Is Beauty Necessary ?

Michio Kaku (/ˈmiːtʃioʊ ˈkɑːkuː/; born 24 January 1947) is an American theoretical physicist, futurist, and popularizer of science. He is a professor of theoretical physics in the City College of New York and CUNY Graduate Center. Kaku has written several books about physics and related topics, has made frequent appearances on radio, television, and film, and writes online blogs and articles. He has written four New York Times best sellers: Physics of the Impossible (2008), Physics of the Future (2011), The Future of the Mind (2014), and The Future of Humanity (2018). Kaku has hosted several TV specials for the BBC, the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, and the Science Channel. Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension is the first book-length exploration of the most exciting development in modern physics, the theory of 10-dimensional space. The theory of hyperspace, which Michio Kaku pioneered, may be the leading candidate for the Theory of Everything that Einstein spent the remaining years of his life searching for.

I have started reading this book a fortnight back. Sometimes it is easy to read and sometimes it is difficult. As if Kaku realises this and he infuses some chapters in between highly interesting and magnificently beautiful. This enlivens attraction to read further. “Is Beauty necessary” is a symphony in Physics beginning at the 125^th page.

I wish to preserve this explanation.

Is Beauty necessary ?

I once attended a concert in Boston, where people were visibly moved by the power and intensity of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. After the concert, with the rich melodies still fresh in my mind, I happened to walk past the empty orchestra pit, where I noticed some people staring in wonder at the sheet music left by the musicians.

To the untrained eye, I thought, the musical score of even the most moving musical piece must appear to be a raw mass of unintelligible squiggles, bearing more resemblance to a chaotic jumble of scratches than a beautiful work of art. However, to the ear of a trained musician, this mass of bars, clefs, keys, sharps, flats, and notes comes alive and resonates in the mind. A musician can "hear" beautiful harmonies and rich resonances by simply looking at a musical score. A sheet of music, therefore, is more than just the sum of its lines.

 Similarly, it would be a disservice to define a poem as "a short collection of words organized according to some principle." Not only is the definition sterile, but it is ultimately inaccurate because it fails to take into account the subtle interaction between the poem and the emotions that it evokes in the reader. Poems, because they crystallize and convey the essence of the feelings and images of the author, have a reality much greater than the words printed on a sheet of paper. A few short words of a haiku poem, for example, may transport the reader into a new realm of sensations and feelings.

Like music or art, mathematical equations can have a natural progression and logic that can evoke rare passions in a scientist. Although the lay public considers mathematical equations to be rather opaque, to a scientist an equation is very much like a movement in a larger symphony.

Simplicity. Elegance. These are the qualities that have inspired some of the greatest artists to create their masterpieces, and they are precisely the same qualities that motivate scientists to search for the laws of nature. Like a work of art or a haunting poem, equations have a beauty and rhythm all their own.

Physicist Richard Feynman expressed this when he said,” You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity. When you get it right, it is obvious that it is right –  at least if you have any experience - because usually what happens is that more comes out than goes in …. The inexperienced, the crackpots, and people like that, make guesses that are simple, but you can immediately see that they are wrong so that does not count. Others the inexperienced students, make guess that are very complicated and it sort of looks as if it is all right, but I know it is not true because the truth always come out to be simpler, than you thought.”

The French mathematician Henri Poincare expressed it even more frankly when he wrote,"The scientist does not study Nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful. If Nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if Nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living." In some sense, the equations of physics are like the poems of nature. They are short and are organized according to some principle, and the most beautiful of them convey the hidden symmetries of nature.

For example, Maxwell's equations, we recall, originally consisted of eight equations. These equations are not "beautiful." They do not possess much symmetry. In their original form, they are ugly, but they are the bread and butter of every physicist or engineer who has ever earned a living working with radar, radio, microwaves, lasers, or plasmas. These eight equations are what a tort is to a lawyer or a stethoscope is to a doctor. However, when rewritten using time as the fourth dimension, this rather awkward set of eight equations collapses into a single tensor equation. This is what a physicist calls "beauty," because both criteria are now satisfied. By increasing the number of dimensions, we reveal the true, fourdimensional symmetry of the theory and can now explain vast amounts of experimental data with a single equation.

As we have repeatedly seen, the addition of higher dimensions causes the laws of nature to simplify.

One of the greatest mysteries confronting science today is the explanation of the origin of these symmetries, especially in the subatomic world. When our powerful machines blow apart the nuclei of atoms by slamming them with energies beyond 1 trillion electron volts, we find that the fragments can be arranged according to these symmetries. Something rare and precious is unquestionably happening when we probe down to subatomic distances.

The purpose of science, however, is not to marvel at the elegance of natural laws, but to explain them. The fundamental problem facing subatomic physicists is that, historically, we had no idea of why these symmetries were emerging in our laboratories and our blackboards.

And here is precisely why the Standard Model fails. No matter how successful the theory is, physicists universally believe that it must be replaced by a higher theory. It fails both "tests" for beauty. It neither has a single symmetry group nor describes the subatomic world economically. But more important, the Standard Model does not explain where these symmetries originally came from. They are just spliced together by fiat, without any deeper understanding of their origin.

Minuter than the Atom : Holy Gita - Ch8V9

       Whosoever, meditates upon the Omniscient, the Ancient, the Ruler (of the whole world) , minuter than the atom, the Supporter of all, of Form inconceivable, Effulgent like the Sun and beyond the darkness (of ignorance) . . .

       -- (Holy Gita : Chapter 8 verse 9)--

By holding the mind constantly in the contemplation of the Self, the devotee was promised that he could developin himself such a powerful and divine trait that at the time of his departure he can easily come to entertain the thoughts of the Divine. By a very subtle implication, it was also suggested in two previous stanzas (VIII-5, 6), that even while continuing to live in the present embodiment, the seeker can reach a point where the ego-centric life is ended. Such a total annihilation of ignorance-created misconceptions, and the consequent vanities, can be successfully accomplished by the seekers only when their minds get totally withdrawn from their attachments to the false matter-envelopments through the process of continued contemplation upon the Self.

In the preceding stanza, it was also vaguely hinted that the contemplation of the Self must be as "THE SUPREME RESPLENDENT PURUSHA." If I am advised by somebody to meditate upon or think out the possibilities of OXYGENELITEEN' it will be impossible for me, however wise a man I might be, unless I know what that is. Merely upon a name, no consistent contemplation is possible. "OXYGENELITEEN" is merely a word constituted of letters --- it means nothing; it is only a sound represented by a few letters of the alphabet. Similarly, to be advised by a Shastra, to meditate upon the SUPREME RESPLENDENT SELF, could only be as futile as to be asked to think over the possibilities of "OXYGENELITEEN."

In a practical text-book of instruction as to how Vedanta can be lived, Krishna has to provide Arjuna with sufficient material indicating the line of contemplation to be undertaken by the meditator. The two stanzas now under review, give an exhaustive design for the students to make themselves successfully and profitably disciplined.

These qualifying terms are as many different indications of the Truth (though none defines It), which is the thrilling core that gives a similitude of life and reality to inert, unreal matter. No single term here, therefore, is to be understood as complete in itself. Geometrically, a point can be defined and indicated only with reference to two different sets of data. So too, here the inexpressible Reality has been almost accurately explained with these different qualifying terms.

Contemplation upon the Reality, through an attempt at exhaustively comprehending all the secret suggestions in the above stanza, is to prepare a mental condition in which, if a mind lives well-integrated and turned inward, it can come to pause in an atmosphere of Infinite Experience.

The Conscious Principle, serving as the Soul in an embodiment, is that which illumines all the thought waves that rise in that particular mind, functioning in that given embodiment. The Infinite Self being One everywhere, it is the same Principle that illumines all the different embodiments, all the thought-experiences, at all times. Just as the Sun is said to be "SEEING EVERYTHING," because it illuminates all the objects on the globe, so too, is the Divine Principle of Awareness ---the factor without which no knowledge is ever possible. Thus, the Self is considered, in terms of the world of conditioned-knowledge which we experience today, as the Supreme Knower who knows everything, Omniscient (Kavih), and without whom no knowledge is ever possible.

ANCIENT (Puranah) --- The Self is considered as the most Ancient because the Eternal Truth is that which was before all creation, which remains the same all through the ages of existence, and which shall ever remain the same even after the projections of plurality have ended. To indicate that the One Self ever remains the same everywhere, providing a substratum even for the concept of time, It is indicated here as the Ancient.

THE OVER-RULER (Anushasitah) --- It is not in any way indicated here that the Self is a Sultan, tyrannically ruling over the world. Here the term 'Over-ruler' is only to indicate that if the Principle of Awareness were not presiding over the multiple faculties of perception, feeling, and comprehension in us, our physical, mental and intellectual experiences could not have been harmonised into the meaningful existence of our life-time.

The Overlordship, mentioned here, only indicates that the Knowing Principle of Consciousness is the very essence but for which life --- defined as a continuous series of experiences --- in any form is never possible. Without mud the mud-pots cannot exist; in all pots the mud is the OVER-RULER. Just as gold in all gold ornaments, the ocean in all waves, sweetness in all candy, so too is the Self in the Universe of names and forms. It is in this sense that the term 'Overruler' is to be understood. To conceive of God as a mighty policeman standing with two keys, one made of gold to open the gates of heaven, and the other of iron to open the doors of hell, is a barbarous concept of Godhood that has nothing sacred in it to attract the intellectually awakened generations!

MINUTER THAN AN ATOM (Anoraniyan) --- The simplest and the smallest physically divisible particle of any element which still maintains the specific properties of that element is called its atom. Thus, it is indicated here that the Self is the subtlest of the subtle. The subtler a thing, the greater is its pervasiveness. Water is considered subtler than a block of ice, and the steam ensuing when water is boiled is considered subtler than the water itself. In all these stages, pervasiveness is the measuring rod of their comparative subtleties. In the Upanishadic lore, it is usual to consider the Self as "the Subtlest of the Subtle" which only indicates that "It pervades all, and nothing pervades It."

THE NOURISHER OF ALL (Sarvasya Dhatarah) --- The nourisher here means the support that sustains everything. In a cinema theatre, the changeless white-screen can be considered as the nourisher of the entertainment, inasmuch as, without it the ever-changing flow of pictures could not have given us the impression of a continuous story. However glorious might be the message that a master-painter has brought out with his brush, it is the consistent strength of the canvas behind, that nourishes and sustains the integrity and beauty of the picture. Similarly, if the One Consciousness were not constantly illumining the ever-changing flux of things and happenings around and within us from birth to death, through all conditions and states of our existence, the homogeneous oneness of life would never have been ours to react to and feel fulfilled with.

OF FORM INCONCEIVABLE (Achintya-roopah) --- If there be a factor that is Omniscient, Ancient, Over-ruler, Subtlest of the subtle, and Nourisher of all, and if we are advised to meditate upon It, then it is possible that we immediately get a false notion that the Self can be thought of and comprehended, as any other finite object or idea, by our limited faculties of the head or the heart. To remove this wrong idea and to emphasize that the Infinite cannot be comprehended by the finite instruments of perception, feeling and understanding --- but can only be apprehended when these equipments are transcended ---the Lord is particularly anxious to tell His students that the Self is of "THE FORM INCONCEIVABLE." Though it is thus, in fact, inconceivable, yet, on transcending the equipment of experiences, the individual, in a process of Divine Awakening, can subjectively apprehend It to be his own Essential Nature.

LUMINOUS LIKE THE SUN (Aditya-varnah) --- If the implication of the above term (Achintya-roopah) be true, no intelligent seeker can arrest his temptation to doubt as to how the Self can ever be realised. As seekers, we live and strive within the limitations of our own mind and intellect. Every moment of our existence, we gather a harvest of experiences only through the use of the different equipments given to us. Living as we are, rooted in our false identifications with these equipments in the early days of our spiritual efforts, the seeker in us should necessarily despair at the impossible conception and the mad mission of "knowing the UN-KNOWABLE" ---conceiving the IN-CONCEIVABLE --- understanding the UN-UNDERSTANDABLE --- or experiencing the IN EXPERIENCABLE!!!

The Self is defined as the UN-UNDERSTANDABLE, or the IN-CONCEIVABLE, or IN-EXPERIENCABLE, etc., only to indicate that the instruments of cognition, experience and apprehension are not available for functioning in the Self. The dream-gun, with which the dreamer had shot the enemies of his dream-world, cannot be any longer handled by him, when once he has awakened. Even the bloody hands of a dreamer, after a dream-murder, become automatically clean, without either soap or water, the moment he wakes up! As long as man is identifying with his limiting adjuncts, he lives in the external world of his self-projected delusory multiplicity, wherein the Self is "IN-CONCEIVABLE, and IN-EXPERIENCABLE." But the moment these adjuncts are transcended through a process of steadfast contemplation on the Self, he gets awakened to his own nature of Pure Being.

Once having understood this much of the fundamental concepts of Vedanta, it becomes easy to appreciate the matchless beauty of the example of the Sun. In order to see the Sun, no other light is necessary, as the Sun is the "SOURCE" of all light, the one illuminator that illuminates everything else. Just as, in the physical world, the Sun, in its self-effulgence, is self-evident, so too, in the spiritual realm, to know the Knowledge Absolute, no other knowing-principle is needed. The dreamer can never KNOW the waker, for, while knowing the waking-state the dreamer himself ends to BECOME the waker; to awaken oneself from the dream is to know the waker; to KNOW the waker is to BECOME the waker. So too, on ending the ego-centric existence, in the flash of the spiritual awakening, the misguided, panting ego ends itself in the re-discovery that it has been nothing but the Self, at all times. This vast suggestion is cramped into a mystic word-picture: "LUMINOUS LIKE THE SUN."

BEYOND ALL DARKNESS (Tamasah-Parastat) --- The limited and the finite example of the Sun calls into the heart of a student some dangerous misgivings. The Sun in the heavens is, no doubt, resplendent, but only during the day; and even during the day-time there are various degrees of intensity of the sunlight experienced by the living kingdom. If the Self is "LUMINOUS LIKE THE SUN," then the industrious student may gather that the Self also varies in Its intensity, and that there are periods of time when It is not at all available! To remove these two fallacious ideas --- that the Self is variable in nature and sometimes totally absent, this qualifying term is used here. The very limitation of the Sun, meaning the darkness of the night, is negated when Krishna says that the Self is "BEYOND THE DARKNESS" of ignorance, or Maya.

He who meditates upon the Self thus, as Omniscient, Ancient, Overruler, Subtlest of the subtle, Nourisher of all, of Inconceivable Form, Self-illuminating as the Sun, and Beyond all traces of ignorance, is the one who "goes to Him."

Misguided God is a man (Gita 6:30) : Swami Chinmayanand

यो मां पश्यति सर्वत्र सर्वं च मयि पश्यति।
तस्याहं न प्रणश्यामि स च मे न प्रणश्यति।।6.30।।

जो पुरुष मुझे सर्वत्र देखता है और सबको मुझमें देखता है उसके लिए मैं नष्ट नहीं होता (अर्थात् उसके लिए मैं दूर नहीं होता) और वह मुझसे वियुक्त नहीं होता।।

पहले यह कहा गया था कि ब्रह्मसंस्पर्श से योगी अत्यन्त सुख प्राप्त करता है। ब्रह्मसंस्पर्श से तात्पर्य आत्मा और ब्रह्म के एकत्व से है जो उपनिषदों का प्रतिपाद्य विषय है। इस ज्ञान को स्वयं भगवान् ही यहाँ स्पष्ट दर्शा रहे हैं। आत्मज्ञानी पुरुष सर्वत्र आत्मा का अनुभव करता है।जो मुझे सबमें और सब को मुझमें देखता है अन्य स्थानों के समान ही यहाँ प्रयुक्त मैं शब्द का अर्थ आत्मा है न कि देवकीपुत्र कृष्ण। इस व्याख्या के प्रकाश में जो पुरुष पूर्व श्लोक के साथ इस श्लोक को पढ़ेगा उसे प्रसिद्ध ईशावास्योपनिषद् की इस घोषणा का गूढ़ अर्थ स्पष्ट हो जायेगा ।वह मुझसे वियुक्त नहीं होता बुद्धि से अतीत आत्मा का अनुभव उससे भिन्न रहकर नहीं होता वरन् जीव पाता है कि वह स्वयं आत्मस्वरूप (शिवोऽहम्) है। स्वप्नद्रष्टा पुरुष जागने पर स्वयं जाग्रत् पुरुष बन जाता है वह जाग्रत् पुरुष को उससे भिन्न रहकर कभी नहीं जान सकता।और न मैं उससे वियुक्त होता हूँ द्वैतवादी लोग अपने जीवभाव और देहात्मभाव की दृढ़ता के कारण इस अद्वैत स्वरूप को स्वीकार नहीं कर पाते । जिस स्पष्टता से यहाँ जीव के दिव्य स्वरूप की घोषणा की गयी है उसे और अधिक स्पष्ट नहीं किया जा सकता। भगवान् श्रीकृष्ण यहाँ किसी भी प्रकार से इस तथ्य को गूढ़ और गोपन नहीं रखना चाहते कि अनात्म उपाधियों से तादात्म्य को त्यागने पर योगी स्वयं परमात्मस्वरूप बन जाता है। हो सकता है कि किन्हींकिन्हीं लोगों के लिए यह सत्य चौंका देने वाला हो तथापि है तो वह सत्य ही। जिन्हें इसे स्वीकार करने में संकोच होता हो वे अपने जीव भाव को ही दृढ़ बनाये रख सकते हैं। परन्तु भारत में गुरुओं की परम्परा ने तथा विश्व के अन्य अनुभवी सन्तों ने इसी सत्य की पुष्टि की है कि एक व्यक्ति के हृदय में स्थित आत्मा ही सर्वत्र नामरूपों में स्थित है।वर्तमान दशा में हम अपने आप से ही दूर हो चुके हैं अहंकार एक राजद्रोही है जिसने आत्मसाम्राज्य से स्वयं का निष्कासन कर लिया है। आत्मप्राप्ति पर अहंकार उसमें पूर्णतया विलीन हो जाता है। स्वप्नद्रष्टा के जागने पर वह जाग्रत् पुरुष से भिन्न नहीं रह सकता। भगवान् यहाँ कहते हैं कि साधक और मैं एक दूसरे से कभी वियुक्त नहीं होते।वास्तव में यदि हम यह समझ लेते हैं कि आत्मविस्मृति के कारण परमात्मा जीवभाव को प्राप्त सा हुआ है तो यह भी स्पष्ट हो जायेगा कि आत्मज्ञान के द्वारा जीव पुन परमात्मस्वरूप को प्राप्त हो सकता है। जैसे एक अभिनेता रंगमंच पर भिक्षुक का अभिनय करते हुए भी वास्तव में भिक्षुक नहीं बन जाता और नाटक की समाप्ति पर भिक्षुक के वेष को त्यागकर पुन स्वरूप को प्राप्त हो जाता है वैसे ही आत्मज्ञान के विषय में भी जीव का ब्रह्मरूप होना है। वेदान्त की यह साहसिक घोषणा समझनी कठिन नहीं है परन्तु सामान्य अज्ञानी जन इससे स्तब्ध होकर रह जाते हैं और अपने दोषों के कारण इस सत्य को स्वीकार नहीं कर पाते। उनमें इतना साहस और विश्वास नहीं कि वे दिव्य जीवन जीने का उत्तरदायित्व अपने ऊपर ले सकें। इस श्लोक में भगवान् का कथन परमार्थ सत्य के स्वरूप के संबंध में उपनिषदों के निष्कर्ष के विषय में रंचमात्र भी सन्देह नहीं रहने देता।पूर्व श्लोक में कथित सम्यक् दर्शन को पुन बताकर कहते हैं

          He who sees Me everywhere, and sees everything in Me, he never gets separated from Me, nor do I get separated from him.

Earlier we were told that on reaching his goal, the meditator "ATTAINS INFINITE BLISS OF THE 'BRAHMAN'-CONTACT" (V-28). We explained that the term 'contact' indicates only the non-dual Reality, which is the theme of all the Upanishads. Here, in this stanza, we have Krishna's own commentary upon that term. Once having awakened to the Self, the Perfect Master thereafter recognises everywhere nothing but the Self.

HE WHO SEES ME IN ALL THINGS AND SEES ALL THINGS IN ME --- In this stanza, as everywhere else, the first person singular 'I' and 'Me' are to be understood as the Self. To one who is re-reading the stanza in the light of this annotation, this and the previous stanza together express more fully the pregnant meaning of the most famous Upanishadic declarations found in the Ishavasya.

HE NEVER BECOMES SEPARATED FROM ME --- On transcending the intellect, the experience of the ego is not that it sees or perceives or cognises the Eternal but that it discovers itself in essence to be nothing but the Self (Shivoham). The dreamer, on awakening, himself becomes the waker; a dreamer can never see or recognise the waker as separate from himself.

NOR DO I BECOME SEPARATE FROM HIM --- The dualists are rather hesitant to accept that Infinite Divinity is their Real Nature, for they are, as ego-centres, conscious of their own bodily vanities and sins. In no clearer terms can we more exhaustively describe the unadulterated Truth of the Essential Divinity in man. Lord Krishna here, is in no way trying to conceal His meaning that a meditator, when he has fulfilled the process of detachment from the not-Self, himself BECOMES the Eternal and the Infinite. It may be a staggering truth, but all the same it is The Truth. Those who are hesitating and wavering may well continue to disbelieve their own divine potentialities. But the intimate experience of the long hierarchy of Gurus in India and the mystic Saints all over the world has endorsed this unbelievable, yet plain Truth that, "the Self in an individual is the same Self everywhere."

At present we are divorced from ourselves; the ego is a rebel who has exiled himself from his native kingdom, the Self. On rediscovery of the Self, the ego BECOMES the Self in such a happy blending that thereafter there is no distinction between the ego and the Self. On awakening, the dreamer becomes the waker; not only does the dreamer become the waker, but the waker can never remain separate from the dreamer. In ordinary divorces either party can divorce the other, and yet maintain an emotional relationship with each other. Here the Lord says, not only does the seeker come to feel the Self-hood, but I, the Self, become homogeneously one with him.

In fact, once we understand that "Misguided God is a man," it becomes amply clear that, rightly guided, a man rediscovers himself to be nothing other than the Supreme. An actor playing the part of a beggar, is not really a beggar; the moment he drops the part he is playing, he becomes what in fact he is. In fact, even while he was playing his role, he was not a beggar. This daring declaration of Vedanta is not at all difficult to understand, but the deluded are aghast at this revelation, and in their imperfections, refuse to believe this Truth. They have not the guts to take the responsibilities of living a Godly life. Krishna's courageous statement in this stanza leaves not even a pin-hole of a doubt on this sacred conclusion of all the scriptures of the world, especially that of the immortal Upanishads.