View source for But isn't the understanding of the white light composed of seven other colors, isn't that also a fact of direct sense perception?

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[[Category:Questions asked to Srila Prabhupada]]
[[Category:Questions asked to SP... 1971]]
[[Category:Questions On... Natural Science, Natural History]]
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<div id="Lectures" class="section" sec_index="4" parent="compilation" text="Lectures"><h2>Lectures</h2>
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<div id="Philosophy_Discussions" class="sub_section" sec_index="13" parent="Lectures" text="Philosophy Discussions"><h3>Philosophy Discussions</h3>
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<div id="PhilosophyDiscussiononBertrandRussell_0" class="quote" parent="Philosophy_Discussions" book="Lec" index="20" link="Philosophy Discussion on Bertrand Russell" link_text="Philosophy Discussion on Bertrand Russell">
<div class="heading">No. That is śabda. So a man sees this white snowball, he sees snow. He may not see the reflection of the sun, seven colors, but when he goes to a teacher, he can hear that there is seven colors. Therefore śabda-pramāṇa. The word, the sound, then he can be perfect.
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<span class="link">[[Vanisource:Philosophy Discussion on Bertrand Russell|Philosophy Discussion on Bertrand Russell]]: </span><div class="text"><p style="display: inline;">Śyāmasundara: His belief for..., the criterion for truth is called the correspondence theory, that a belief is true if it agrees with the facts with which it is supposed to correspond.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. Just like this example, we see the snow as white, but it is..., does not correspond with the fact. Therefore it is not knowledge.</p>
<p>Dr. Rao: There is another example. They see water can (indistinct) in several (indistinct). One is the seawater, one is  the (indistinct rest of comment)</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: He also says that besides the correspondence, that fact must correspond with..., that a belief must correspond with the fact if it is to be true. Also he says...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: So that fact does not correspond by direct perception, (indistinct) that we are seeing the snowball white, but scientifically it is not white; it is a combination of seven colors.</p>
<p>Dr. Rao: And even by saying white, it is (indistinct). You see sky, you see white clouds, you see white light, you see snow. (indistinct)</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Therefore we sometimes say "snow white." (laughter) "Snow white" means (indistinct). (laughter) So what is the standard of whiteness?</p>
<p>Dr. Rao: (indistinct comment) ...they are not transparent. But you can take very fine (indistinct) out of them, and they are transparent. So how can we say they are (indistinct). They are in fact transparent. It is ludicrous. That also science is attempting.</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: He says another criterion for truth is coherence.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Therefore in our Vedic language they are called, direct perception, pratyakṣa. Pratyakṣa-jña.</p>
<p>Dr. Rao: Pratyakṣa.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: So pratyakṣa is third-class knowledge, according to Vedic system. Pratyakṣa is third-class knowledge. Or fifth-class knowledge. There are stages of knowledge-pratyakṣa, parokṣa, aparokṣa, adhokṣaja, aprakṛta-(indistinct)—that when you come to the standard of aprakṛta knowledge, that is perfection. So pratyakṣa knowledge, direct perception, is fifth-class knowledge, and according to Vedic system, pratyakṣa, aitirya, and śabda... Pratyakṣa, direct perception; (Sanskrit), (indistinct); and śabdha. Three. So out of these three kinds of evidences, śabda-pramāṇa, veda-pramāṇa, is perfect. So if pratyakṣa knowledge is perfect, then why a child, a boy, is sent to school? To hear from the teacher. That is śabda. That is śabda. If pratyakṣa, direct perception, would have been perfect, then there was no need of sending these boys to school to hear from the teacher. But this is very scientific, śabda-pramāṇa.</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: But isn't the understanding of the white light composed of seven other colors, isn't that also a fact of direct sense perception?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No. That is śabda. So a man sees this white snowball, he sees snow. He may not see the reflection of the sun, seven colors, but when he goes to a teacher, he can hear that there is seven colors. Therefore śabda-pramāṇa. The word, the sound, then he can be perfect.</p>
<p>Dr. Rao: (indistinct) Vedic truth?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No. Anything we receive knowledge directly by our sense perception, that is imperfect knowledge.</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: Because even if we see the seven colors in the laboratory with instruments, we still don't understand the even simpler facts of which that is composed. There may be seven colors, but how to understand those?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. Therefore material knowledge is always imperfect. That is the conclusion.</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: He says that the mind plays no part in the process of evolution, because the only evidence for the existence of mental phenomena is a fragment of space and time. But this is not a substance; it is simply a set of relations.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: He does not know it is also matter, but very subtle matter. It is matter. Just like ether—you cannot touch, you cannot see, but still it is matter. And mind is subtler than the ether. But it is matter. Intelligence is subtler than the mind, but still it is matter. So from Vedic authorities we understand that earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence, they are all material.</p>
<p>Dr. Rao: And ahaṅkāra, ego.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Ego, that is also matter.</p>
<p>Dr. Rao: That is the ultimate...</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: So does the mind play any part in the evolutionary process? The mind?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. Evolutionary process means... If evolution means to go higher, then from mind you come to intelligence. And if you go still higher, then you come to the platform of soul, spirit soul.</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: Well, according to these men like Russell, the evolution of bodies, the changes from one body to another, those are simply physical.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: That is nonsense. That is nonsense. That we have already discussed, that if evolution of bodies, then just like this Darwin says that some monkeys, eh? So where is the direct proof that a monkey body is changing to a human body? We say that there are different types of bodies always, just like different types of apartment. But the living entity, the soul, is transferring from one apartment to another just like we change. We are in this room, we may go to another room—but that room is already ready. But I am entering a certain type of apartment according to my means. If I can pay more rent, I can get very nice apartment. If I do not pay, I cannot pay, then that is not possible. Similarly, according to our karma, nature is offering us different apartments, and these apartments are already there, fixed up, 8,400,000 species of life. So as you make yourself fit, you enter accordingly. It is not fixed up that because you are now in a very nice apartment you cannot go down or go up. If you are fit for entering into better apartment, that is also ready. And if you are unfit for entering a better, then lower class of apartment, that is also ready. So these things are already there.</p>
<p>Dr. Rao: (indistinct) between chance of from one apartment to another?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. It is said... Just like you step forward. You first of all put your leg. When you see that it is fixed up, then you get up (indistinct). Unless you are firm, that "Now I am solid," then you take up the other leg. Similarly death takes place when it is ascertained that this soul has to enter such-and-such body, when it is settled up by higher authority, then he gives up this body and enters into (another) body.</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: He says that matter is simply a series of events in which energy and not force as the real motive power, that what we call the material world, rather than being described as solid and understood in terms of force, that actually it is energy performing different events.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. It is forced by the energy. Matter has no form, but by the superior energy, the living entity (indistinct) mixed up (indistinct) matter and make the form. Just like a (indistinct) plate, clay, water, and fire. So the potter makes a form from the clay. Clay means earth and water, mixed up, and it makes a pot and then puts it with fire and it becomes a glass and so on. So tejo-vāri-mṛdāṁ vinimayam. It is simply exchange of earth, water, and fire. But this mixture is being made by the  potter. And the instrument is the potter's wheel. So similarly, God is the potter, and the material nature is the wheel, and so many things are coming out. But if there is no potter to turn the wheel or make the clay into pots, this is not (indistinct). There is already water, there is already earth, there is already fire, but unless a spirit, a being, a living being, comes into it, there is no question of (indistinct). Therefore in Bhagavad-gītā it is said, (indistinct). Because the living entities are there, the formation is taking place. A (indistinct), it is a combination of matter. But because we see that the living entity is there, it is taking a certain type of shape. Matter does not out of itself take the shape. That is wrong theory. We have no such experience where matter is taking automatically shape. (indistinct). Is there any exception?</p>
<p>Dr. Rao: (indistinct)</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: How matter can take shape? That is not philosophy, that is childish. That is the defect of the modern civilization. A man has got childish knowledge and he is becoming philosopher.</p>
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