title: The ontological status of western science and medicine.
abstract: This paper traces the revolutionary changes that have transformed the ontological status of western physics and biology over the last thirty years, so as to show in detail how they have moved towards the perspective of the Vedic sciences. From this it appears that Ayurveda's more holistic approach is no longer in opposition to the views of physics and biology. In physics, experimental verification of phenomena associated with quantum correlations have forced scientists to accept that the macroscopic world is not strongly objective: traditional western scientific ontology stands rejected. One consequence is that the world is not necessarily reductionist i.e. based solely on the properties of its tiniest constituents. In biology, the 1930's discovery of homeostasis has reached a natural climax: the feedback instabilities, identified by Norbert Wiener as inevitably accompanying control processes, are now recognized to be states of optimal regulation, where organisms centre their function. The non-reductive properties of these states clearly distinguish the theory of control from previous physical theories; they now occupy the centre-stage of life. Possibly against expectation, their non-reductive nature makes their physics holistic: western biology seems to have broken free of reductionist physics. When Ayurveda and bioscience are compared in light of these little appreciated advances in fundamental science, the supposed differences between them are vastly reduced - they practically dissolve. Instead of being poles apart, the ontologies of western science and Ayurveda seem to have become almost identical.
authors.affiliation: Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana, Bengaluru, India.
authors.forename: Alex
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hankey
keywords: Criticality; holistic biology; holistic physics; ontology; quantum reality