Iqbal and Hawking

Hawking’s Concept of Time:


Hawking has striven to unite the philosophical and scientific concepts of time in his work. It is in this spirit that he has not restricted his study of time to its physical aspect only; he has also investigated the psychological aspect of time which in fact is the core of the reality of time. He theorizes that, “There are at least three different arrows of time”, namely,


Ø  Psychological arrow of time “is the direction in which we feel time passes, the direction in which we remember the past but not the future”
Ø  Cosmological arrow of time. , “the direction of time in which the universe is expanding rather than contracting”
Ø  Thermodynamic arrow of time, “the direction of time in which disorder or entropy increases”,
  
The thermodynamic and cosmological arrows of time are essentially aspects of physical time, whereas the psychological arrow of time is rooted in human consciousness


Iqbal asserts that physical time (or clock time) is unreal time. He holds the opinion that psychological time is real time. For Iqbal, the secret of time does not lie in stars, moons, and galaxies; it lies within human consciousness. He does not reject the usefulness of serial time as he says, “a purely objective point of view is …. partially helpful in our understanding of the nature of time” (III. 76). But, to unravel the mystery of time we have to explore the inner recesses and various stages of our consciousness. He maintains, “The right course is a careful psychological analysis of our conscious experience which alone reveals the true nature of time” (III. 76). He very eloquently declares in Secrets of the Self:


Our Time which has neither beginning nor end,
Blossoms from the flower-bed of our mind.
He says in Gabriel’s Wing:
Our days are illusion, our nights are a dream;
A current of time in which there is neither day nor night.
In the almanac of love, besides the time that passes,
Are myriad other ages, untold and unnamed.




Two Points of Agreement between Iqbal and Hawking:


We can discover at least two main agreements between the approaches of Iqbal and Hawking. Both Iqbal and Hawking are found to have unanimity on the significance of holistic interpretation of reality.

Similarities

·         We see a major agreement in Iqbal and Hawking; Iqbal wants “a single systematic view of reality” and Hawking admires those philosophers who explore “the whole of human knowledge.” In harmony with the above-mentioned statement, Hawking says, “If everything in the universe depends on everything else in a fundamental way, it might be impossible to get close to a full solution by investigating parts of the problem in isolation” (p. 12). In formulating his concept of time, Hawking himself has tried to consider the whole of human knowledge. In his, A Brief History of Time, he considers, for example, Kant and Augustine’s approaches to the problem of time. One can notice the impact of Zeno’s paradox of motion in Hawking’s analogy of arrow for the forward and backward movement of time. Thus we see that, he has not restricted his exploration of time to cosmological and thermodynamic arrows of time; he has also studied psychological arrow of time.


·         The second agreement between Iqbal and Hawking is that they both believe that psychological time is the time which is related to feeling. Pure time or real time, according to Iqbal is, “time as felt and not as thought and calculated” (II. 49). The psychological arrow of time, according to Hawking is, “the direction in which we feel time passes…….” (IX. 153).


Sectional Character of Hawking’s Approach:


Hawking hugely appreciates those who, in search of reality, considered the whole of human knowledge but he himself does not seem to be very successful to study Reality as one organic whole. Since Newton, scientists have created a gulf between mind and matter by the sectional study of nature. Hawking seems to have keenly noticed this bifurcation of mind and matter and has striven to bridge this gulf;

but in spite of his efforts to study Reality as one organic whole, the sectional character of his approach starts emerging.

We shall see that Hawking’s psychological arrow of time does not exist independently but is basically an effect of thermodynamic arrow of time. He does want the unity of mind and matter but he sees, so to speak, the shades of matter in mind also. In order to comprehend psychological arrow of time, he does not delve into the psychological states of human mind; instead, he says,

 “I shall therefore discuss the psychological arrow of time for computers. I think it reasonable to assume that the arrow for computers is the same as that for humans” (IX. 155). It appears that by likening the psychological arrow of time for humans with the psychological arrow of time for computers he, in fact, reduces the real psychological arrow to mechanical arrow of time. On the one hand, Hawking says that the psychological arrow of time, “is the direction in which we feel time passes……….” while on the other hand, he equates the psychological arrow of time for human with the psychological arrow of time for computers. If psychological arrow of time, as Hawking says, “is the direction in which we feel time passes………..”, then computers should also be able to feel time passes or otherwise, I think, one cannot reasonably say, “I think it reasonable to assume that the arrow for computers is the same as that for humans.” Hawking’s time in fact is not time as psychologically and intuitively felt but rather time as mechanically and electronically remembered; this time can be remembered even by inanimate objects like computers and digital clocks that are totally devoid of consciousness. But the felt time which is the real time is organically united with consciousness and cannot be felt by computers or clocks.


The sectional character of Hawking’s approach is revealed more when we investigate what he basically means by the arrow of time. He says, “an arrow of time, something that distinguishes the past from the future, giving a direction to time” (IX. 153). It means that Hawking implies that both physical time and psychological time are divisible in past, present and future, or at least in past and future, while in real time (that is psychological time) past is not distinguished from future; they are both organically and inextricably interpenetrated.

Hawking’s very concept of arrow of time as something that distinguishes the past from future is objectionable.

 In fact, no time can legitimately be called psychological time if it is based on the division of present, past and future in three different times.
To explain this point I am referring only to Ouspensky, Augustine and Iqbal.


Ouspensky declares,
 “The past and the future cannot not exist, because if they do not exist then neither does the present exist. Unquestionably they existsomewhere together, but we do not see them” (IV. 42).  He adds, “The past and the future are equally undetermined, equally exist in all their possibilities, and equally exist simultaneously with the present” (IV. 45).


St. Augustine,


According to St. Augustine, the conception of past and present is not possible unless they are conceived in present. He identifies past with memory and future with expectation; memory and expectation are both present facts, so the past can not be distinguished from future. Augustine conceives, as Bertrand Russell has mentioned, three times, but they are essentially one: “a present of things past, a present of things present and a present of things future” (p. 352). They are one in present.


Iqbal
And let us now refer to Iqbal. Iqbal holds the opinion that, “Pure time, then, as revealed by a deeper analysis of our conscious experience, is not a string of separate, reversible instants; it is an organic whole in which the past is not left behind, but is moving along with, and operating in, the present. And the future is given to it not as lying before, yet to be traversed; it is given only in the sense that it is present in its nature as an open possibility” (II. 49). And the force that unites future with present and past is purpose. Iqbal gives a very cogent description of the role of purposes in the organic interpenetration of past, present and future. He says, “Purposes colour not only our present states of consciousness, but also reveal its future direction. In fact, they constitute the forward push of our life, and thus in a way anticipate and influence the states that are yet to be. To be determined by an end is to be determined by what ought to be. Thus past and future both operate in the present state of consciousness and the future is not wholly undetermined……” (II. 53).
To Iqbal, pure time, which belongs to a higher state of consciousness, is non-successional change, while physical time is, “a measure of non-successional change” (III. 77).


In the light of what we have discussed it appears that Hawking’s time is not psychological time; it appears that he has presented physicalim in the guise of psychological arrow. Thus, Hawking’s approach does not appear to be holistic. It is essentially scientific and sectional that presents psychological time as mechanical time.

Inadequacy of Hawking’s Essentially Scientific Approach:

Hawking’s mechanical psychology cannot be the equivalent of the free creative consciousness that human beings possess. Hawking says,
Ø  “the psychological arrow is determined by the thermodynamic arrow” (IX. 153). This presentation of independent creative mind in the form of dependent mechanical matter seems to be the continuation of Newtonian bifurcation of mind and matter.


Hawking’s approach at the core, is in line with that of Newton’s and Darwin’s, in interpreting matter and mind in the mechanical terms and therefore does not fulfill the conditions of holism.

Iqbal 

Let us see how Iqbal sees this approach; he says,
 “The discoveries of Newton in the sphere of matter and those of Darwin in the sphere of Natural History reveal a mechanism. All problems, it was believed, were really the problems of physics. Energy and atoms, with the properties self-existing in them, could explain everything including life, thought, will, and feeling. The concept of mechanism – a purely physical concept– claimed to be the all-embracing explanation of Nature” (II. 41).
 By declaring that psychological arrow is determined by the thermodynamic arrow, Hawking reduces the free creative consciousness to mechanical and artificial consciousness which is entirely dependant on the increasing or decreasing entropy of the universe. Hawking’s approach implies that human beings are no more than a very sophisticated form of automata; this approach does not offer deep insight into the reality of psychological time. To him, the consciousness can only accidentally grasp the reality of the physical world while the physical world determines the shape of the consciousness. Our point here is that mind (psychological arrow) is not determined by matter (thermodynamic arrow). 
Iqbal pointed out, “To describe it (consciousness) as an epiphenomenon of the processes of matter is to deny it as an independent activity, and to deny it as an independent activity is to deny the validity of all knowledge which is only a systematized expression of consciousness” (II. 40-41).
All the investigations and conclusions of Hawking himself are the outcome of his creative consciousness. If he believes that the working of his consciousness is dependant on the operation of expanding or contracting external world on his mind then what is the foundation of the validity of his conclusions? In Hawking’s psychological arrow of time, man is ‘bound by the fetters of time’; in this concept of time every psychological activity becomes mechanical activity.
To exist in Iqbal’s real time is totally different; as he says, “To exist in real time is not to be bound by the fetters of serial time, but to create it from moment to moment and to be absolutely free and original in creation.


In fact all free activity is creative activity” (II. 50). Hawking’s essentially mechanistic approach denies the spontaneity of life. Iqbal’s objection to Hawking’s essentially scientific approach is more lucidly expressed in the following words:


Creation is opposed to repetition which is a characteristic of mechanical action. That is why it is impossible to explain the creative activity of life in terms of mechanism. Science seeks to establish uniformities of experience, i.e., the laws of mechanical repetition. Life with its intense feeling of spontaneity constitutes a centre of indetermination, and thus falls outside the domain of necessity. Hence science cannot comprehend life (III. 50)




Thus, Hawking’s concept of time is sectional and mechanical, which, contrary to true psychological interpretation, almost entirely avoids the subjectivity and heterogeneity of psychological time. In Hawking’s approach, time becomes a function of the space, whereas Iqbal thinks that time is like a boundless ocean in which the space is no more than a fish; and it is the human consciousness that is “spacious” enough to contain the sea of time. Iqbal declares in his verse:


This world of ours, stretched out infinitely,
Is drowned like a fish in the sea of Time.
But look into your mind, and you will see
The sea of Time contained in a small cup.
(Message from the East)


Conclusion:




In Hawking’s concept of time we find a comprehensive effort to formulate a holistic theory of time, but we discover that the spirit of his theory of time is scientific and sectional. His equation of the psychological arrow of time for humans to that for computers and then his hypothesis that psychological arrow is determined by thermodynamic arrow show the neglect of psychological analysis which is necessary to comprehend the reality of psychological time. In contrast to the time presented by the philosophers of time who have studied the psychological aspect of time, Hawking’s psychological time is embedded in matter. Iqbal’s concept of time reveals the sectional character of Hawking’s approach that, in fact, is based on physicalism that presents the creative psychological arrow as mechanical arrow of time. To grasp the reality of psychological time what is needed is the analysis of dynamics of mind and not the subtle transformation of mind into matter.


Allama Iqbal  states
“ we must not forget that what is called science is not a single systematic view of Reality. It is a mass of sectional views of Reality ___ fragments of a total experience which do not seem to fit together. Natural Science deals with matter, with life and with mind; but the moment you ask the question how matter, life and mind are mutually related, you begin to see the sectional character of the various sciences that deal with them and the inability of these sciences, taken singly, to furnish a complete answer to your question. In fact the various natural sciences are like so many vultures falling on the dead body of Nature, and each running away with a piece of its flesh” (II. 41-42)


excerpts  from 

Iqbal’s Idealist Critique Of Hawking’s Materialist Concept of Time

By Asad Shahzad
IQBAL REVIEW


April 2008– Volume: 49– Number: 2
Journal of the Iqbal Academy Pakistan

http://www.allamaiqbal.com/publications/journals/review/apr08/8.htm