminently it is an
Einsteinian discovery. It is not merely the measuring ray<b> 
</b>of
light, not merely the beam in the eye of the observer that is the
cause of interference: the very mind behind the eye is involved
in a strange manner. The mind is not a <i>tabula rasa,</i> it comes into
the field with certain presuppositions—axioms and postulates, as it calls them—due to its angle of vision and perhaps</font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">to the influence upon it of immediate sense perception. It
takes for granted, for example, that light travels in a straight
line, that parallels do not meet, indeed all the theorems and
deductions of Euclidean geometry. There is a strong inclination in the mind to view things as arranged according to that
pattern. Einstein has suggested that the spherical scheme can
serve as well or even better our observations. Riemann's non-Euclidean geometry has assumed momentous importance in<br>
contemporary scientific enquiry. It is through that scheme
that Einstein proposes to find the equation that will subsume
the largest number of actual and possible or potential facts
and bring about the reconciliation of such irreconcilables as
wave and particle, gravitation and electricity.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In any case, at the end of all our peregrinations we seem
to circle back to our original Cartesian-cum-Berkeleyean position; we discover that it is not easy to extricate the observed
from the observer: the observer is so deep set in the observed,
part and parcel of it that there are scientists who consider their
whole scientific scheme of the world as only a mental set-up,
we may replace it very soon by another scheme equally cogent,
subjective all the same. The subject has entered into all objects
and any definition of the object must necessarily depend upon
the particular poise of the subject. That is the cosmic immanence of the Purusha spoken of in the Upanishads—the one
Purusha become many and installed in the heart of each and
every object. There is indeed a status of the Subject in which
the subject and the object are gathered into or form one reality.
The observer and the observed are the two ends, the polarisation of a single entity: and all are realise at that level. But the
scientific observer is only the mental purusha and in his observation the 
absolute objectivisation is not possible. The Einsteinian
equations that purport to rule out all local view-points can
hardly be said to have transcended the co-ordinates of the
subject. That is possible only to the consciousness of the cosmic
Purusha.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman"><b>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </b> Is it then to say that science is no longer science, it has now
been converted into philosophy, even into idealistic philosophy ?</font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">In spite of Russell and Eddington who may be considered
in this respect as counsellors of despair, the objective reality
of the scientific field stands, it is asserted, although somewhat
changed.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Now, there are four positions possible with regard<b> 
</b>to the<b> 
</b>world and reality, depending on the relation between the<b> 
</b>observer and the observed, the subject and the object. They are:</font>

<font face="Times New Roman">(1) subjective, (2) objective, (3) subjective objective and
(4) objective subjective. The first two are extreme positions,
one holding the subject as the sole or absolute reality, the
object being a pure fabrication of its will and idea, an illusion,
and the other considering the object as the true reality, the
subject being an outcome, an epiphenomenon of the object
itself, an illusion after all. The first leads to radical or as it<b> 
</b>is<b>&nbsp;
</b>called monistic spirituality the type of which is Mayavada:</font>

<font face="Times New Roman">the second is the highway of materialism, the various avataras of
which are Marxism, Pragmatism, Behaviourism etc. In between
lie the other two intermediate positions according to the stress
or value given to either of the two extremes. The first of the
intermediates is the position held generally by the idealists,
by many schools of spirituality: it is a major Vedantic position.
It says that the outside world, the object, is not an illusion, a
mere fabrication of the mind or consciousness of the subject,
but that it exists and is as real as the subject: it is dovetailed
into the subject which is a kind of linchpin, holding together
and even energising the object. The object can further be
considered as an expression or embodiment of the subject. Both
the subject and the object are made of the same stuff of consciousness—the ultimate reality being consciousness. The
subject is the consciousness turned on itself and the object is
consciousness turned outside or going abroad. This is pre-eminently the Upanishadic position. In Europe, Kant holds a
key position in this line: and on the whole, idealists from Plato
to Bradley and Bosanquet can be said more or less to belong
to this category. The second intermediate position views the
subject as imbedded into the object, not the object into the
subject as in the first one: the subject itself is part of the object
something like its self-regarding or self-recording function. In
Europe apart possibly from some of the early Greek thinkers
(Anaxagoras or Democritus, for example), coming to more</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">recent times, we can say that line runs fairly well-represented
from Leibnitz to Bergson. In India the Sankhyas and the
Vaisheshikas move towards and approach the position; the
Tantriks make a still more near approach.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Once again, to repeat in other terms the distinction which
may sometimes appear to carry no difference. First, the subjective objective in which the subject assumes the preponderant
position, not denying or minimising the reality of the object.
The external world, in this view, is a movement in and of the
consciousness of a universal subject. It is subjective in the sense
that it is essentially a function of the subject and does not exist
apart from it or outside it; it is objective in the sense that it
exists really and is not a figment or imaginative construction
of any individual consciousness, although it exists in and through the 
individual consciousness in so far as that consciousness is universalised, is 
one with the universal consciousness (or the transcendental, the two can be taken together
in the present connection). Instead of the Kantian transcendental idealism we can name it transcendental realism.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In the other case the world exists here below in its own
reality, outside all apprehending subject; even the universal
subject is in a sense part of it, immanent in it—it embraces the
subject in its comprehending consciousness and posits it as
part of itself or a function of its apprehension. The many
Purushas (conscious beings or subjects) are imbedded in the
universal Nature, say the Sankhyas. Kali, Divine Nature, is
the manifest omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent reality
holding within her the transcendent divine Purusha who
supports, sanctions and inspires secretly, yet is dependent on
the Mahashakti and without her is nothing, <i>sunyam.</i> That is
how the Tantriks put it. We may mention here, among
European philosophers, the rather interesting conclusion of
Leibnitz (to which Russell draws our attention): space is
subjective to the view of each monad (subject unit) separately,
it is objective when it consists of the assemblage of the view-points of all the monads.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The scientific outlook was a protest against the extreme
subjective view: it started with the extreme objective stand-point and that remained the fundamental note till the other
day, till the fissure of the nucleus .opened new horizons to our</font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">somewhat bewildered mentality. We seem to have entered into a region where we still hold to the objective, no doubt, but
not absolutely free from an insistent presence of the subjective. It is the second of the intermediate positions we have tried to
describe. Science has yet to decide the implications of that
position; whether it will try to entrench itself as much as
possible on this side of the subjective or whether it can yield
further and go over to or link itself with the deeper subjective
position.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The distinction between the two may after all be found to be
a matter of stress only, involving no fundamental difference,
especially as there are sure to be gradations from the one to the
other. The most important landmark, however, the most
revolutionary step in modern science would be the discovery of
the eternal observer or some sign or image of his seated within
the observed phenomena of moving things—<i>purusah prakritistho
hi,</i> as the Gita says.</font>
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