Sep 2010: Dr Harish Chandra's article in SpiritMag June '08

SpiritMag June '08 Volume II, No. 7-10 IX. The Myth that Material Sciences are Based on Direct Perception – Part I Let us take stock of what we have discussed by now. We devoted the first ten articles on "Introduction to the Inner Sciences" – Vol. I, Nos. 1 through 10. Thereafter, we began to look within us and applied inner sciences to gain an understanding about human beings. We are a composite of body, mind and soul. Our soul is a point-like tiny entity; that is our true identity. It has intrinsic and inherent consciousness. Every conscious being in the universe is a distinct soul, and it must be so, because when X feels pleasure then Y may feel pain. So, X and Y must be two distinctly different souls. The union of soul with a gross body is our 'birth' and their separation is 'death'. While our body is a gross structure made of matter, the soul is non-material. An intermediate domain of Mind connects them. Mind is our subtle body, too. It's made of matter but of smallest sub-atomic particles. In our current nomenclature, the mind is within the brain but is different from the latter. The brain as such is a part of the gross body. In the last four articles, we have been discussing the human mind – probably, the most intriguing thing in the entire universe. We attempted to look within this 'black box' that our mind is. We noticed that there are three functional units, namely: 1. Linkage: This is the first unit that connects to the gross body. It picks up knowledge signals brought in by our five senses – organs for knowledge – for sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. Likewise, in the outward direction, it activates the motor organs (hands, feet, speech, etc.) to 'do' something, called karma – our acts, works, and deeds. 2. Memory: This is our storage device where any incoming knowledge is stored for future use. If the knowledge is not utilized for some length of time then it is likely to fade away (forgetfulness). More a particular knowledge is used, more likely is that it would be preserved. Furthermore, this unit transmits the data in either direction. Besides the incoming knowledge, it stores all that transpires through it, including the decisions we take in the next intellect unit. What we do habitually or in a sub-conscious manner without a careful application of 'Mind' emanates from this unit where every segment of our 'personality' is preserved, such as, the way we put our signatures. 3. Intellect: This is the tiniest (material) particle existing in nature. This is where the incoming knowledge signal is 'displayed' – so to say, it is a 'screen' while the memory unit functions as a projector. It is in closest proximity of the soul. The soul continuously 'watches' it when we are awake or dreaming, and thus, remains connected to the material world. This is our discerning/ discriminatory ability. This is where we conclude that the person in front of me is X and not Y; I should do this and not that; and so many 'decisions' we take every moment. Let us now discuss two prominent methods that lead us to direct cognition (pramana) in our inquiry of a truth: 1. Direct perception (pratyaksa) is based on direct contact between our sense organ and an object without any ambiguity. Suppose my eyes are open and have a normal vision and there is a person some distance away. Now, there is a direct contact between my eyes and the object, the person in this case. But, if it is dark then I will not be able to ascertain who that person is. So, there must be adequate light. Now, if the person is too far away then I will not be able to conclude who the person is: I may end up saying that he is X or Y. Therefore, direct perception is based on certain cooperative parameters besides direct contact between the sense organ and the object so that there is no possibility of any ambiguity. 2. Inference (anumana): Suppose that we are indoors. We see through a window that it is raining and we conclude that there must be clouds up in the sky. In this case, although we are unable to see the clouds yet we are certain about their existence. Existence of clouds is as true as the rain is. Our knowledge about the rain is based on direct perception while that of the existence of clouds is based on inference in the present case. However, the inference is based on a number of events that were observed through 'direct perception' in past when the observer noticed the correlation that whenever it rains there are clouds up in the sky. That is, a number of identical observations based on direct perception in past have led one to conclude by inference. The layperson thinks that direct perception is a superior basis of cognition than inference is. We must now digress slightly to emphasize that our life revolves around inference to a much greater extent than one would think. Life is basically to get away from pain – perceived or expected. We instinctively want to get away from pain and, if possible, we seek pleasure. For this, we make efforts. Most of the times, we are trying to take care of the expected situations that may lead us to pain and those expectations are based on inference. For example, at the end of a working day, we are returning home early evening. We are not hungry at this point of time. But we walk into a grocery store and buy foodstuffs on the way. Then we cook food though we might not be quite hungry yet. We bought grocery and cooked food in advance because we anticipated hunger later in the evening. These acts were performed based on inference that 'we will feel the pinch of hunger later in the evening today as we did so many days in our life, and therefore, let us prepare food in advance.' If we went by direct perception alone then we would return home direct from office. When the pain of hunger strikes us, then we go to the grocery store to buy foodstuffs and then cook food. Obviously, the latter way is not an intelligent way to function. If we closely examine our life then we would find that we function mostly in 'advance mode' in anticipation of so many things that are known to us by inference. There is no need to belittle one method over the other – both (direct perception and inference) are essential ways for us to function. Now in this background, we want to examine our way of knowing material things and non-material things. Even among material things, only gross things are subject to our senses. For example, we cannot see sub-atomic particles such as electrons, protons, etc. Their existence is ascertained by scientists through inference. They see a particular behavior in a spectroscopic diagram and they attribute that behavior to a particular particle. In this context, we are told that Heisenberg's Principle of Uncertainty precludes us to know a particle thoroughly and accurately. If we knew its position well then we wouldn't be able to know its velocity and vice versa. So, there are theoretical limits to what we can know and how accurately over and above the fact that fine particles could be known through inference only because they are not amenable to our sense organs. Next month, we will remark that even the so-called direct perception of gross objects is not quite a direct perception. It is actually the case similar to that of inference. - Dr Harish Chandra B. Tech. (IIT Kanpur) Ph. D. (Princeton, USA) CIS News 1. Google Group: We are pleased to send the February 2008 article of SpiritMag as we transfer our mailing list to this new Google group. 2. Old Articles: Dr Harish Chandra's previous SpiritMag articles may be seen at http://groups.google.com/group/spiritmag?lnk=srg 3. Meditation Sessions for Stress-Free Living in the UK in October: We are pleased to announce that new sessions will begin on 'Science of Yoga: Patanjali Meditation' for stress-free living: a) at Birmingham every Wednesday evening, from Oct 6, Contact 0121 359 7727
b) at Walsall every Tuesday evening, from Oct 19, Contact 0121 357 8957 c) at Coventry every Sunday afternoon, from Oct 10, Contact 0247 666 1116
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