Both Indian Cosmology and modern science constitute attempts to understand the cosmos at its most basic level. However, modern science is essentially materialistic, seeking an explanation of the universe in terms of "basic particles", whereas Hindu Cosmology is concerned with non-substantial, "basic principles." The adoption of science as the ultimate approach to understanding the cosmos is based on the assumption that the universe must be reduceable to physical phenomena alone. Ian Watson offers Hindu Vedānta, which rejects this notion, as an alternative.

Ian Watson makes ‘scattered observations’ on the decline in thinking and the rise of the secular-materialist mindset in the world. His observations center on his perception that self-reflection and contemplation on the inner has, for the most part, vanished and that it is this absence that has led to a general degradation in thought.