Reviews & Reactions
Arun Ghosh
Magnificent, a true magnum opus...A tremendously important piece of work...A
truly revolutionary book (not merely an excellent book).
Kapila Vatsyayan
(Excerpts)
Whether the book will bring about a revolution here or elsewhere only `time'
certain or uncertain will tell. However, undoubtedly it will make, or should
make, the philosopher, the theologian, the scientists and the political theorist
sit up, even stand up, and re-think and re-investigate many hitherto accepted
conceptions and notions of time.
Through the parable of the fisherman, the mermaid, the advice of the priest, the
merchant and the scientist which constitute the prologue and epilogue, C. K.
Raju encompasses a vast spectrum of disciplines, primary source and theoretical
models in regard to the study of time. All this is accomplished through a smooth
yet studied flow of the principal argument.
---
C. K. Raju penetrates into the original sources and the debates, to prove
conclusively that `cyclic' time was indeed sacrificed. ...Of Importance is C. K.
Raju's argument that these debates in the domain of theology influence--almost
condition--and permeate scientific theories, old and new. The engaging
fascination of the book lies in the author's ability to interconnect and to move
freely to and fro in different disciplines and periods of chronological time.
This enables the author to ask incisive questions and contest the many accepted
suppositions about science, scientific discoveries and the scientists
themselves.
--
Thus, does scientific theory and its postulates get intrinsically embroiled with
the dominant +political and religious discourse? Is scientific theory then
`context' and value free, is the key question which is asked by a scientist with
rare courage and boldness....Perhaps never before have these dimensions been
brought to the fore with such incisive sharpness.
---
He communicates complex theories simply, but of greater value are his
illustrations on the extensions of these theories to other spheres. One such
engaging section is on Entropy and Economics. Equally thought provoking is the
section on chaos, unpredictability, and creativity...Logically, this
discussion...takes Raju to examine ion depth the perennial question of
computability--Man and Machine. ....after all the computation and machines which
simulate and create virtual realities, there is that entity8 called
`spontaneity'. The author acknowledges it. Some amongst his readers will heave a
sigh of relief!
---
C. K. Raju's argument now reaches its penultimate state, where he ...declares
`Using 1 and 1 to make 11 instead of 2 also helps us to recognize the mutual
incoherence of the distinct pictures of time within each of the 'linear' and
'cyclic' categories--there are conflicts between individual pictures within each
category. The linear-cyclic dichotomy is therefore incoherent and the crux of
the matter is to resolve this incoherence'. The reader sits up again provoked
into the question: 'then what were we arguing about all this wile in the history
of science and civilization?
---
Discussions on incoherence...structured time and microphysical time loops etc.
etc. makes him ask his final questions: what then is the correct picture of
time?' ...It is at this point that C. K. Raju advocates the tilt in the arrow of
time. This is not a mere assertion. Once again he enters systematically into
both scientific theories and many philosophic and metaphysical systems. His
range is astonishingly and impressively large. he takes into account streams of
Buddhist and Jain and other philosophies...
Brilliant, thought-provoking and singular in its concentric circles of cyclicity
of thought and presentation.
D. P. Chattopadhyaya
I am very happy to have gone through your very scholarly and thoughtful book,
THE ELEVEN PICTURE OF TIME......Expectedly it has turned out to be an admirable
publication...I do hope the book will receive due recognition in the course of
time.
Don Miller (Time and Society, London)
(Excerpts)
This is a book with a difference, and the difference will excite some readers,
as it did me, and infuriate many others.
It is a sustained critique of the dominant western faith in the linearity of
time. Fittingly the author presents a non-linear book, with a prefatory
encouragement to read in "bits and pieces" moving back and forward
from the more interesting parts (according to taste I presume).
Raju's quest is a bold one, an excavation of the physics, philosophy and
politics of time over the last 1600 years. We could add time's `theology' and
`ideology' to the title. He gives us a holistic study of time.
What is possible to say about time or causality within a western Christian
tradition is not necessarily the same within an Islamic tradition. That
today’s dominant physics of time, its linearity, is compatible with religion -
which is often said - either conflates Christianity with all religions or simply
ignores the latter. The story becomes complicated once you look elsewhere,
perhaps at Jainism or Buddhism. Even rationality and logic may be "cultural
artefacts", and as Raju continues "deduction may refer to an insecure
cultural truth rather than an a priori and secure universal certainty."
(470) Many implications follow; but I can afford to mention only one here:
"the truth of a valid scientific theory is intrinsically uncertain"
(454) or as Raju elsewhere felicitously writes "science means never having
to say you are sure". (12)
Central to Raju’s perspective is the obvious yet neglected idea that the
notion of time is fundamental to both religion and science, each of which has
influenced the other. ...
---
This unique book weaves its complex way through the subsequent labyrinth
relationship between Christian theology and the physics of time. It is a story
of the West. But it is a story informed by non-western understanding as well. It
is chastening to discover, among all the familiar and less familiar western
names, so many new names, movements and theories attempting to tackle the vital
paradoxes of time and their consequences, not least for ethics. The author
constantly presents us with complex distinctions commonly ignored; he reminds
the reader, for example, of the significant difference between western
Christianity and both Eastern Orthodox and Syrian Christianity in their
respective understanding of time.
The webs of relationships Raju refers to undermine the assumption that theories
of time are the product of objective scientific thought. Further, he shows that
the likewise common assumption that the only debate is between two opposing
poles, the linear and the cyclical models of time, is a spurious and meaningless
one, and one which has hampered western physics. He illustrates eleven pictures
of time; some linear pictures being incompatible among themselves yet compatible
with some cyclic pictures. For both these lines of (connected) thought, this
book will be anathema to many western physicists and certain theologians. Raju
ends calling for a de-theologizing of physics.
Towards this process Raju argues that the most reasonable position after the
advent of relativity - in which Poincare not Einstein is the author’s hero -
is the idea of ‘ the tilt of time [a notion he apparently introduced in an
earlier work, Time: Towards a Consistent Theory, 1994.]. The " tilt in the
arrow of time" is non-mechanist, so the universe is no longer seen as a
"grand piece of clockwork" in which the past cannot exist in the
present.
---
The individual can no longer be credited for creative acts in this scheme of
things, nor are priority debates useful. Value shifts from the individual to the
collective. The tilt increases order and this "order-creation" becomes
more the ‘purpose’ of life rather than a crude competitive survival. This
has to be a cooperative effort so, rather than social and moral inequity, as in
"time= money", the tilt " suggests a way of life and a social
organization based on harmony, spontaneity, and equity". (471)
I may still wish for further clarification on certain ideas; I may feel
uncomfortable about the apparent valuing of order over chaos ( and the latter
term seems opprobrious simply because of the common yet misleading duality of
terms); I may still feel inclined...to wish for further enquiry into the
‘repetitiveness’ of time, but these reflections are insignificant here. I
want to compliment and thank C.K.Raju for what he has done in this important
book. Future debate ought begin here.
(Don Miller. Retired from University of Melbourne (Political Science Dept)
seven years ago.)