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SOME
RECENT TRENDS IN CONSCIOUSNESS STUDIES:
A VIEW FROM THE VEDANTA Thanigai
Malai Thirumalai Bhaktivedanta Institute RC/8, Raghunathpur, Kolkata -700 059, |
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The primary
goal of science is to remain objective and exclude subjective aspects as much
as possible. The twentieth century has seen tremendous advances in various
fields of modern science. It is found in the recent developments of some
fields of modern science that there cannot be any meaningful experimentation
without a conscious observer. It appears that the subject who was kicked out
of the front door has made his way through the back door! Developments
in some fields of science such as Quantum Physics, Artificial Intelligence,
Psychology, and Neuroscience naturally led to the study of consciousness.
Philosophers also have pondered over the problem of consciousness. Rigorous
study in these disciplines lead to the interdisciplinary study of
Consciousness. Development of
digital computers paved way for developing machines simulating various human behavior. In Artificial Intelligence (AI) there is a
tendency to consider that information processing in the human brain causes
human intelligent behavior, and that such information processing can be
simulated in a computer and hence produce intelligent behavior artificially.
John Searle considered that any machine with same causal powers as brain
could have intentionality: accordingly silicon brains in principle could have
consciousness. He also considered that consciousness is an ordinary
biological phenomenon like digestion. According to
Daniel Dennett mind is the brain, and he considered that every mental
phenomenon can be accounted using physical principles. In neuroscience there
is a tendency to find neural correlates of consciousness. There are neural
correlates for every sense perception. How multiple sense perception
in the natural world gives raise to unitary conscious experience is discussed
as ‘binding problem’ and it is indeed a challenging task. Human
intelligence has the exclusive characteristic of intentionality,
understanding and other subjective qualities. Thomas Nagel questioned the
legitimacy of objective methodology in handling the subjective nature of
consciousness. According to Colin McGinn
consciousness forever will be inaccessible to objective explanation. David
Chalmers proposed to expand physical concepts to explain the ‘hard problem’
of subjective nature of conscious experience. The evidences from the newly
emerging field of mind-body medicine shows that mental states could affect
bodily, physical states. Science and
philosophy seem to have exhausted all means to explain conscious experience,
and are looking for some new, non-reductive concepts. Indian philosophy has
rich scriptural texts on the nature of consciousness and has great potential
to address the problem of consciousness. According to Vedanta, body, including the brain, belongs to the physical realm, and the consciousness to belong to non-physical realm. The consciousness is considered intrinsic characteristic of the self and it pervades the entire body. The subjective experience is non-mechanical and the possibility of consciousness in machines denied. The Vedantic concept of consciousness proposes a worldview in which both objective and subjective polarities can be naturally accommodated and paves way for bringing science and spirituality closer. |