Who is 'I' ?
Here we explore the question of the existence of the individual soul or आत्मा .
In Sanatana dharma, the आत्मा is the considered as the witness or the experiencer, who experiences, happiness, sorrow, fear, love, hatred and is endowed with the power to desire or इच्छा शक्ति.
This आत्मा is a fundamental irreducible unit, distinct from the physical body it resides in.
Srila Jiva Goswami in Tattva Sandarbha (Anuccheda 53.2) describes the आत्मा as follows.
आत्मा शुद्धो जीवः न जजान न जातः जन्माभावदेव
तदनन्तरस्तितालक्षणो विकारः अपि नास्ति | नैधते न वर्धते;
वृद्ध्यभावदेव विपरिणामः अपि निरस्तः | हि यस्मात्
व्यभिचारिणाम् आगमापायिनां बालयुवादिदेहानां
देवमनुश्यद्यकारदेहानां वा सवनवित तत्तत्काल्दृष्टा
नह्यवस्थावतां दृष्टा तदवस्थो भवतीद्त्यर्थः | निर्वस्थः
कः असवात्मा ? अत आह, उपलब्धिमात्रं ज्ञानैकरूपम् |
कथम्भूतम् ? सर्वत्र देहे, शाश्वत् सर्वदा अनुवर्तमानमिति |
The आत्मा is the living entity in it's pure state, has no birth, has been existing without any interval with no change in itself. it does not grow or become aged, nor does it transform itself. Among things which get destroyed, which come and go like the bodies of childhood, youth, like the bodies of men and demigods, the आत्मा is the observer for all these times. It is not the case that this stable आत्मा becomes that state, this is the meaning. Without these (changing) states, who is this आत्मा ? To this it is replied, he is pure consciousness (ज्ञानैकरूपम्) endowed with perception and intelligence (उपलब्धिमात्रं). How does he exist ? He is exists always, everywhere in the body.
But it is current among cognitive scientists and other atheistic schools of thought to disregard the existence of the soul.
(Daniel Dennet is considered an expert in consciosness study, was so disappointed with the shallowness of his understanding, see this video for yourself
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjbWr3ODbAo
)
In a similar way the body also makes us believe that this body is us.
Actually none of these arguments dispute the existence of the आत्मा . If the brain is creating hallucinations, then the question comes to whom is the hallucinations being created. This proposition itself implies the existence of an experiencer/witness for whom this illusion is being created. Sanatan dharma also agrees to the fact of imperfect senses/इन्द्रिय, the role of the mind or मनस् to select necessary information and the role of the intellect/बुद्धि to process information. The आत्मा is the decision maker, who experiences what the senses send and uses the intellect to take decisions. And the hallucination of the self as considering oneself as the body etc is also agreed to by the Vedantins. One of the effects of the spiritual practices is to free oneself of these hallucinations.
The self may be hallucinating, but still the existence of the 'self' can not be denied.
No matter what current cognitive scientists propose, none can deny the experience each one of us have. In fact all of science is based on these experiences that we have had.
Here is what Srimad Madhvacharya has to say in this regard.
भ्रमतवमभ्रमतवं च सर्वं वेद्यं हि साक्षिणा |
स चेत् साक्षी क्वचिद् दृष्टः कथं निर्णय ईयते ||
तस्मात्सर्वप्रसिद्धस्य व्य्वहारसय सिद्धये |
साक्षी निर्दोष एवैकः सदाः अङ्गिकार्य एव नः ||
शुद्धः साक्षी यदा सिद्धिः .... |
स्वप्रामाण्यम् सदा साक्षी पश्यत्येव सुनिश्च्हयात् ||
'Whether a given experience is true or false is to be
ascertained by the Saksi. If this Saksi (the truth-determining
principle) should become tainted even in a single instance, there
can be no certitude at all in epistemology. In order, therefore, so
stabilise and guarantee the validity of all the accepted values of
life and its transactions, lay and scientific, carried on their
foundations, the Saksi will have to be accepted (whether one likes
it or not) as the one flawless principle and criterion of validity by
all of us. Once the flawlessness of Saksi is established, there is no
fear of any regress in accepting the Saksi as the validating
principle; for it is capable of grasping its own validity and the
validity of its judgments without appealing to any further authority
outside itself.'
All the complex information gathering and processing activities happening in the brain is due to various components in the brain, each performing partial information processing and information gathering. But the experience that we have is not the partial experience but the complete experience. For example, consider the case of observing a Tree. We experience seeing the whole tree, so even though each component of the brain is doing partial information processing. For example, thousands of receptors in the eye receive only partial information of the image and process only part of it. Hence each component has only partial information and no knowledge of what the other components do.
It can not be argued that the brain does not have components but works as in irreducible whole, because the brain can be broken down into cells, molecules, atoms etc. Even if it is argued that in the future there could be something created, which is an irreducible unit that does all this information processing, we still fail to explain how this information processing translates to our experience or the 'I' ness.
(To be continued....)
In Sanatana dharma, the आत्मा is the considered as the witness or the experiencer, who experiences, happiness, sorrow, fear, love, hatred and is endowed with the power to desire or इच्छा शक्ति.
This आत्मा is a fundamental irreducible unit, distinct from the physical body it resides in.
Srila Jiva Goswami in Tattva Sandarbha (Anuccheda 53.2) describes the आत्मा as follows.
आत्मा शुद्धो जीवः न जजान न जातः जन्माभावदेव
तदनन्तरस्तितालक्षणो विकारः अपि नास्ति | नैधते न वर्धते;
वृद्ध्यभावदेव विपरिणामः अपि निरस्तः | हि यस्मात्
व्यभिचारिणाम् आगमापायिनां बालयुवादिदेहानां
देवमनुश्यद्यकारदेहानां वा सवनवित तत्तत्काल्दृष्टा
नह्यवस्थावतां दृष्टा तदवस्थो भवतीद्त्यर्थः | निर्वस्थः
कः असवात्मा ? अत आह, उपलब्धिमात्रं ज्ञानैकरूपम् |
कथम्भूतम् ? सर्वत्र देहे, शाश्वत् सर्वदा अनुवर्तमानमिति |
The आत्मा is the living entity in it's pure state, has no birth, has been existing without any interval with no change in itself. it does not grow or become aged, nor does it transform itself. Among things which get destroyed, which come and go like the bodies of childhood, youth, like the bodies of men and demigods, the आत्मा is the observer for all these times. It is not the case that this stable आत्मा becomes that state, this is the meaning. Without these (changing) states, who is this आत्मा ? To this it is replied, he is pure consciousness (ज्ञानैकरूपम्) endowed with perception and intelligence (उपलब्धिमात्रं). How does he exist ? He is exists always, everywhere in the body.
But it is current among cognitive scientists and other atheistic schools of thought to disregard the existence of the soul.
- The 'I'ness illusion. They dismiss everybody's experience of the self or the "I" ness as an illusion the brain creates. Some details on such arguments can be found in this short video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyu7v7nWzfo
- The 'I' ness arises because of complex brain activity.
- The 'I' is the body
The 'I'ness illusion
The argument put forward by the first proposition is that, the brain constructs 'our reality', based on both signals coming from outside the world and certain biases the brain has picked up, hence what we see is just what the brain is showing us. Several optical illusions are examples of this.(Daniel Dennet is considered an expert in consciosness study, was so disappointed with the shallowness of his understanding, see this video for yourself
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjbWr3ODbAo
)
In a similar way the body also makes us believe that this body is us.
Actually none of these arguments dispute the existence of the आत्मा . If the brain is creating hallucinations, then the question comes to whom is the hallucinations being created. This proposition itself implies the existence of an experiencer/witness for whom this illusion is being created. Sanatan dharma also agrees to the fact of imperfect senses/इन्द्रिय, the role of the mind or मनस् to select necessary information and the role of the intellect/बुद्धि to process information. The आत्मा is the decision maker, who experiences what the senses send and uses the intellect to take decisions. And the hallucination of the self as considering oneself as the body etc is also agreed to by the Vedantins. One of the effects of the spiritual practices is to free oneself of these hallucinations.
The self may be hallucinating, but still the existence of the 'self' can not be denied.
No matter what current cognitive scientists propose, none can deny the experience each one of us have. In fact all of science is based on these experiences that we have had.
Here is what Srimad Madhvacharya has to say in this regard.
भ्रमतवमभ्रमतवं च सर्वं वेद्यं हि साक्षिणा |
स चेत् साक्षी क्वचिद् दृष्टः कथं निर्णय ईयते ||
तस्मात्सर्वप्रसिद्धस्य व्य्वहारसय सिद्धये |
साक्षी निर्दोष एवैकः सदाः अङ्गिकार्य एव नः ||
शुद्धः साक्षी यदा सिद्धिः .... |
स्वप्रामाण्यम् सदा साक्षी पश्यत्येव सुनिश्च्हयात् ||
ascertained by the Saksi. If this Saksi (the truth-determining
principle) should become tainted even in a single instance, there
can be no certitude at all in epistemology. In order, therefore, so
stabilise and guarantee the validity of all the accepted values of
life and its transactions, lay and scientific, carried on their
foundations, the Saksi will have to be accepted (whether one likes
it or not) as the one flawless principle and criterion of validity by
all of us. Once the flawlessness of Saksi is established, there is no
fear of any regress in accepting the Saksi as the validating
principle; for it is capable of grasping its own validity and the
validity of its judgments without appealing to any further authority
outside itself.'
The 'I' ness experience arises 'somehow' because of complex brain activity.
Actually there is no argument necessary against this proposition because, there is no explanation of how this consciousness arises from brain activity. But we put up arguments, why this could not be possible by the brain or any other complex information processing system.All the complex information gathering and processing activities happening in the brain is due to various components in the brain, each performing partial information processing and information gathering. But the experience that we have is not the partial experience but the complete experience. For example, consider the case of observing a Tree. We experience seeing the whole tree, so even though each component of the brain is doing partial information processing. For example, thousands of receptors in the eye receive only partial information of the image and process only part of it. Hence each component has only partial information and no knowledge of what the other components do.
It can not be argued that the brain does not have components but works as in irreducible whole, because the brain can be broken down into cells, molecules, atoms etc. Even if it is argued that in the future there could be something created, which is an irreducible unit that does all this information processing, we still fail to explain how this information processing translates to our experience or the 'I' ness.
The 'I' is the body
Over the years, with changing likes and dislikes, with changing levels of intellect, we can not deny that is we who has been the witness to all these changes....
(To be continued....)
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