Is the sense in which Brahman is the same thing as a unified field just the sense that it is a single thing that is identical to the world as a whole? Basically like Spinoza's idea of God?
I haven't read Spinoza firsthand, but for some reason the descriptions of Spinoza's idea of God never made me think of physics, whereas reading the descriptions of Brahman make me go "yup, that's exactly it". I'm not sure how to say what the difference is though, but yes... they are supposed to be pretty similar. I know some philosophers that are currently arguing on the basis of quantum field theory that the universe is really one indivisible whole and that all objects we're familiar with are dependent on it, rather than the whole being dependent on the parts), but I don't see the connection to a theory of everything. In particular, I don't see how it gives rise to a theory.
In physics, the terms "unified field theory" and "theory of everything" are usually treated as synonyms.
Although I suppose when I try to consider what the words mean logically, I could imagine that the words "theory of everything" is a bit more general. In principle, I suppose it could refer to any theory that accurately describes the world, but usually the emphasis is on the idea of unification, that all of the two main field theories used to described the world--the classical field theory called general relativity, and the quantum field theory called the Standard Model--are somehow both contained in a larger, single field theory. This is either referred to as the "unified field theory" or the "theory of everything", where those are usually just two ways of referring to the same thing.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2010-09-15 03:24 am (UTC)Is the sense in which Brahman is the same thing as a unified field just the sense that it is a single thing that is identical to the world as a whole? Basically like Spinoza's idea of God?
I haven't read Spinoza firsthand, but for some reason the descriptions of Spinoza's idea of God never made me think of physics, whereas reading the descriptions of Brahman make me go "yup, that's exactly it". I'm not sure how to say what the difference is though, but yes... they are supposed to be pretty similar.
I know some philosophers that are currently arguing on the basis of quantum field theory that the universe is really one indivisible whole and that all objects we're familiar with are dependent on it, rather than the whole being dependent on the parts), but I don't see the connection to a theory of everything. In particular, I don't see how it gives rise to a theory.
In physics, the terms "unified field theory" and "theory of everything" are usually treated as synonyms.
Although I suppose when I try to consider what the words mean logically, I could imagine that the words "theory of everything" is a bit more general. In principle, I suppose it could refer to any theory that accurately describes the world, but usually the emphasis is on the idea of unification, that all of the two main field theories used to described the world--the classical field theory called general relativity, and the quantum field theory called the Standard Model--are somehow both contained in a larger, single field theory. This is either referred to as the "unified field theory" or the "theory of everything", where those are usually just two ways of referring to the same thing.