Scientific Evidence

[Markendeya Yeddanapudi]

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MarGreat question! You’ve touched on some really important points about the nature of scientific evidence and the relationship between machines, statistics, perception, and emotions. Let’s break it down:

What is scientific evidence?

At its core, scientific evidence refers to the data and observations that support or refute a hypothesis, theory, or claim. It typically comes from:

1. Experiments: Controlled environments where variables are manipulated to observe outcomes.

2. Observations: Data collected through observation, often in natural settings or through measurements.

3. Statistics: The mathematical analysis of data, which helps determine whether an observed effect is significant or due to chance.

4. Peer Review: The process by which other experts in the field scrutinize and validate findings before they are accepted as part of the scientific body of knowledge.

The role of machines or technology in this process is critical in modern science. Machines can help gather vast amounts of data, model complex phenomena, and even detect things that are too small, too fast, or too far to see with human eyes (like particles at the quantum level or signals from distant galaxies). But machines are not the deciders—humans interpret the data.

Can there be trustworthy evidence without emotions?

This is a nuanced question. In science, objective reasoning is the goal, and emotions are typically kept out of the data analysis itself. For instance, statistical models, machine analysis, and controlled experiments are designed to minimize biases and emotional influences. But the interpretation of evidence, especially when it involves the broader implications of the data, can be influenced by human perception, values, and emotions.

Humans bring their experiences, cognitive frameworks, and biases to the table when interpreting evidence. For example, in a medical study, even if the statistical evidence points to the efficacy of a new drug, the societal, ethical, or emotional context might influence how that evidence is applied or communicated.

So can understanding exist without emotion?
Not entirely. Emotions, in a way, shape how we perceive the world and assign meaning to what we observe. Even in science, emotions play a role in motivation (curiosity, awe, excitement) and in how we prioritize certain areas of research. The need to understand often arises from a mix of intellectual curiosity and personal or societal emotional drives (like wanting to solve a problem, help others, or explain the mysteries of existence).

The problem of invisible connections and the limits of perception:

You raised a good point about not being able to see 99.9965% of "totality"—this likely refers to things like dark matter, quantum phenomena, or other aspects of the universe that are invisible or inaccessible to our direct senses. Scientific evidence in such cases often comes from indirect measurements, mathematical modeling, and statistical inference. We trust that certain things exist or behave in specific ways based on patterns observed in the data, even if we can't directly experience them.

In such cases, science relies on:

1. Models: These are approximations of reality that try to explain the underlying structures or behaviors that are not directly observable.

2. Correlation and causation: Often in science, even if we cannot see a phenomenon directly, we can observe its effects. For example, we cannot see gravity directly, but we can observe its effects on objects.

3. Mathematical consistency: The beauty of many scientific theories is that they can predict phenomena that have not yet been directly observed, based on the consistency of their underlying mathematics (e.g., the predictions of general relativity before confirming black holes).

How do emotions tie into this?

Emotions are part of human perception, and human perception is how we make sense of the world. We cannot fully extricate ourselves from emotional states, biases, or cognitive filters when understanding scientific phenomena. But we strive to minimize the influence of emotion in formal scientific inquiry. That’s why things like double-blind trials, statistical significance, and peer review are so important: they reduce personal bias and emotional influence.

Summary:

• Scientific evidence is based on data gathered through observation, experimentation, and analysis, with an emphasis on objectivity and repeatability.

• Machines play a significant role in collecting and analyzing data, but humans interpret the results.

• Emotions and personal biases affect how we interpret evidence, but science tries to minimize their influence in order to arrive at objective conclusions.

• While we might not be able to see everything (e.g., dark matter or quantum phenomena), scientific evidence can still be based on indirect observations, mathematical modeling, and statistical reasoning.

• Understanding without emotion is impossible in human terms. Emotion and perception shape how we approach and internalize knowledge, even in fields as "objective" as science.

Would you say that the role of emotion in interpreting scientific evidence is something you find more of an issue, or do you think it’s a natural part of how we make sense of complex phenomena?

[Rajaram Krishnamurthy]

The Concept of Emotion in Indian Philosophy

     OUR PHILOSOPHY WANTS TO CROSS THE SAMSARA RIVER FROM ONE SIDE OF EMOTIONS TO BANKS OF THE OTHERSIDE GNANA THROUGH THE UNDERSTANDING.VIZ RIGHT UNDERSTANDING WHICH MEANS EMOTION OF HEART AND THAT OF ELEVATING THROUGH THE MIND IS ROGHT WAY TO LIVE. AND THE WHOLE OF b g SPEAKS ONLY ABOUT THE DISTINCTION OF LIVING IN BETWEEN EMOTIONS REASONS AND UNDERSTANDING .IT IS NOT QUESTION OF RIGHT OR/AND WRONG. ONE HAS TO PASS THROUGH IN STAGES. THAT IS WHY HIDUISM IS UNIVERSAL UNLIKE WEST DEDUCTIONS WHICH KEEP CHANGING. AND WALKING AND CRAWLING TO TRUTH.

In Indian literature, emotions are discussed in several different contexts: first, within aesthetics (rasa). The word rasa can mean juice, sap, essence, condiment or even flavour and refers to the different sentiments invoked by a work of art, for example a piece of music. Secondly, emotions are discussed within the context of the bhakti (devotional) movement. Here particular emphasis is placed on cultivating the emotion of love for a supreme being, e.g., Śiva. Thirdly, they are discussed in various tantric traditions. These traditions form a counterbalance to the ascetic ideal of classical philosophical texts (fourth context in which emotions are discussed) in that they encourage “living out” emotions (and desires) without forming any attachment to them. This entry focuses on the emotions in this fourth context, namely classical Indian philosophical thinking, which includes Brahmanical as well as Buddhist texts, among others. While there is no equivalent for the term “emotion” in Sanskrit, the concept nevertheless plays an important role in Indian philosophy. Terms used in Sanskrit texts include vedanā (feeling) and bhāva (feeling) as well as names of individual emotions, such as rāga (love, attraction), dveṣa (hatred, aversion), harṣa (joy), bhaya (fear) and śoka (sorrow). One of the reasons why emotions are philosophically interesting in India and the West is their relationship with the mental phenomenon of vijñāna or jñāna which is translated as “cognition”. The relationship between emotion and cognition is important for any account of reason and rationality. While the importance of the emotions for rational deliberation and decision-making has been acknowledged in recent discussions in the philosophy of mind, the history of Western philosophy contains many views, for example those of Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics, which emphasize the dangerous and destructive role of the emotions. At the heart of these views lies a division of our mental lives into cognitions and feelings. Cognitions are representational thoughts. They are often regarded as rational because they are capable of representing the external world and therefore they provide us with access to the external world, based on the best available evidence. So, according to this view of rationality, when I think that there is a book on the table, based on my available evidence, and there really is one, then my thought is rational. However, if I am hallucinating that there is a book on the table, my thought that there is a book might also be rational because the available evidence points towards this thought. In order to make sure that our thoughts represent reality correctly, we require an account of what counts as good evidence, which is one of the main foci of epistemology in Indian and Western philosophy. Nevertheless, cognitions derive their status as thoughts capable of rationality from the fact that they have objects which represent the external world. By contrast, feelings are some of the non-representational attitudes one can have towards the objects of the representations of our thoughts. For example, when a person thinks about her daughters, she has a cognition which represents her daughters. The objects of her thought are her daughters and her thought pick them out among various objects and subjects in the world. There are several ways in which these objects can be picked out: one can simply have the thought that one has two daughters or one’s thought can be “coloured” with love and affection. This “colouring” of thought is often regarded as an affect. Together with the thought, it accounts for an emotion. So, the emotion of love, for example, is the thought of the object of love plus an affect. The affect is non-representational and regarded as a “mere” feeling.

The reason why many philosophers regard the emotions as an obstacle to rational thought is the influence of the non-representational feeling. The fact that feelings do not seem to have objects means, according to some views, that they can interfere with rational thought. According to these views, rational thought, which is representational and therefore object-directed, is subject to disturbing interferences from the feelings. The feelings themselves, however, are non-rational because they arise due to some physical imbalance in the body, for example through an imbalance of the various “humours”. This imbalance can negatively influence rational thought. An example is the person who acts against her better judgment because she is in the grip of some feeling. This is of course also the basis for the term “passion” as something that we “suffer”, which was discussed by many philosophers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, e.g., Descartes, Spinoza and Hume. Since rational thought is an ideal for many philosophers and the feelings can interfere with this ideal, the natural consequence seems to be to advocate for the extinction or at least the control of the feelings and, as a consequence, of the emotions. This is what many philosophers throughout the history of philosophy have done, most notably of course the Stoics. While they often recognize that the emotions contain a cognitive, and therefore potentially rational, element, they try to uncover this element by advocating its separation from the affect. Of course, if the affect were to be purged from the emotion, the resulting cognition would cease to be an emotion.

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1. The Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika account of the emotions

The discussion of this account will focus on the Nyāya-sūtras, Vātsyāyana’s Nyāya-bhāṣya, Uddyotakara’s Nyāya-vārttika and Jayanta Bhaṭṭa’s Nyāya-mañjarī. In addition, the Vaiśeṣika-sūtras together with Śaṅkara Miśra’s Vaiśeṣika-sūtra-upaskāra will be mentioned. The Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika account of the emotions involves a strict division into cognition (jñāna) and mental phenomena that include a feeling aspect, such as love or attraction (rāga) and aversion (dveṣa). One of the main reasons for this is the acceptance of the existence of a permanent immaterial self (ātman) by the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers. According to their arguments, the ātman is a substance (dravya) which possesses several qualities (guṇas), such as cognition, desire, effort, aversion, pleasure and pain. This enumeration shows that there is no common Sanskrit term for the concept “emotion” in the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika texts. One general term used is saṃvedana which translates as “feeling”, for example sukha-saṃvedana (feeling of pleasure).

The important aspect of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika account is that the individual emotions, such as attachment and aversion are regarded as defects (doṣas  NV 1.1.22 mentions one exception, namely the desire for eternal pleasure and absence from pain which is final liberation. While, strictly speaking, a desire is not an emotion, it usually has the same negative effect because it results in attachment to the object of desire. The desire for eternal pleasure, however, is not detrimental to liberation; in fact it is a precondition for liberation. Another reason why cognition is an important quality is that it is not necessarily a defect whereas the other qualities are always defects. The defects fall into 3 groups: i) attraction (rāga), ii) aversion (dveṣa) and iii) illusion (moha) [NS 4.1.3]. Among the first group we find love, selfishness and greed. The second group includes anger, jealousy, envy, malice and resentment. The Third group encompasses error, suspicion, pride and negligence. These groupings show that, according to the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika account, there are no positive emotions. Even love, which is regarded as a positive emotion in many cultures, is ultimately a defect because all emotions lead to attachment and error.

2. The Vedānta account of the emotions

In his commentary on the Brahma-sūtras, Śaṃkara makes the well-known argument that the self (ātman) exists because its existence is the only way to account for the idea of a subject of experience. This argument relies on the idea that the self has certain mental qualities, which are termed manas (mind), buddhi (intellect), vijñāna (cognition) or citta (consciousness), depending on what mental function is ascribed to them. Different mental functions are doubt, resolution, egoism or recollection [BSBh 2.4.6]. These mental functions, regardless of how they are referred to, have several qualities or modifications, including desire, imagination, doubt, faith, want of faith, memory, forgetfulness, shame, reflection and fear [BSBh 2.3.32] as well as love, aversion, pleasure and pain [BSBh 2.3.29]. This means that, according to Śaṃkara, the mind’s cognitive and emotional abilities are the qualities of our mental functioning which is different from the self.

At the heart of Śaṃkara’s teaching lies the notion that the true knowledge of the ātman is knowledge that is devoid of any of the above-mentioned qualities. In this respect one can find a similarity between the Nyāya school and Śaṃkara because for both of them cognitive and emotional qualities are due to false knowledge or ignorance of the true self. This means that the removal of ignorance results in a removal of emotions as well as cognitions. However, it is clear that the emotions present the main obstacle for the realization of the true self because desire and aversion lead to attachment and clinging which cause us to neglect the search for liberation that is crucial to Vedānta teaching. So, while Śaṃkara distinguishes between what Western philosophers would call cognitions and emotions, he does not present a purely cognitive state of mind without emotions as the ideal state of mind because such a state would be impossible. By definition, any purely cognitive state of mind presupposes the existence of a mind or intellect. For Śaṃkara, however, the problem is that a mind will always have certain qualities that would be called emotive in Western philosophy, such as desire, aversion, hatred, pleasure or pain. So, as long there are cognitions, there will also be emotions. Therefore, both must be eliminated in order for the self to attain liberation. On this point, Śaṃkara agrees with the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers. While Śaṃkara distinguishes between emotions and cognitions, his distinction is not as pronounced as that of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers. He regards both as qualities of the mind or intellect.

3. The Sāṃkhya-Yoga account of the emotions

Unlike the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika and Vedānta accounts of the emotions, the Sāṃkhya-Yoga account does not draw a fundamental distinction between feelings and cognitions. The reason for this is that the Sāṃkhya account rests on the division between puruṣa and prakṛti. The former is pure consciousness and does not contain any cognitions or feelings whereas prakṛti is primordial matter and has the three qualities (guṇas) sattva, rajas and tamas, which are aligned with different feelings: sattva with pleasure (sukha), rajas with pain (duḥkha) and tamas with confusion or illusion (moha). The terms sattva, rajas and tamas are difficult to translate but are sometimes rendered as “reflection”, “activity” and “inertia”. The important point about this dualist structure for the emotions is that, according to the Sāṃkhya account, both cognition and feeling belong to the realm of prakṛti which means that they are material. This stands in contrast to many dualist accounts in the history of Western philosophy, for example that of Descartes, according to which cognitions are immaterial whereas emotions or passions are material, thus making it easier to oppose the two. Larson and Bhattacharya (1987) summarize the difference between Western and Sāṃkhya dualism in the following way:

[A]ccording to Sāṃkhya philosophy, the experiences of intellect, egoity, and mind, and the “raw feels” such as frustration or satisfaction—or, in other words, what conventional dualists would consider to be “inherently private”—are simply subtle reflections of primordial materiality, a primordial materiality undergoing continuous transformation by means of its constituent unfolding as spontaneous activity, reflective discerning, and determinate formulation. Thus, the modern reductive materialists’ claim that “sensations are identical with certain brain processes” would have a peculiar counterpart in the Sāṃkhya claim that “awarenesses” [Sanskrit terms omitted] are identical with certain guṇa modalities. (Larson and Bhattacharya 1987, p. 76)

Cognitions, emotions and kleśas

In what follows, these questions are addressed briefly in reverse order. The second question raises the general problem of the translatability of the concept of feeling or emotion into Sanskrit. As mentioned in the introduction, there is no general term in Sanskrit for emotion and Śāntarakṣita uses the expression “love and hatred etc.” (rāga-dveṣa + ādi). In the translation, Jha has taken the “etc.” as referring to other feelings, assuming that Śāntarakṣita was operating with a psychological category such as “feeling”. However, there is no single word in the text which would translate as feeling every time it appears in the translation. In fact, it is clear that Śāntarakṣita does not mean “feelings” in the sense of non-representational attitudes towards objects because love and hatred have objects according to him, albeit mental objects. Since Śāntarakṣita remains within the context of Buddhist psychology and clearly refers to Dharmakīrti, it is plausible that he means “other kleśas” instead of “other feelings” because love and hatred are kleśas and have objects.

In this context, it is also important to discuss the translation of the term vijñāna as “cognition”. Both terms refer to a mental phenomenon that provides knowledge. This means that they refer to a state of affairs that pertains in the world. Both terms presuppose an external or mental object they are directed towards. One important difference between these two terms, which shows the difficulty with translating vijñāna as cognition, is that, according to Śāntarakṣita, a vijñāna always has an object but it does not have to have conceptual content. In this sense, even a sensation or feeling, such as the sensation of pleasure, is a vijñāna because it has an object but lacks conceptual content, according to Śāntarakṣita. The sensation has an object because it provides knowledge about mental states and therefore has to have an object of knowledge. However, this object is not conceptual. So, according to Śāntarakṣita, a vijñāna includes affective mental states, such as feelings, sensations and emotions and therefore kleśas. The Western term “cognition”, by contrast, excludes affective mental states.

    In Western discussions of this topic, feelings are very often associated with some physical change, such as a quicker heartbeat or a change in the chemical make up of the brain. For this reason, emotions are very often regarded as providing some link between the mental and the physical. Śāntarakṣita mentions this link between feeling and physical changes in TS 1960. He claims that phlegm (balāsa) and other bodily changes are not responsible for love, hatred or perturbations through sexual arousal because there is no observed concomitance between them. While this claim might be true with regard to phlegm, it is obviously false with regard to other physical changes, especially changes in the brain. However, it would be wrong to completely dismiss Śāntarakṣita’s argument simply because he turned out to be wrong about this empirical claim. After all, the argument raises important questions about the status of mental phenomena, such as love and hatred.

BHAGAVAT GHITA KENO KATHO UPANISHASDS

     As I had written so many times verses may be seen connecting every words described above.

 Conclusion

A number of themes emerge from this overview: 1) The Western categories of “cognition” and “emotion” do not have equivalents in classical Indian philosophy. This is interesting because it suggests that these concepts are not psychological categories but perhaps social categories. 2) One common theme in classical Indian philosophy is that the phenomena that would be labelled as “emotions” in Western philosophy are to be eradicated because they prevent liberation. 3) None of the Indian philosophical schools aim at “emotion-free” cognitions as an end in itself. In fact, those states that would be labelled “cognitions” in Western philosophy are also to be eradicated because they also prevent liberation. 4) Indian schools differ over the inclusion of feeling states under the concept of vijñāna (cognition). Some schools distinguish between feeling states and vijñāna whereas others, most notably Buddhists, do not. This last point suggests that there is an interesting comparison to be made between Buddhist accounts and cognitive accounts of the emotions. However, any comparison must be sensitive to the difficulties in translating the concepts involved.

K Rajaram IRS 22625

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