AI vs RI - a religious perspective
putran M
AI vs RI - a religious perspective.
AI is the simulation of intelligence in material objects by human engineering.
So there should be no confusion that the attribution of intelligence to a machine is indeed "artificial". Not real.
When do we call it "real intelligence"? When the reality of unchanging Consciousness-Self is affirmed as the adhishtanam of that Intelligence. Not the body-mind but the Self identified through that embodiment. Then we say: "ah, it is that (Self) that knows, understands, desires, determines and manifests anew".
Thus jiva is intelligent not because of but in spite of the body-mind. Action and emotion are identified at the gross and subtle levels. At the causal level is Maya, the primal Knowledge-Intelligence, the shakti of Shiva. The jiva therefore is intelligent because its antaryami (inner reality) is Ishvara (Self + Intelligence (Maya)). This fundamental Intelligence of Ishvara is manifest in the jiva as its jnana-iccha-kriya shakti.
When the jiva says "I am running", the running-action pertains to the body. When it says "I think", thinking pertains to the mind. These attributions on Self are superimposition and are equivalent to imagination even from the causal standpoint, but they make sense with reference to the Self identified with body-mind upadhis at the gross-subtle level. "I am running" is valid vyavaharika usage so long as Self remains affirmed as the final adhistanam in the midst of upadhi-adhyasa. Because all cognition/imagination (running, thinking) is ultimately manifest-Maya, the projection of His Intelligence.
On the flip side, is it ok to say "the body runs", "the mind thinks"? Yes, if by "body", we realize that (at the causal level) we are referring to the Self that manifests as body and "its running". So "body runs" means "the atma that projects/identifies (or is identified) as body manifests/cognizes/enlightens the changes in the superimposed gross plane that constitute running". The atma that is manifest as mind manifests/enlightens the changes that constitute thinking.
Devoid of this affirmation of Self, the body-mind become nama-rupa jada identifications that have zero potential/coherence to maintain identity or to manifest change and continuity. It is like watching the movie sun and saying it is shining light on the rest of the movie world. The causal "Intelligence" is at the Projector level. Saying I will not look beyond the movie objects (gross plane) will lead to ignorant or nonsensical conclusions.
Now let us come to the question whether machines can be made really intelligent. First of all, as we said above, things exist because the adhishtanam is Real, and they as the identifications of the adhishtanam-Self are the projections/identifications by Him of Him through His Maya. One who knows this 'sees' Ishvara in (or appearing as) the jiva and the machine also, so such a person can say the machine is intelligent because he sees the Intelligence of Ishvara at play. However the ordinary person does not realize the causal adhishtanam level when he sees the machine; his knowledge is restricted according to the limited extent revealed at the gross-subtle levels. The knowledge revealed at this level is only "jada" and not chaitanya, the immediate reason being that the upadhis of a machine do not reflect the knowledge “I am”, which is the fundamental mark of Consciousness/Self and also the manifest-criterion for assigning it Intelligence.
Thus, though Self is evident and Intelligence is evident, we can't quite pinpoint them in the material object which resists the realization of a unitary adhishtanam and instead appears a composite of more jada parts.
This is not so in the jiva, because in the jiva, Chaitanyam is realized in spite of upadhi-adhyasa; the seen-play of intelligence is linked back to the Self being identified as that jiva. The jiva's upadhis allow for the holistic jnana-iccha-kriya manifestation of Intelligence, in particular the "I am" knowledge-reflection of Self shines in the background as the basis for uniting and centering all other cognitions in the Self.
Note this is a corollary of Ishvara's manifestation:
The projection of jiva includes the projection of its jnana of self and not-self, and the consequent associated projections of iccha and kriya alongside the changes in its upadhis. In the context of identification with jiva-upadhis, we say "mind is upadana for this, body does that" and so on. In the context of its conditioned self-knowledge, the jiva exhibits a fuller intelligence based in knowledge, and based in knowledge, it desires, acts, says "I think", "I run", and so on. (At the causal level, all duality reduces to simply Ishvara-Maya/Intelligence from which standpoint the manifestation of jiva-jagat is akin to imagination. And at the adhishtanam pure Consciousness-Self level, there is no duality to consider.)
The projection of jagat* however is not accompanied with the key jnana-manifestations of Intelligence found in the jiva. The jagat upadhis preclude them**; that is Ishvara srishti. Silicon cannot be moulded into the subtle mind. Therefore the machine can never be made intelligent in the same way a jiva is. We can simulate in machine an action-response mechanism that appears as-if equivalent or superior to human intelligence. But it will remain AI.
——
- - jagat here refers generally to material objects that are not also body-mind of jivas, or that are seen in a sense dissociated from jivas.
** - this is the case when we approach jagat from the gross level as we would in the field of modern science. We can leave aside for a different discussion on the basis of our purana-ithihasas, since we see described in them other ways by which Ishvara may connect jivas and jagat. For instance, devatas associated with rivers and mountains, or the jiva Ahalya being constrained to abide in a rock till Rama’s feet touches her.
thollmelukaalkizhu
putran M
putran M
putran M
Namaskaram,
putran M
1. One says you can't "make a subtle body" through the material means and theories of science, so a jiva or a robot that reflects consciousness like a jiva cannot be created in the lab.2. The other think it may or may not be doable, basically keep open the possibility that a subtle body as understood in our shastras may be makeable through the future methods of science.
In most schools of Hindu philosophy, the sūkṣma śarīra ("subtle body") is not understood as being composed of ordinary physical matter. It is a metaphysical vehicle that links the self (ātman or jīva, depending on the school) with the gross physical body and carries mental impressions (saṃskāras), karma, and the faculties of experience across lifetimes.
There are some differences between traditions, but a common description is as follows:
The gross body (sthūla śarīra) is composed of the five gross elements (pañca mahābhūtas): earth, water, fire, air, and space in their gross forms.
The subtle body (sūkṣma śarīra) is composed of subtle principles (tanmātras) and the internal faculties, including:
Five organs of knowledge (jñānendriyas)
Five organs of action (karmendriyas)
Five vital energies (pañca prāṇas)
Mind (manas)
Intellect (buddhi)
Sometimes ego (ahaṃkāra) and memory/citta are explicitly included, depending on the philosophical system.
For example, Vedāntasāra describes the subtle body as consisting of seventeen components: the five sense organs, five organs of action, five prāṇas, mind, and intellect.
Is the subtle body "made of" something?
Different schools answer differently:
In Sāṃkhya Kārikā and much of Vedānta, the subtle body arises from the subtle elements (tanmātras) before the gross elements develop. These subtle elements are not accessible to ordinary physical observation.
In Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali, the mind and subtle faculties are still part of prakṛti (nature), but they are subtler than physical matter.
In Advaita Vedānta, the subtle body is beginningless from the empirical standpoint and persists until liberation.
Could engineering gross matter create a subtle body?
According to traditional Hindu scriptures and their mainstream commentaries, no.
The reason is not merely technological limitation; it is a difference in ontological category.
The traditional view is that:
Rearranging gross matter affects only the gross body.
The subtle body is not an emergent property of physical organization.
Birth occurs when a pre-existing jīva, already possessing a subtle body, becomes associated with a developing physical body through karma.
So, from this perspective, even if one engineered an extremely sophisticated biological organism—or, hypothetically, an artificial body—that alone would not generate a new subtle body.
Could there be another interpretation?
Some modern thinkers have proposed speculative ideas:
That consciousness or the subtle body might emerge from sufficiently complex information processing.
That the subtle body could correspond to undiscovered physical fields.
That advanced technology might eventually interact with subtle phenomena.
However, these ideas are not found in the classical scriptures. They are modern philosophical or scientific speculations attempting to relate traditional concepts to neuroscience, physics, or information theory.
Summary
Within the framework of classical Hindu philosophy:
The sūkṣma śarīra is composed of subtle faculties—mind, intellect, prāṇa, and the sensory and action capacities—not ordinary physical matter.
It is associated with the subtle elements (tanmātras) rather than the gross elements.
It is not regarded as something that can be manufactured by engineering or arranging gross physical matter.
Whether future science might discover phenomena analogous to the subtle body is an open philosophical question, but classical Hindu scriptures themselves do not suggest that engineering the gross plane can create a sūkṣma śarīra.
putran M
This depends on which Hindu philosophical school you're asking about, but the mainstream classical answer is also "no." The mind (manas) is generally not regarded as something that emerges from the arrangement of gross physical elements.
Here's how the major traditions approach it.
Sāṃkhya and Yoga
In Sāṃkhya Kārikā and the Yoga tradition, the mind (manas), intellect (buddhi), and ego (ahaṃkāra) are all products of prakṛti (primordial nature), but they are subtle evolutes—not gross physical objects.
The hierarchy is roughly:
Prakṛti
Buddhi
Ahaṃkāra
Manas
Sense faculties
Subtle elements (tanmātras)
Gross elements (mahābhūtas)
So the mind is actually prior to the gross elements in the cosmological sequence. On that view, gross matter cannot generate mind because mind belongs to a subtler level of manifestation.
Advaita Vedānta
In Advaita, the mind is part of the subtle body (sūkṣma śarīra). It is an instrument through which consciousness (Ātman/Brahman) is reflected.
The brain is viewed as a physical instrument that enables the functioning of the mind in embodied life, but the mind itself is not identical with the brain.
A common analogy is:
Brain = hardware
Mind = subtle operating system
Consciousness = the illuminator that makes experience possible
This analogy is modern rather than scriptural, but it captures the traditional distinction.
Nyāya–Vaiśeṣika
These schools do regard manas as a kind of substance, but not one composed of gross matter. It is described as an extremely subtle, atomic entity that mediates between the self and the senses. It is not something produced by combining physical elements.
Can engineering create a mind?
From the standpoint of these classical systems:
Building a physical brain from gross elements would create a physical organ.
That does not, by itself, create manas.
For cognition to occur, a self (ātman), a subtle mind (manas), the senses, and the physical body all have to be connected.
So classical Hindu philosophy does not support the idea that sufficiently complex arrangements of gross matter automatically produce a mind.
Are there dissenting views within Indian philosophy?
Yes. The Cārvāka (Lokāyata) school argued that consciousness arises from material elements, much as intoxication arises from fermenting ingredients. This is the closest classical Indian analogue to modern materialism.
However, Cārvāka was explicitly rejected by most other Hindu philosophical schools, which argued that consciousness and mental functions cannot be fully explained as products of gross matter alone.
A modern perspective
If you ask the question from the standpoint of contemporary neuroscience or AI rather than scripture, the answer is unsettled. Some scientists and philosophers argue that consciousness and mind emerge from sufficiently complex physical systems, while others disagree. Hindu scriptures themselves do not resolve that scientific debate; they present a different metaphysical framework in which mind is a subtle principle rather than an emergent property of gross matter.
So, within the framework of classical Hindu scriptures and most orthodox schools, the answer is that manas cannot be engineered solely from gross elements because it is not considered to be made of gross elements in the first place.
putran M
Yes, but with an important qualification. The scriptures are generally open to the discovery of new aspects of nature, but not to conclusions that contradict their fundamental metaphysical commitments.
This distinction is key.
If "modern physics" discovers finer forms of matter
Many Hindu traditions already posit multiple levels of reality:
Gross elements (mahābhūtas)
Subtle elements (tanmātras)
Mind (manas)
Intellect (buddhi)
Prāṇa
Ātman (Self)
Historically, Hindu philosophers did not claim that the "subtle" must forever remain inaccessible to investigation. They simply held that it is subtler than ordinary physical matter.
So if future physics were to discover previously unknown entities or fields that behave like what the scriptures call tanmātras or support mental processes in ways beyond today's understanding, many Hindu thinkers could interpret that as science uncovering more of prakṛti (nature), rather than disproving scripture.
If "physics" means only gross matter
If, however, physics demonstrated that mind is entirely reducible to arrangements of gross matter, classical Vedānta, Sāṃkhya, and Yoga would have a much harder time accommodating that result.
In those systems:
Mind is not an emergent property of gross elements.
Mind itself is a subtle constituent of nature.
The brain is an instrument through which the mind functions, not the source of the mind.
So a theory that says "neurons alone generate the mind" would conflict with the classical framework.
Could engineering manipulate the subtle?
Interestingly, the scriptures do not deny that subtle entities can be influenced.
For example, they describe practices such as:
Meditation affecting the mind.
Prāṇāyāma influencing prāṇa.
Mantras producing subtle effects.
Yogic powers (siddhis) arising from mastery over subtle aspects of nature.
These suggest that the subtle realm is lawful rather than arbitrary. If it is lawful, one could argue in principle that it might someday be investigated or even manipulated. The scriptures do not explicitly discuss scientific engineering of the subtle body or mind, so they neither endorse nor directly rule out that possibility.
The main limitation
The one point on which most orthodox Hindu schools are quite firm is the distinction between mind and consciousness.
Even if someone could engineer a mind—or an artificial subtle body—the traditions would still ask:
Who or what is the experiencer?
In Advaita Vedānta, consciousness (Ātman/Brahman) is not produced by matter, subtle or gross. It is the fundamental reality that illumines the mind.
In Sāṃkhya, the corresponding distinction is between puruṣa (pure consciousness) and prakṛti (nature). The mind belongs to prakṛti; puruṣa does not.
So even if future science could create or engineer a mind, many Hindu philosophers would likely say that this would still not explain—or create—the conscious subject itself.
In summary, Hindu scriptures are more compatible with the possibility that science might discover or manipulate subtler levels of nature than with the claim that consciousness or mind is nothing more than gross physical matter.Whether engineering could produce a manas would depend on whether the "engineering" extends beyond gross matter into whatever the scriptures mean by the subtle constituents of prakṛti. The texts themselves do not explicitly address that possibility, leaving room for philosophical interpretation while maintaining the distinction between mind and the witnessing consciousness.
Q: If mind is to be accepted in physics, then it has to be falsifiable. Is it?
Chatgpt:
This gets to the philosophy of science. The short answer is:
As the concept of manas appears in classical Hindu scriptures, no—not at present.
Here's why.
If mind is defined scripturally
In Vedānta, Sāṃkhya, and Yoga, manas is not defined by measurable physical properties. It is identified by its role:
coordinating sensory input,
generating thoughts,
entertaining doubt and intention,
serving as an instrument for consciousness.
These are functional descriptions, not operational definitions that specify measurable quantities.
If someone says:
"There exists a subtle mind that no physical instrument can ever detect,"
then that claim is not falsifiable in the scientific sense. Science cannot design an experiment that could prove it wrong.
Could it become falsifiable?
Yes—if the theory were developed further.
Suppose someone proposed:
"The subtle mind interacts with neurons through a previously unknown field X."
Then one could derive predictions:
Under condition A, field X should be measurable.
If field X is absent, the theory is false.
If manipulating X changes cognition, the theory gains support.
At that point, the proposal becomes scientific because it makes risky, testable predictions.
This has happened before
Historically, many things once considered speculative became scientific only after they were given measurable consequences.
For example:
Atoms were philosophical long before they were experimentally confirmed.
Gravitational waves were predicted decades before detection.
The Higgs boson was a theoretical entity until experiments could test for it.
The crucial transition was not that the ideas became "physical"; it was that they became empirically testable.
The Hindu perspective
Classical Hindu traditions generally do not present manas as a hypothesis within the framework of modern empirical science.
Instead, they propose a different epistemology. Many schools recognize multiple valid means of knowledge (pramāṇas), such as:
perception (pratyakṣa),
inference (anumāna),
reliable testimony (śabda).
Some also treat disciplined meditative experience as providing direct knowledge of mental phenomena. That differs from the public, repeatable methodology that modern science requires.
So can physics accept it?
Physics could accept a concept analogous to manas only if it were reformulated so that it produced testable, falsifiable predictions.
Until then:
As a metaphysical concept, manas can be internally coherent within Hindu philosophy.
As a physical concept, it is not currently part of physics because it lacks operational definitions and falsifiable predictions.
So there is a distinction between false and outside the scope of current physics. The scriptural concept of manas falls into the second category: it is not rejected by physics as disproven, but it is not presently incorporated into physics because it has not been formulated in a way that can be experimentally tested.
putran M
Bhaskar YR
praNAms Putran prabhuji
Hare Krishna
Then supposedly we will have robot-jivas that are no different than anaadi "karmi"-jivas, in terms of awareness and experience.
- We can add subsequent query to AI like : whether these robot-jeeva-s are tuned/programmed in such a way that after formation of this robo-consciousness immediately they should also realize that they are brahma-jnAni-s and there is no other robo-jeeva-s other than this single robo-jeeva and everything else is just an imagination in this eka-robot-jeeva 😊 Since this robot-jeeva and shareera is not the result of any prArabdha (no question of saNchita or Agami) it must be in a position to realize its true nature immediately without any sAdhana!! Really interested to see the AI’s response to queries like this.
Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar