Matter and Mind

Matter and Mind is a new translation of the nearly 2,500-year old Vaiśeṣika Sūtra of Kaṇāda together with an introductory essay and a commentary. The Vaiśeṣika Sūtra is one of the most important texts in the history of science that has not received the attention it deserves. It presents an ontology of reality that includes four kinds of fundamental atoms, two of which have mass and two that do not, as well as minds and consciousness. It also presents symmetry principles that it uses to infer properties of the basic atoms. Kaṇāda's laws of motion are nearly identical to those of Newton.