Quantum approaches to consciousness PART 3 K RAJARAM IRS final 25824 26824
According to Vedānta, the soul (ātman) possesses the qualities of sat, cit
and ānanda. All life exhibits these same qualities. Every living organism
wants to maintain its life forever (sat) and is willing to engage in the
struggle for existence until it is forced by the laws of material nature to
succumb to physical death of the body. The fact that life goes on
generation after generation for thousands or millions of years is not
something we would expect in chemical or physical material processes. It is
sentient or conscious (cit) and seeks knowledge in the human form. And all
life seeks fulfillment (ānanda) through nutrition, and various other forms
according to the spiritual development of the various qualities of the soul
(ātman) within the different bodies. All these different symptoms give
evidence for the existence of the spiritual soul (ātman), for they are
certainly not the qualities of matter. Matter, as it is known in modern
science in terms of physical and chemical properties, does not have
sentience or consciousness. Even though the same chemicals are present in
the dead body as in the living one, we do not find life or sentient quality
in a dead body or a dead cell. Even though the same biochemicals are
present in both the cases, the complex biochemical reactions that occur in
a living cell do not take place in a dead cell. To provide a valid
explanation to these observations, the soul (ātman) hypothesis certainly
offers a good possibility, because according to BG, the soul (ātman) does
have the property of consciousness. Modern science has not yet approached
that area of knowledge and only focused its studies on insentient matter.
Due to a gross negligence to the area of sentient science, modern science
finds itself at an impasse when it tries to understand biology, which deals
with mind or consciousness.
Vedānta holds that different forms (species) are original archetypes
that accommodate different varieties of consciousness through which the
transmigration of the soul (ātman) takes place on the basis of the
evolution of consciousness. The body is a biological illusion of the
consciousness of the soul (ātman) and from an amoeba to a human being, all
the different varieties of forms are representations of different stages of
conditioned consciousness. Following an endless cycle of birth and death
(‘transmigration of the soul’ or Metempsychosis in Greek), the soul (ātman)
keeps on wandering in different grades of conditioned states of
consciousness (subjective evolution of consciousness) by obtaining a body
suitable to that consciousness until it attains the pure consciousness.
Unless a designer or an external agent interferes, a machine always
consists of the same material stuff. Unlike a machine, a living organism
displays a transitional material identity. The constituent materials of the
body of the living organism are under constant change, yet the organization
of the whole and its identity remain. The body of a living organism is in a
state of continuous flux in which there is creation, maintenance
(replacement) and destruction of its constituent material stuff by the
processes of anabolism, metabolism and catabolism. Dr. Jonas Frisén, a stem
cell biologist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm used carbon dating
to estimate the age of human cells.64 He used Carbon dating method on
tissues instead of individual cells, because a single cell does not have
enough 14C to signal its age. Scientists believe that the DNA is stable
after a cell has gone through its last cell division. Therefore, they use
14C level on the DNA as a date mark for when a cell was born.65 In his
experiments, Jonas Frisén used the assumption that most molecules in a cell
are continually being changed but the DNA is not. Dr. Frisén's experimental
data suggested that our body is many years younger than our age – for
instance, a middle aged person's body may be just 7-10 years old or less.66
As the body is under constant replenishment, Vedānta explains that bodily
identity of self is illusory. Verse 2.13 of BG explains that there is soul
within the body, which is unaffected by the bodily changes:
dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraḿ yauvanaḿ jarātathā dehāntara-prāptir
dhīras tatra na muhyati
Translation: As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from
boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at
death. A self-realized soul is not bewildered by such a change.
Our body was in the state of a single cell zygote when it first came
into existence and by miraculous embryological development it has acquired
a child body. By several changes, it has acquired its present state and it
will further change to acquire its future state. Therefore, our body is in
a constant state of flux, like a river. The Vedāntic view of the principle
of reincarnation (metempsychosis) can be found in its nascent form in the
changing of our body, from the child body, to the youth body, to the old
body. We can scientifically observe that our body is already changing
several times in our lifetime itself, and in a similar manner at the time
of death, the eternal soul (ātman) will go to another body under certain
conditions.
According to Sańkhya philosophy, there are 2 types of bodies: (1)
Sthūla-deha: The gross body–the body that can be sensed by hearing,
smelling, tasting, seeing, and touching, and (2) Sūkṣma-deha: The subtle
body (within the gross body) – mind (manasā), intelligence (buddhi) and
false ego (ahańkāra). In the gross body, the senses are primary and if they
are removed, no world is apparent to us. Above the senses is the mind
(manasā) and it is the supreme ruler of the senses. If we are not mindful
of the sense objects, then even though something is moving in front of our
eyes we cannot see it. The mind basically deals with acceptance (sańkalpa)
and rejection (vikalpaa)–the faculty of understanding, or holding thoughts
in their separation/distinction as either/or. And, above the mind is the
teleological reason or intelligence (buddhi), which is the inferential
faculty determining if/then. The mind can determine something, but it is
the intelligence that helps an individual to come to a decision to accept
something or not. The false ego (ahańkāra) is the identification of the
self with the body and the bodily identities (nation, cast, color, creed
and so on). The mind, intelligence, ego are dependent on the soul (ātman).
The soul (ātman) consciously experiences and interacts with the gross
matter through a subtle body (mind, intelligence and false ego).
BG states that at the time of death, the soul (ātman) leaves the gross
body, but it does not leave the subtle body. The transmigration of the soul
(ātman) is described in BG 8.6: yaṁ yaṁ vāpi smaran bhāvaṁ tyajaty ante
kalevaram taṁ tam evaiti kaunteya sadā tad-bhāva-bhāvitaḥ – “The soul
(ātman) obtains a body in next life based on the consciousness in which it
left the previous body.”
Considering a machine analogy of the living organism, abiogenesis and
evolution theory in biology do not include these subtle elements when it
studies living organisms. It excludes mind, intelligence and false ego.
Obviously, consciousness is untouched in those theories. Vedāntic
literature explains that wherever life is present, the soul (ātman) is
there within and following the ‘laws of karma’ the soul (ātman) in the
human body may obtain bodies of nonhuman species and vice versa. By
advancement, the soul (ātman) can obtain the human form, and by degradation
it can also go back to other forms of life. The soul (ātman) is endowed
with freewill and by misutilization freewill, a soul (ātman) may do many
misdeeds. The acquired reactions from those misdeeds are known as karmic
reactions. ‘Laws of karma’ check the freewill of the soul (ātman) by
providing new bodies and throwing them into different suffering conditions.
This ancient theory of evolution is based on the subjective evolution of
consciousness67 and the Darwinian objective evolution theory of bodies is a
perverted representation of this ancient wisdom. In Darwinism, evolution
means transformation of bodies, and in Vedāntic view evolution means
transformation of consciousness. Twenty-first century biology also teaches
us that we should not inflict our ideas on nature; let nature reveal
herself to us. Life and its evolution cannot be understood by imposing
simplistic Darwinian mechanistic reductionism on sentient biological
systems. Evidence is forcing biologists to go beyond physics and chemistry
to properly comprehend the science of consciousness.
Using the brain analogy, some scientists consider the cell nucleus (because
DNA and genes are within the cell nucleus) as an equivalent to the brain of
a cell. Cells can sustain an enucleation operation (the operation in which
a cell's nucleus is removed). In fact, cells are found to be more robust
toward brain removal than multicellular organisms. It has been reported
that enucleated cells continue to survive and display a regulated control
of their biological processes for up to 3 months.71,72 Therefore, for both
single-cell and also multicellular organisms, the brain is not the source
of consciousness.
The information approach and self-organization principles are not
sufficient to explain life and its origin.
Proposals like “artificial life,” “artificial intelligence,” “sentient
machines” and so on are only fairytales because no designer can produce an
artifact with the properties like internal teleology (Naturzweck) and
formative force (bildende Kraft). In other words, a machine will never do
things for its own internal purpose and it cannot build itself.
The material origin of life and objective evolution are only misconceptions
that biologists must overcome. Biologists should instead find the proper
tools to explain the origin and evolution of life from the realm of
sentience.
Our attitude is shaped by the way our education has conditioned us to think
about the world. To teach that Man is simply an enclosed membrane of
chemicals affects how people think about themselves as spiritual beings,
and thus it influences the way they think about such concerns as abortion,
euthanasia, bioethics in research and medicine, cloning, genetic
modification of food, animal rights, and so on. The Vedāntic scholars,
Aristotle, Kant (using the argument of teleology) and Hegel have all
claimed that biological systems (organisms) are distinct from inanimate
objects (mechanical and chemical systems). Purpose and meaning are
inseparable aspects of life, similarly as consciousness. We cannot expect
those in dead molecules. We do not give any moral and ethical importance to
an accumulation of dead molecules, but such a consideration is a must for
the life principle. Hence, abiogenesis is an insult to the life force. To
understand life and its origin, one must also give a proper attention
toward the ancient Eastern Vedāntic philosophical concept of ātman,
Aristotle's concept of Soul, and Hegel's explanation of the Concept
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V CONSCIOUSNESS ABSOLUTE VEDA VEDANTA BY KRISHNANANDA
The Mind as a Quantum of Energy by Swami Krishnananda
The mind is neither inside the body, nor is it outside the body; it is just
what we are.
The quantum of energy, capacity, and confidence that we have in our
own selves is the mind operating. Our value is not in what we possess as an
external commodity from the world, but is the manner we are thinking in our
mind. This is not a difficult thing to understand. Whatever may be our
quantity of material wealth in this world, if our mind does not agree to
accommodate itself with this idea of possession, the possession becomes
null and void. It is well said that we are what we think we are.
The mind is a quantum of energy that is operating in us. The mind is
energy. It is not a thing; it is not an object. It is just what energy can
be defined as. It is power, rather. Our power is in our mind. As strong as
our mind is, so strong we ourselves also are. If, for any reason
whatsoever, the mind is not strong, and it feels that it is incomplete in
some way in comparison with somebody else, then the strength diminishes.
Accepting the fact that the mind is the knowing principle, and it is not
outside the individuality of a person, it becomes difficult to explain how
such a mind, which is so limited and is finite, can become conscious of the
existence of anything else at all. If my mind is tied down to the location
of my own individuality, I cannot know that you are sitting in front of me,
because the mind cannot move outside the body. On a further analysis of the
psychology behind the operation of the mind, we come to the conclusion that
there is something seriously wrong with our notion that we are only in one
place, and the mind is only within the campus of the individuality of a
person. If this is regarded as something erroneous, then we would not be
able to explain how we know that the world exists at all.
The mind knows everything, and there is no other faculty in us, except
the mind, that knows things. The world is so big, and it is outside. The
outsideness of a thing prevents the knowledge of that particular thing by
that which is not outside, but only inside. That which is inside cannot be
outside; and if anything is outside, then it is not inside. If we are only
within ourselves, then we cannot know that the world exists. A mysterious
operation takes place, due to which we are aware that the world exists, and
there are many things around us. This is a subject, not merely of general
psychology, but of what we may call philosophy.
How many things are there in this world? The categorization and numbering
of these gradational degrees of evolution is the function of the Samkhya
philosophy. The word 'Samkhya' comes from the word 'sankhya', which means
numbering. The Samkhya philosophy numbers the categories of creation. It is
a deductive philosophy, a little different from the inductive philosophies
of Western thought – deductive in the sense that it accepts the existence
of some fundamental being, and it does not require any proof that such a
fundamental being exists. That thing which does not require any external
demonstration is our own consciousness. We need not have to prove that we
are conscious, because we never doubt that we are conscious. We are
conscious of something.
Sometimes the mind and consciousness are considered identical for certain
practical purposes, though in fact the mind and consciousness are not
identical with each other.
Briefly, we may say that the mind is the operational phenomenon
projected by consciousness. Consciousness does not operate in any
particular direction. The reason is that it cannot be confined to any
particular place. We began by saying that the mind appears to be within the
body, and it is located within our individuality. Not so is the case of
consciousness, because consciousness is something by which everything is
known. Without consciousness, knowledge is not possible – knowledge of even
one's own self, apart from the knowledge of any other thing in the world.
Now, the Samkhya raises a very great question as to where consciousness
is. Is it in some place? If it is only in some place, where is it located?
All right, for the sake of argument, let us accept that consciousness is in
some place only. It may be in me, in you, or somewhere else. If
consciousness is only in one place, it is not in another place. The
consciousness of being in one particular spot precludes the consciousness
of there being anything at all outside that particular spot.
I shall relate one illustration to make this point a little more clear.
When your waking mind goes into a state of dream, do you know what is
happening to you? The waking mind, so called, is a composite inclusiveness
of your total personality. What makes you feel that you are a whole by
yourself is the waking consciousness; you may call it the waking mind. In
that condition called dream, what happens is this so-called waking
consciousness splits itself into the knower and the known aspect of the
dream world. There is a vast world in dream – as vast as the one that there
seems to be in the waking condition. Whatever you can see in the waking
world, you can see in the dream world, also.
Now, who is seeing the dream? If you are the waking consciousness,
which makes you feel that you are composed and safe, do you believe that
the waking mind itself is dreaming, and entering into another condition? It
cannot be so, because in the dream world, there is a dissection of the
subjective side and the objective side. You are intelligent enough to
understand that a peculiar split of the waking mind takes place in
dreaming, due to which, a part of the waking mind looks like the observer
of the dream, and another part looks like the observed world of space,
time, cause, object, etc., in the dream. You cannot say that you are
yourself dreaming as a waking mind, because if the waking mind is
completely exhausted in the dream world, you would not wake up. You would
remain only in the dream world forever and ever. The transcendent aspect of
the waking mind is retained intact, in spite of its apparent descent into a
division of the dream subject and the dream object. You appear to have
become somebody else in the dream, but really you are the same person that
you were even before going into the dream. This is the reason why you wake
up from the dream healthily, and without feeling that you have become
somebody else.
The objectivity of the dream world, the externality of things that the
dream subject observes, cannot be regarded as an ultimate reality, because
if that world which you observe in the dream world really exists external
to the consciousness of the observer, it will not allow you to wake up into
the waking consciousness. You would be always dreaming. That you are able
to wake up into the real waking consciousness, as you call it, shows that
you have not become the dream object, nor have you become the dream
subject. A kind of dramatic theatrical action takes place, as it were, in
the dream, due to which operation the waking mind, which is otherwise hale
and hearty – which is what you really are – appears to become somebody else.
It appears that King Janaka once dreamed that he was a butterfly, and this
dream continued all whole night. When he woke up, people greeted him:
“Janaka Maharaj, namaskar.” He asked the courtiers, “Am I Janaka, or a
butterfly? Is it Janaka, the king, dreaming that he is a butterfly, or is
the butterfly dreaming that he is a king?”
Imagine that there is a beggar who dreams for twelve hours every day
that he is a king; and there is a real king who dreams for twelve hours
every day that he is a beggar. Now, who is the king, and who is the beggar?
You will be flabbergasted. For twelve hours a beggar is the king, and for
another twelve hours the king is a beggar. Now, who is the king, and who is
the beggar, because both are kings and beggars for twelve hours?
The Samkhya philosophy takes us to this question from another angle of
vision, and establishes that consciousness cannot be located in one place,
though it looks like it is being located in the dream world, because the
consciousness of limitation proves the existence of that which is not
limited. You have to remember this one sentence. You cannot know that you
are limited, unless there is a simultaneous conviction that there is
something which is unlimited. A poor person cannot know that he or she is
poor, unless there is a simultaneous consciousness that there is something
called wealth or richness. Everything in the world is in one place. You
cannot see any object in the world which is everywhere. There is location
for everything in the world. That is to say, everything in the world is
finite. Therefore, your infinite potentiality of inclusiveness cannot be
satisfied even by the possession of the whole world. Even if you are a king
of the Earth, you will be an unhappy person, because the Earth has not
become you. The Earth remains outside the king always, though the foolish
king imagines that he is the owner of the whole world. The Samkhya
concludes that we have an infinitude of potentiality inside us, called
consciousness, due to which we feel restless at all times. No finite
accumulation of objectivity can satisfy any person. Even if the whole
country is given to us as our property, we cannot say that we will be
secure. There is a fear: “The whole country has been given to me, but how
long will it continue? How long will I be here? It can all vanish.”
The Samkhya calls the world prakriti. What is called prakriti in the
Samkhya terminology is matter, in ordinary terms. The whole world is
considered as a material ubiquitous pervasiveness. And consciousness is
that which knows that there is prakriti, or matter.
The Samkhya concludes that there are only two realities ultimately –
consciousness and matter. That which knows is consciousness, and that which
is known is called matter. The known-ness of matter arises on account of
the fact that matter cannot know itself. The materialist argument that only
matter exists is defeated in one moment by the consequence that follows
from this argument that matter cannot know itself. If matter only exists,
according to the materialist doctrine, who will know that there is matter
at all? Matter is that thing which is bereft of consciousness. Therefore,
matter cannot know that it exists. Hence, who is saying that the matter
exists at all? That one which is affirming that there is such a thing
called matter cannot itself be matter. Hence, there must be two realities
at least – namely, consciousness, and that which is known by consciousness.
The Sanskrit terminological description of these two principles is
purusha and prakriti. Purusha is the conscious, living principle; prakriti
is the matter that is what is called the whole universe. That which cannot
know its own existence, and yet operates, is matter; and that which knows
itself is consciousness.
Having established the fact that consciousness is everywhere, it
cannot be considered as an active principle, because activity is a movement
of something outside itself. The externality of a phenomenon is necessary
in order that activity is possible. If there is nothing outside us, we
cannot act. But having concluded that consciousness is everywhere, and it
is infinite in its nature, the Samkhya has to conclude, at the same time,
that consciousness is inactive, while prakriti is active. The inactivity of
the illumination of consciousness, combined with the activity of matter,
which does not know itself, is the whole drama of life. It is an admixture
of the inactive infinite consciousness, and the active unconscious material
principle.
A question arises: “How is it possible that consciousness can be
associated with matter in any way whatsoever? How could consciousness know
that there is matter, because they are two different things, qualitatively?
If consciousness is infinite, it is everywhere. If it is everywhere, where
does matter exist? Where is the place for matter to exist at all, because
you have already filled the whole space with consciousness? Does matter
exist at all?”
K Rajaram IRS 25824 26824 Part 3
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