Yes, we do give Newton credit, but it does not change the fact that his name is irrelevant to our usage of it. The laws of gravity are more important than Newton himself. If we to forget him, and forget his laws, the same law could be discovered again in the future by somebody else.A couple of points worth bringing up. First, the non-relativistic theory of gravity currently in use is in fact referred to by professionals as Newtonian gravity. So in fact Newton did receive due credit for his discovery, even though he does not own the physical effect in any real sense. While I do believe that the principles of Hinduism are universal, I think that by the same token we can credit Indians with their initial discovery.
I agree with you with we can credit Indian people with the first initial discovery of the timeless spiritual laws. However, the timeless spiritual laws are more important than the Indians themselves. If we forget them and even forget the laws, the same laws could be discovered again in the future by somebody else.
In fact the first physicist to posit that an intelligent field of consciousness must be posited to explain the finding of quantum mechanics was the founder of quantum theory Max Plank himself. After him the next quantum physicist to posit that consciousness was needed to collapse the wave function was Neil Bohr, known as the consciousness theory of measurement. Erwin Schrodinger, though did not agree with the consciousness theory of measurement(hence he developed the Schrodinger paradox) appealed to Vedanta to explain quantum mechanics using Atman = Brahman. Thereafter, the physicist Wigner developed the theory of consciousness measurement and Wigners paradox to explain that the wavefunction collapse can only be done by a conscious observer, the question he asked was which observer. After him Bell designed an experiment to test the assumption that locality is true(space and time) exists known as the Bell inequality test. The experiment was first conducted by Alain Aspect and it was indeed proven that space and time did not exist. Later experiments known as the Legett inequalirt test to test the assumption of reality have shown that reality does not exist.The other point I feel is worth mentioning is that professonal scientists would strongly object to some of the claims you've made. As a physicist (OK astronomer, but we've got more or less the same education as physicists), I'd have to say that quantum mechanics in no way supports the existence of an infinite field of consciousness or the nonexistence of space and time. Why do I bring this up? Because most scientists are atheists; while they are far preferable to Christians, they still would laugh at most of Hindu theology and accuse us of perverting science with a religious agenda. This is yet another reason to assign ourselves a label. If you suggest that all Hindus should simply disperse into the general scientific population and disseminate our pearls of wisdom, I assure you we will be met only with atheistic derision (and the charge of heathenry from the occasional Christian). Perhaps this is more of an argument from practicality, but it pays for Hindus to stick together.
I have a read a lot of books on quantum physics and the findings in quantum physics strongly indicate that consciousness must be admitted to exist as a physical substance in order to explain its finding.
It is true that many in the scientific community oppose this, because as you say many are atheists. However, science is not based on the opinion or religion of scientists, but on the preponderance of scientific evidence. The scientific evidence is strongly in favor of the existence of the physical existence of a consciousness field, and more and more physicists today are brave enough to assert this, such as Peter Russel, Amit Gosami(a Hindu). I recommend the book, "Quantum Enigma: How physicists encounter consciousness" to explore this further, which is written by physicists themselves.
It is true if Hindus started approaching the scientific community trying to bring their spiritual research recorded in their scriptures to scientists, the scientists would laugh at them - however not all of them would - Schrodinger, the father of Quantun mechanics obviously didn't, he was so impressed with Hindu philosophy he practically converted to it. There are many physicists today which make it a point to read Hindu philosophy. Moreover, if being ridiculed was going to phase us, then we might as well not approach anybody, because everybody who is ignorant of Hinduism laughs at it. All alternative ideas get laughed at, even Einstein was laughed at when he first published his General Relativity theory.
Hindus have a very important role to play in science today, because their insights and understandings about reality have an audience of many scientists today. Unfortunately, because Indian Hindus do not pay interest to their own philosophies, it is non-Indian Hindus or Western people that end up drawing from Hindu philosophy, devising new and original theories and taking credit. The same happened recently with Rupert Sheldrake, who studied Hindu philosophy extensively at Indian ashrams, then returned and developed his theory of the morphogenetic field.
Then Indian Hindus turn around and complain that their ideas have been plagiarized Well, of course that is going to happen, if Indian Hindus are not going to pay interest to their own Vedic knowledge, then somebody else is going to. Today, ironically, 90% of the people enrolled onto courses in academia on Hindu and Indological studies are non-Indians --- There is a reason why I consider India a dead country. We Indians(I am Indian as well) have trivialized our great heritage of Santana dharma into mythological stories of gods and goddesses, temples and idols and neglect our treasure trove of philosophy, even denigrate our own philosophy.
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