I believe in dualism, not exactly western form of dualism but the dualism from Samkhya Philosophy. This is my foundation for thinking and knowing the truth behind mind and body and Adwaita philosophy of Vedanta gives the rest explanation of it and the creation of this universe.
The actual difference of Samkhya philosophy from western form of dualism is its fundamental distinction between Nature (Prakriti) and Self (Puruṣa) in contrast to the mind and body in the western philosophy. This philosophy looks much more rational to any other philosophy yet this gives me an initial thinking but not complete as this doesn’t explain about the formation of the universe. Searching for all these made me meet with swami Vivekananda’s thought for Vedanta’s Adwaita thought which makes me belief that everything in this world is one, but gives me no formal reason and courage to write it here but yes samkhya says each of us have individual Purusha which I believe is single and omnipresent as reasoned by Vivekananda that two infinity cannot exist in same domain. The great electrical engineer, Nikola Tesla, after listening to Vivekananda's speech on Sankhya Philosophy, was much interested in its cosmogony and its rational theories of the Kalpas (cycles), Prana and Akasha. His notion based on the Vedanta led him to think that matter is a manifestation of energy. After attending a lecture on Vedanta by Vivekananda, Tesla also concluded that modern science can look for the solution of cosmological problems in Sankhya philosophy, and he could prove that mass can be reduced to potential energy mathematically.
Like throwing a stone in a pond gives a reactionary wave towards the stone; this wave is different from the stone so the minds signals are of higher degree in terms of its manifestation. If we throw a stone in a lake and a reactionary wave comes towards the stone; this wave is not like the stone at all, it is a wave. I believe that the mind is no different from this nature except its of higher degree, it needs much more studies to understand. In my opinion this Self is the only absolute every other thing like intelligence, wisdom, imagination are compound which needs the fusion of Nature with Self.
I believe that the mind is the product of the Self and the the nature, this is the reason why the mind behavior changes with the change of the environment or the damage of the brain. The Self is unmanifested absolute higher than the reach of the nature; rather I must say natural language. So sage Kapila was unable to name the attribute of the Self and he termed it without attribute. Mind is just like an object and this Self is like the light, we can see the object but not the light itself without which the mind has no intelligence, will, imagination or thought. The common absolute attribute of all these attribute may give the attribute of the Self. If we can list all the attribute of mind then the highest common factor (HCF) of all these attributes may give the attribute of the Self. Else we need to find the least common divisor (LCD) of whatever attribute we can have for mind. If HCF is equals to LCD then we can say that the Self has only one attribute else it has many. There is no question of the Self having no attribute as anything without attribute is of no use and becomes a closed system.
I always doubted whether a red color makes the same image in me, what it makes with some other person, it may be he calls green a red, I have this doubt for all qualia. If this is the case then our mind are different from each other, and I am sure mind is unmanifested but if it’s not the case we get more probability to understand it.
I raise a question, can P explain P without help of Q, where P, Q are system, I doubt this, even if P explains P then P>=P but P cannot be greater than P and hence P=P. But now I will prove P becomes less than P and unable to explain later because of two reasons, there must be some entropy in P if it consists of matter. Which makes P lesser and hence unable to explain its own nature. We can say this as foolish idea as so many brains can make another P larger than P. But Daniel Dennett’s 1st property of qualia which is ineffable will limit the communication between two Ps, and they will always have a gap inside even they work as one if a brain can express the qualia to other brain, it will not have to express the same and will explain the p on its own which is not possible we have shown earlier.
In support of this an argument for dualism dubbed the “argument from reason” and credit C.S. Lewis who called it “The Cardinal difficulty of naturalism” says that if, as thoroughgoing naturalism entails, all of our thoughts are the effect of a physical cause, then we have no reason for assuming that they are also the consequent of a reasonable ground. Knowledge, however, is apprehended by reasoning from ground to consequent. Therefore, if naturalism were true, there would be no way of knowing it—or anything else not the direct result of a physical cause—and we could not even suppose it, except by a fluke.
Some more arguments for dualism:
If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true ... and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. —J. B. S. Haldane, Possible Worlds, page 209
In his essay Is Theology Poetry; Lewis himself summarizes the argument in a similar fashion when he writes:
If minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on biochemistry, and biochemistry (in the long run) on the meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any more significance than the sound of the wind in the trees. —C. S. Lewis, the Weight of Glory, page 139
Only our physical similarity can’t say that each of us have same mind, finding that must be our first goal one of the answer to the body mind interaction could be the Self. As the ball of pool gets momentum from a moving ball so an action in this materialistic world needs materialistic momentum, this may be a big question for dualism. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy mentions two possible replies to this objection. The first reply says that it might be possible for mind to influence the distribution of energy, without altering its quantity. Another possibility is to deny that the human body is a closed system. Since the principle of conservation of energy applies only to closed systems, the objection becomes irrelevant. Catholic Encyclopedia mentions the same replies. Another reply to this objection is that there is a possibility that the interaction may involve dark energy, dark matter or some other currently undefined scientific process, however in this case dualism is replaced with physicalism, or the interaction point is left for study at a later time when these physical processes are understood. Apart from this another reply was made by the non-deterministic interpretation of quantum mechanics, where event at the microscopic level can be concluded to be indeterminate, where degree of determinism increases with the increase of the scale of system. I do not accept the argument against dualism from the biological development perspective because the imagination, though have never increased but changed with time with arrangement of the brain cells, moreover as I mentioned earlier all these are attribute of the Self and the Nature. The argument from simplicity that poses a query to dualism why anyone should find it necessary to believe in the existence of two, when it seems possible and would make for a simpler thesis to test against scientific evidence, to explain the same events and properties in terms of one. It is a heuristic principle in science and philosophy not to assume the existence of more entities than is necessary for clear explanation and prediction. This argument was criticized by Peter Glassen in a debate with J. J. C. Smart in the pages of Philosophy in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Glassen argued that, because it is not a physical entity, Occam's Razor cannot consistently be appealed to by a physicalist or materialist as a justification of mental states or events, such as the belief that dualism is false. Mental events are subjective by nature whereas physical are not. Viz. how the music of AR Rehman sounds like. Experiments like Mary’s room and zombie argument are supporting the dualism.
The existence of special sciences not reducible to physical science gives the reason to think the existence of the mental.
Is there any way to know this Self (Purusha)?
Dr Michio Kaku, the co-founder of string field theory, in his article” Hyperspace and a Theory of Everything” gave nice explanations how a higher dimensional being can have very good idea and explanations of our 3D world’s unexplained questions like we can enter into the circle without cutting its parameter and we can become the omnipresent for a flat world.
References:
1. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Complete_Works_of_Swami_Vivekananda/
2. http://www.iep.utm.edu/sankhya/
3. Samkhyakarika Of Isvara KRSNA
4. http://en.wikipedia.org
5. http://mkaku.org/home/?page_id=258
The actual difference of Samkhya philosophy from western form of dualism is its fundamental distinction between Nature (Prakriti) and Self (Puruṣa) in contrast to the mind and body in the western philosophy. This philosophy looks much more rational to any other philosophy yet this gives me an initial thinking but not complete as this doesn’t explain about the formation of the universe. Searching for all these made me meet with swami Vivekananda’s thought for Vedanta’s Adwaita thought which makes me belief that everything in this world is one, but gives me no formal reason and courage to write it here but yes samkhya says each of us have individual Purusha which I believe is single and omnipresent as reasoned by Vivekananda that two infinity cannot exist in same domain. The great electrical engineer, Nikola Tesla, after listening to Vivekananda's speech on Sankhya Philosophy, was much interested in its cosmogony and its rational theories of the Kalpas (cycles), Prana and Akasha. His notion based on the Vedanta led him to think that matter is a manifestation of energy. After attending a lecture on Vedanta by Vivekananda, Tesla also concluded that modern science can look for the solution of cosmological problems in Sankhya philosophy, and he could prove that mass can be reduced to potential energy mathematically.
Like throwing a stone in a pond gives a reactionary wave towards the stone; this wave is different from the stone so the minds signals are of higher degree in terms of its manifestation. If we throw a stone in a lake and a reactionary wave comes towards the stone; this wave is not like the stone at all, it is a wave. I believe that the mind is no different from this nature except its of higher degree, it needs much more studies to understand. In my opinion this Self is the only absolute every other thing like intelligence, wisdom, imagination are compound which needs the fusion of Nature with Self.
I believe that the mind is the product of the Self and the the nature, this is the reason why the mind behavior changes with the change of the environment or the damage of the brain. The Self is unmanifested absolute higher than the reach of the nature; rather I must say natural language. So sage Kapila was unable to name the attribute of the Self and he termed it without attribute. Mind is just like an object and this Self is like the light, we can see the object but not the light itself without which the mind has no intelligence, will, imagination or thought. The common absolute attribute of all these attribute may give the attribute of the Self. If we can list all the attribute of mind then the highest common factor (HCF) of all these attributes may give the attribute of the Self. Else we need to find the least common divisor (LCD) of whatever attribute we can have for mind. If HCF is equals to LCD then we can say that the Self has only one attribute else it has many. There is no question of the Self having no attribute as anything without attribute is of no use and becomes a closed system.
I always doubted whether a red color makes the same image in me, what it makes with some other person, it may be he calls green a red, I have this doubt for all qualia. If this is the case then our mind are different from each other, and I am sure mind is unmanifested but if it’s not the case we get more probability to understand it.
I raise a question, can P explain P without help of Q, where P, Q are system, I doubt this, even if P explains P then P>=P but P cannot be greater than P and hence P=P. But now I will prove P becomes less than P and unable to explain later because of two reasons, there must be some entropy in P if it consists of matter. Which makes P lesser and hence unable to explain its own nature. We can say this as foolish idea as so many brains can make another P larger than P. But Daniel Dennett’s 1st property of qualia which is ineffable will limit the communication between two Ps, and they will always have a gap inside even they work as one if a brain can express the qualia to other brain, it will not have to express the same and will explain the p on its own which is not possible we have shown earlier.
In support of this an argument for dualism dubbed the “argument from reason” and credit C.S. Lewis who called it “The Cardinal difficulty of naturalism” says that if, as thoroughgoing naturalism entails, all of our thoughts are the effect of a physical cause, then we have no reason for assuming that they are also the consequent of a reasonable ground. Knowledge, however, is apprehended by reasoning from ground to consequent. Therefore, if naturalism were true, there would be no way of knowing it—or anything else not the direct result of a physical cause—and we could not even suppose it, except by a fluke.
Some more arguments for dualism:
If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true ... and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. —J. B. S. Haldane, Possible Worlds, page 209
In his essay Is Theology Poetry; Lewis himself summarizes the argument in a similar fashion when he writes:
If minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on biochemistry, and biochemistry (in the long run) on the meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any more significance than the sound of the wind in the trees. —C. S. Lewis, the Weight of Glory, page 139
Only our physical similarity can’t say that each of us have same mind, finding that must be our first goal one of the answer to the body mind interaction could be the Self. As the ball of pool gets momentum from a moving ball so an action in this materialistic world needs materialistic momentum, this may be a big question for dualism. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy mentions two possible replies to this objection. The first reply says that it might be possible for mind to influence the distribution of energy, without altering its quantity. Another possibility is to deny that the human body is a closed system. Since the principle of conservation of energy applies only to closed systems, the objection becomes irrelevant. Catholic Encyclopedia mentions the same replies. Another reply to this objection is that there is a possibility that the interaction may involve dark energy, dark matter or some other currently undefined scientific process, however in this case dualism is replaced with physicalism, or the interaction point is left for study at a later time when these physical processes are understood. Apart from this another reply was made by the non-deterministic interpretation of quantum mechanics, where event at the microscopic level can be concluded to be indeterminate, where degree of determinism increases with the increase of the scale of system. I do not accept the argument against dualism from the biological development perspective because the imagination, though have never increased but changed with time with arrangement of the brain cells, moreover as I mentioned earlier all these are attribute of the Self and the Nature. The argument from simplicity that poses a query to dualism why anyone should find it necessary to believe in the existence of two, when it seems possible and would make for a simpler thesis to test against scientific evidence, to explain the same events and properties in terms of one. It is a heuristic principle in science and philosophy not to assume the existence of more entities than is necessary for clear explanation and prediction. This argument was criticized by Peter Glassen in a debate with J. J. C. Smart in the pages of Philosophy in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Glassen argued that, because it is not a physical entity, Occam's Razor cannot consistently be appealed to by a physicalist or materialist as a justification of mental states or events, such as the belief that dualism is false. Mental events are subjective by nature whereas physical are not. Viz. how the music of AR Rehman sounds like. Experiments like Mary’s room and zombie argument are supporting the dualism.
The existence of special sciences not reducible to physical science gives the reason to think the existence of the mental.
Is there any way to know this Self (Purusha)?
Dr Michio Kaku, the co-founder of string field theory, in his article” Hyperspace and a Theory of Everything” gave nice explanations how a higher dimensional being can have very good idea and explanations of our 3D world’s unexplained questions like we can enter into the circle without cutting its parameter and we can become the omnipresent for a flat world.
References:
1. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Complete_Works_of_Swami_Vivekananda/
2. http://www.iep.utm.edu/sankhya/
3. Samkhyakarika Of Isvara KRSNA
4. http://en.wikipedia.org
5. http://mkaku.org/home/?page_id=258
