“Can we still hold that modern science is far from realizing the unreality of the world, the basic teaching of Advaita?”

It’s clear to me that philosophical statements such as “the world is unreal”, or “reality is spiritual” express not empirical but a priori propositions. As such, they are independent of sense experience in that their truth or falsity is not determined by the facts of sense experience. Such statements can neither be confirmed nor confuted by sense experience. Observation and experiment are simply irrelevant to their truth or falsity. Thus, they fall outside the realm of the empirical sciences, whatever be the speculations of individual scientists when assuming the role of members of the laity. Further, in the contexts in which they most often occur, such statements are not regarded as provisional truths subject to refutation or revision as in the sciences, but as absolute and irrefutable truths vouchsafed by unimpeachable authority. (From another thread – forgot author).

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