We saw the outline
of the rational concept of God in the blogs 'GOD RECONSIDERED", as
explained in the book by Swami Vijnananand. For majority of the people who would
like to keep faith, belief in something, the God concept serves the purpose
aptly. The basic God concepts from all cultures do not change much and on
rational ground even agnostics can nurture the God concept in a rational
manner.
We may not know
'why' of the universe by using human intelligence. While science research
should continue this endeavor, it has so far largely agreed by majority of
scientists that the universe will end up in the stage of no motion stage i.e. entropy.
While universe can take care of the purpose; we, the common persons may try to
understand the purpose of our own life and try to align it with the laws of
nature so that we can be happy. The blogs related to 'PURPOSE' discussed these
aspects in details with the outline of the views expressed in the book “PURPOSE
OF THE UNIVERSE”.
Based on the
books written by Swami Vijnananand (namely, GOD RECONSIDERED and PURPOSE OF THE
UNIVERSE), we saw relevance of his findings in the present context by review
and cross checking a few available references.
Not bothering about
the concepts concerning God and Universe; even if we come to the limited agenda
of our prevailing individual life, we reach to the unique aspiration common to
all of us. Whatever country, religion, age, sex or social, financial background
we may belong; our priority aspiration is to seek happiness. Be and continue to
be happy all along. If we carefully consider the aspect of happiness and search
for its essential ingredients, we see that to be happy three things are
essential.
First is money.
You cannot get means of happiness without money. That is well accepted fact.
But we experience that money alone can't make you happy. Money can get you
comforts but to enjoy those comforts your body must be healthy. You can buy lot
of costly sweets if you have money but can't consume it if your digestive
system does not permit or if you have diabetes. So the second thing necessary
for the happiness is health. But there is one more thing essential for the
happiness and that is your behavior, nature as it is called (nature = the
fundamental qualities of a person or thing; identity or essential character).
If your nature is good you may be happy even with lesser money and some health
limitations but if it is bad you can' be happy even with good wealth and
health. So while all the three things are necessary, the weightage comes more
on our nature.
Now, who decides
our nature? Answer in simple language is MIND. Unless you have good mind you
can't have good nature. How do you make your mind good? Basically how do you
understand your mind whether it is good or bad? Is there any scientific definition
or description of mind available? These are the obvious questions arise if one
wants to know more about the MIND.
When it comes to
the definition of mind, there is no all accepted agreement as the experts in
various disciplines have various views. The important link between mind and
body is considered to be the BRAIN. Scientists and philosophers have different
considerations on the subject of mind, brain and their relationship.
Mind-brain
relationship:
Mind-brain relationship has always been a point of debate between
neuroscientists and eastern philosophers. Neuroscience believe that in the
brain-mind interaction, causality flows in one direction: from brain to mind,
which means neural activity underlies every thought and sensation. Eastern
philosophers have a different view they feel one can transcend mind. There
could also be another possibility of downward interaction, from mind to brain.
We require a balanced view as purely material or mental aspect cannot
objectively throw light on mind-brain communication. Again, there could be
something which will be beyond brain and mind, which is the fundamental focus
of spiritualism. Instead of one-way
studies, in modern times, there have been a couple of researches and
experiments for the comprehensive view of mind-brain relationship, the
neuron-anatomy of compassion. Meditation is one such method controlling mind
and brain, having a calming effect on both.
What is the
relationship between the mind and the brain? Neuroscientists have known since
the nineteenth century that brain structures and mental functions are
intimately connected, but the exact relationship between mind and brain always
remained a mystery. In the Santiago theory, the relationship between mind and
brain is simple and clear. Descartes' characterization of mind as the
"thinking thing” is finally abandoned. Mind is not a thing but a process -
the process of cognition, which is identified with the process of life. The
brain is a specific structure through which this process operates. The
relationship between mind and brain, therefore, is one between process and
structure.
Just to
understand the current situation of the science w.r.t. mind views of some experts
in diverse fields are discussed.
1
Series
entitled 'Science and Spirituality' in Nature India, (Published online 21 May
2012)
Dr. Pawan K. Dhar (Jan 2012), Professor of
Biotechnology at Symbiosis International University, Pune and Hon. Director of
the Centre of Systems and Synthetic Biology, University of Kerala
Dr.
Pawan Dhar says: Life energy is like an operating system that runs the
show but remains unknown. The subject of life energy has largely remained
unexplored. As of now, the scientific community swims at the cellular and
molecular surface, studying waves here and there and calling them path-breaking
discoveries. Mind is what we think of as a buffer between subtle life
energies and the gross body. It is like a 'metabolic pathway' that stays
between the 'genotype of life energy' and the 'phenotype of the gross body'. It
would be nice to scientifically document the contents of the mind to see its
dimensions. We see the body, imagine the mind and believe in the life giving
substance. This needs to change. Could there be more gross layers and more
subtle layers than this naive abstraction? People use terms like consciousness,
sub-consciousness, super-consciousness, emotions and awareness to describe
life. Though one can play with these terms, in reality we only talk about
individual perceptions.
To get
a clear understanding of life giving elements, their attributes, their
interactions, their structural and functional correlates, the subtle-to-gross
pathways, we need to generate additional evidence in the space of existence and
extend the intellectual front end of science.
People
in the spiritual domain use mind as a lab, intent as approach and intensity as
the key. People in the scientific world use a reductionist approach to split a
system into constituent elements and weave the information into an integrated
model.
In the
first approach, the technology exists within the body. In the second,
technology exists outside the body.
To find
a meeting point of science and spirituality, it would be prudent to find
commonalities between both and propose a logical and evidence-based approach
that probe deeper into the spiritual space.
2 WHAT IS THE MIND?
An article published in the
International Journal on World Peace, winter 2007 (http://www.tomkando.com/pdf/WhatIsTheMind.pdf)
Author:
Tom Kando is Professor of Sociology at California State University,
Sacramento.
The modern world has come to a near- unanimous conception of the human
mind as basically the same thing as the brain. This is a monumental and stupid
mistake.
The guilt for this error belongs largely to the so-called social
sciences, especially to Psychology. These folks have managed to convince the
modern world of their stupid belief. As a result, by now, the popular culture,
the media and the public all subscribe to this modern-day mythology.
The error made by most psychologists is called reification (from the
Latin word rei = “thing”): This is when
you make a thing out of a concept. In other words; when someone makes something
real and tangible out of something; which is not so. For example, take the idea
of “evil.” When we personify this idea into, say, the “devil,” we reify it. Or
take the concept of “society.” When we say that “society is racist,” we reify
it, because in reality only people can be racist. There is no such thing as
“society,” over and beyond a large collection of individuals.
Psychologists also commit the error of reification when they equate the
mind with the brain. They give the mind a substantive material existence. They
describe it as “a hunk of meat that…contains about 30 billion cells, called
neurons.” But of course that is not at all what the mind is.
3 DANA
Foundation shares the articles giving information on brain. Excerpts from the
following article (issue October 2010)
The
Unhealthy Ego: What Can Neuroscience Tell Us About Our ‘Self’? By Brenda Patoine
Where’s
the Ego in Neuroscience?
If ego is loosely
defined in psychiatric circles, a neural definition is virtually nonexistent.
“Ego doesn’t exist in the brain,” says Kagan. What does exist, he explains, is
a brain circuit that controls the intrusiveness of feelings of self-doubt and
anxiety, which can modulate self-confidence. But, Kagan says, “We are nowhere
near naming the brain circuit that might mediate the feeling of ‘God, I feel
great; I can conquer the world.’ I
believe it’s possible to do, but no one knows that chemistry or that anatomy.”
Dana Alliance
member Joseph LeDoux, Ph.D., a neurobiologist at New York University, has
argued that psychological constructs such as ego are not incompatible with
modern neuroscience; scientists just need to come up with better ways of
thinking about the self and its relation to the brain. “For many people, the
brain and the self are quite different,” he writes in The Synaptic Self, where
he made the opposite case. For LeDoux it’s a truism that our personality—who we
are in totality—is represented in the brain as a complex pattern of synaptic
connectivity, because synapses underlie everything the brain does. "We are
our synapses," he says.
4 John
Templeton Foundation Darwin 200: Evolution and the Ethical Brain (excerpts)
Michael
Gazzaniga - Professor of Psychology and Director of the Sage Center of the
Study of the Mind at the University of California at Santa Barbara;
Steven Quartz Associate
Professor of Philosophy, at Cal Tech University. He is also the Director of the Brain Mind and
Science PhD program
Michael
Gazzaniga: Understanding the moment of personal conscious experience, we do not have
a clue as to what that is. Everybody in this room by virtue of the fact you are
here and experiencing what we are experiencing is in some sense a dualist. You are looking at all the sub-elements here
and you are throwing it into a conscious experience and flipping immediately
into that conscious state, what is that?
What is that process? What is
that? We are so far from understanding
something like that and we are not a lot closer to understanding how you see a
triangle either by the way. These things are so complex that when you hear the
successes in brain science, we are all excited about what we can bring in. Five
years ago, I do not think there were more than five experiments on the social
processes of the human. Now, through brain imaging techniques, you cannot keep
up with it, almost. It is so fast and so wonderful. Having said that though you
do not want to oversell it. We are just getting our hands on the ladder here
and it is exciting, but, I think, still limited.
Steven Quartz: Yes, to speak to that, we still do not know
how a neuron works. Sometimes we say a
neuron is simple or whatever, but, in fact, a neuron is an extraordinary
complicated cell. We do not understand
how it integrates information. We do not
understand really how it represents information or what kind of code it
utilizes and we certainly do not understand how you put a billion together to
generate complex behavior and thought.
So, one of the real challenges is the gap between imaging provides an
opportunity to look non-invasively on the human brain and it provides sort of
an insight, but we still, the gap between understanding brain activation at the
level of imaging and how individual neurons in unison give rise to that, what
are the computations involved in that, what are the ways in which information
is represented, how does it compute that information, what are the algorithms,
what are the processes that give rise to that? It is still completely unknown.
5. Ref.
Manashakti publication “ Super Procreation”, author – G.S.Kelkar. Page 57,
Conception and
Mind: ‘What exactly happens at the moment of conception?’ To find out the
answer to this question is rather difficult. However with certain assumptions
and logic, science and mathematics we can answer the question. Granted that the
moment of conception may not be known; but at least the moment of death is easy
to see. Death is the polar opposite of birth, so if we get to know what happens
at the time of death; it can be logically deducted that exactly opposite must
be happening at the time of conception.
We describe
death as follows: “The soul left the body”, “The flame of life was
extinguished”, “The body lost the vital force", etc. etc. Briefly, soul, flame,
vital force etc. is separated from the body. In scientific terms we can call
soul, flame etc. as “energy”, while the body is “matter”.
At the time of
death, energy and matter in the human being is separated from each other.
Therefore it can be said that at the moment of conception, which is exact
opposite of the moment of death, energy and matter must be uniting with each
other. So whose energy is this? The answer is: it is that of the entity which
wishes to take birth. This energy has been termed as the “organizing mind” (by
S. V.) This concept is as follows:
Matter in this
case consists of ovum of the male and sperm of the male. The sperm introduces
to the ovum, the energy of the one who wishes to take birth. Hence in
mathematical terms,
Death =
separation of matter (body) and energy (vital force).
And
Birth = union
of matter (body) and energy (vital force).
The book
further explains the scientific proof of this logical argument.
My comments
While the
materialists agree that they yet do not know completely the work of the brain,
even the working of neuron, they still insist that mind is nothing but the
expression of the brain. Is this stand logical, rational or scientific? ‘You
should accept what I say even on the basis unknown to me!’ Any argument of such
a nature tends more towards dogmatism than science.
A child has
different ‘mind’ other than his father and mother. The conception, i.e. the
first existence of the child is union of one cell each from the father and
mother. When these two cells unite and the child is conceived it must be the
‘mind’ of the child which must be entering the conceived cell. So the conceived cell becomes the cell with
the mind of a child. When this happens then only the birth process makes
progress. (Each intercourse does not yield conception). Obviously it must be
the mind’s desire which helps conception and enter the world as new person
through the process of birth. This proves that it is the mind that enters the
body. And in the later process the brain gets developed. So logically mind precedes
body and brain from the initial moment in human life.
Mind
rationally explained by Swami Vijnananand
The simple
subject ‘mind’ has been messed up by dogmatic views from all kinds of experts. There is no clear and all agreed definition of
mind so far. This is the status after the 1st decade of the 21st century is
over,
Foreseeing this
problem, way back in 1961, swami Vijnananand (S. V.) studied the mind very
rationally. He has provided information regarding the definition, properties,
and laws of mind which can conform on the tenets of science and philosophy. We
shall see these in a few blogs to follow.
Vijay R. Joshi.
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