Why Physics can't solve the ontological problem of consciousness

[Bhakti Vijnana Muni]

Dear Friends,

Namaste. It is important to know the limitations of our scientific approaches to understand consciousness. Why is it that the ontological problem of consciousness is proving to be so hard. We know nothing about consciousness.

1. According to the Upanishads Problem of consciousness is unsolvable in Physics

According to Upanishads such as the Brihad Aranyaka and Manduka, the problem of consciousness cannot be solved in Physics because modern science does not include concepts such as aatman or soul. Science has failed to deduce the source of consciousness. It can’t answer the question: How do cosnciousness arise?

According to the Brihad Aranyaka upanishad, there is ordinary consciousness, such as when we are awake, when we are asleep or dreaming etc. Consciousness also continues when we are in a slumber of deep dreamless sleep. For example we can recollect that we were asleep, after we awaken even if it was a dreamless sleep. Thus consciousness can give us some awareness of a content of a state of consciousness other than that of waking or dreaming consciousness.

But there is also a fourth stage of consciousness where there is no external content in consciousness. This is called turiya or transcendental stage of consciousness. Thus a natural question arises in the heart of a student of consciousness in the Vedantic approach about ontological position of the source of consciousness. How does it become externally attached and gain content such as consciousness of the objects in the external reality. Consciousness is a deeper question than which can be handled in the domain of Physics.

2. The need for the concept of Aatman (Soul)

This necessitates the concept of soul which is called aatman in Vedanta. Even though the aatman or soul is transcendental to external reality (matter), it is at the same time in a relative position with respect to the Supreme Self, which is also transcendental. The upanishads explain that the world of objects such the earth, water, fire, sky etc. constitute the first foot of the Vedantic hymn known as Gayatri. The different branches of Vedas like Rk, Yajuh and Sama constitute the second foot of the Gayatri. The vital life airs such as prana, apana etc. constitute the third foot of Gayatri. And yet soul is not an object like any of these. And hence there is a stage of consciousness when it is not attached to any object in the external reality. Therefore aatman is categorized as the fourth foot of Gayatri. The word turiya means fourth, yadvai chaturtham tat-turiyam (Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad 5.14.3).

 

3. Western Approach

In the western philosophical approach peaks were achieved by greats like Socrates, Plato and Hegel. Socrates spoke about the concept of soul and also gave a theory of knowledge. His main argument was the problem of recognition. He argued from it that prior experience is not always the source of knowledge. Therefore knowledge is something more innate. Knowledge did not depend on prior experiences of all instances of the objects in a class or category.

3.1 Example of the process of Recognition

Socrates gave the example of a slave learning mathematics from a master. The master does not tell everything about the problem’s solution. He encourages the student by giving some hints and engages him in the effort to solve the problem. After some help and prompts, the student recognizes the solution and now understands it. The student is not coming to consciousness of something due merely a prior experience such as seeing the solution in its entirety from a teacher or from memory. Rather the student with some help of a teacher can recognize that which was already there as something innate or latent within the concept as knowledge. The teacher only helps the student to recognize it.

 

3.2 Plato’s thesis of Anamnesis in the Problem of Recognition

According to Plato to recognize anything, we must first cognize it. This is called as the process of anamnesis. Anamnesis is achieved through three processes: (i) Experiencial, (ii) Rational and (3) Recognitional.

Plato argued that once a full recognition of an idea is made, all persons who share this knowledge will come to an agreement about its truth. In this way knowledge thus cognized is not subjective but universal.

The word philosopher means a lover of wisdom. Therefore he said that to know an idea perfectly is to fall in love with it.

 

4. Hegel’s Concept of Notion

Hegel says that this problem is Physics to understand the ontology of consciousness occurs because Physics does not study the concept of Notion. Physics ignores the specific differences (bestimmteiten) and is too much dominated by the category of identity [1].According to Hegel, “Consciousness awakens in the soul. Consciousness posits itself as reason. And subjective reason frees itself for objectivity through its activity.” [2] We will discuss this in the next post.

Reference

[1] Miller, A.V., “Hegel's Philosophy of Nature”, pp. 10, Oxford University Press, 1970.

[2] Heidegger, M., Hegel, Indiana University Press, Indiana USA.

Thanking you,

Bhakti Vijnana Muni, PhD 

 

 

 

[University of Ireland]

Hello to everybody

I am sorry for the delay on this reply but for some reason the emails from this valuable list have not been coming to me for some time

Tollakson and others have been exploring the space that vedanta described so brilliantly so long ago! As far as I can see a lot of this work has disappeared from the internet because there are undoubted military applications. What I am going to say is that he accidentally discovered a reality which is beyond things or space or time and actually conducted experiments on this reality in the past ten years

The central insight was to interrogate at a level of energy which is less than the error term of the sensor. When he did this he found that the attributes of objects like position and spin were now distinct from the objects. This is of course what the no cloning theorem was trying to say. Objects cannot be sent at a speed beyond that of light but their attributes can.

However when we try and use this phenomenon for practical purposes nature gets in the way. John Cramer and Nick Herbert did experiments on this and successfully established that there is cosmic censorship. I hope we can get the dialogue going again

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