Things like memory(and knowledge), thought patterns, emotional responses and urges, habits etc can all be explained in scientific terms, and really starts to make sense when you look at the evolution of the brain. The brain started out very, very simply and evolved into a reptilian brain, which is toward the back of our skull, and is responsible for things like anger, sex drive, hunger, and all the basic emotional stuff.
The more complex part of the brain is at the front and is where we cognise and rationalise. I like to use the example that if we want to go on a diet, it’s because our complex front brain has reasoned how it will improve our health, but when our diet fails, it’s cause our emotional rear brains hunger was too powerful to contend with.
There is a little unknown area that is consciousness. This thing that says, ‘I like tomato’ ‘I don’t like the colour blue’. The thing that makes me me and you you.
This is why I personally peruse a spiritual path. I know a few Psychiatrists and Psychologist who have told me about the importance spirituality can play in positive mental health. The thing I struggle with, however, is reconciling scientific discoveries with extraordinary claims. It’s a path of uncertainty and often when we don’t know the answers, we can be tempted to fill in the gaps with nonsense.
I like your vibration, so I’m going to share with you a little about science and spirituality, and how they can reconcile each other. I do this because I see that it’s what you really really want - to reconcile your rational side with the side that just knows, without needing to understand how.
You mention two parts of the brain - I’m glad to see you have some understanding about this, because it’s very interesting.
However, the reptilian brain is not responsible for anger or any emotional stuff. You know this already deep down. The R-complex (reptilian brain) is actually more simple than that - just sex and survival. Stuff that lizards do - they don’t get emotional!
We have another part of the brain - mammalian brain / limbic system, which is responsible for emotions. It developed later in our evolution, when we became mammals.
And the neo-cortex, or frontal cortex, is the one that does the thinking - analysis, rational thinking, language.
There is NOT a little known area called the consciousness - not in the brain. The thing that says ‘I like tomato’, ‘I don’t like blue’, is the frontal cortex (it compares, and separates like and don’t like, tomato/potato, blue/red.
For your information - and this is where it all gets REALLY interesting - the R-complex part of our brain has it’s own center of awareness (in other words, it’s own MIND), which is in the gut. Hence, gut-instincts, butterflies in your tummy when nervous, etc.
The mammalian brain has it’s own mind - the heart.
The neo-cortex has it’s own mind - the head.
Our being consists of various minds, perhaps 12 of them altogether. Consciousness is the sum of all them, together.
Our health, and our spiritual vibration, depends on how COHERENT all of these minds are.
If you’re interested to know more about all this you can check my blog.
The point I want to make about all this is:
Spiritual traditions have, for thousands of years, been saying that our essential nature (our essence, our REALITY) is perfect.
Science is beginning to agree. When you look into the emerging sciences, like quantum physics, and especially epigenetics, you see that science without faith is utterly utterly useless.
I don’t mean religious faith. I mean a sense of wonder and awe, and the knowledge that our brain mind (neo-cortex), the one that wants to always UNDERSTAND everything from a rational point of view, can never do that.
Einstein said:
[I]“The rational mind is a faithful servant.
The intuitive mind is a sacred gift.
We have created a society that honors the servant, and has forgotten the gift.”[/I]
[quote=YogiAdam;32787]
There is a little unknown area that is consciousness. This thing that says, ‘I like tomato’ ‘I don’t like the colour blue’. The thing that makes me me and you you.[/quote]
Adam,
What you describe here is mental conscious, or intellect, and not “consciousness.” Contemplate this difference earnestly.
Are you saying that without the mental conscious (or awareness) there is no me and you? Am I not still me, and are you not still you without it? If not, then you very clearly identify your Self with your mind (which is very Western, Euro-centric thinking BTW and can lead to existential crackup), which I believe is part of your dilemma and the inspiration for spiritual pursuit. You give way too much credit to the brain and the senses, which are only an extension of the body’s nervous system. Deep down, it’s what you want to leave behind because it’s interfering with your non-conscious experience of reality: what you are not yet aware of, or perhaps slowly becoming aware of. Notice I didn’t say unconscious?
I could not agree with you more, but I will ask you again, what are you without your mind and senses? Will you no longer exist? Yes you will, because you are not the mind, not the body, not your senses, not your thought, your knowledge or your memory or any kind of science: You, The Self, ARE consciousness.
You might read the Baghavad Gita. It’s a beautiful story with lots a help with these matters. Also, “I Am That,” by Sri Nisargadatta would be good for you. J. Krishnamurti too, of course would blow your mind. “Freedom From The Known” is a good one. Put science and knoweldge aside for a while and open your mind to the beauty of nonsense. Just play, sing, be free, without attempting to know. That’s my unsolicited advice for today.
om shanti,
siva
Oh, I’d like to read the Baghavad Gita. I like exploring. I’d like to leave science alone for a while, but at the same time, I don’t want to go down the avenue of faith and religion. I want to learn truth AND spirituality, but at the same time I don’t want to resort to faith. I think agnosticism is really the only honest philosophical point of view I could hold. If I start to make claims about the soul, or Karma, or afterlives etc, I’m making claims about information I can’t honestly know. It’s a big scary world out there lol
I want to clarify to everybody here that I do not share anybodies view here in totality, but maybe only in part. My views are based on my research.
I think you are using many terms incorrectly and this is why are causing yourself confusion.
We will look at some terms being used:
Science, logic and reason and rationality, mind(memories, thought patterns, emotions)
Science
Science is simply a systematic and methodical way of deriving knowledge where knowledge has to be demonstrated. It is allied with logic and reason, because logic is used to demonstrate scientific conclusions.
Now do not mistake science with the particular epistemology(study and method of knowledge) of empiricism. Empiricism is not the only method of gaining scientific knowledge. We can also gain knowledge through means such as rationalism(purely through logical inference) Such as through thought experiments. This does not require a physical lab to do. Many of Einstein’s predicates of general relativity are theoretical. Another method is through phenomenology such as through participant and non participant observation used in social sciences. Yoga is a phenomenological science.
Also, do not mistake science with the particular ontology(the study of what the world is made of) of materialism. Materialism is not the only ontology there is also critical realism, social construvism, critical idealism and idealism. Much of modern science is materialist, but the current paradigm of science quantum mechanics is not materialist. As the view of quantum mechanics is the world is nothing but a web of information. Information is not a material. Quantum physics tend to be critically realist or idealist(physical reality only exists due to the observer)
So do not automatically assume that science is empiricst and materialist. This is just one philosophy of science. There are others sciences which are rationalist and idealist and they are just as logical and methodical. So you can in fact have a science of spirit/life/consciousness. This is what Vedic science and Yoga is based on.
But one thing is very clear faith is not compatible with science. It is not demonstable and it is not methodical. It is also dangerous. There is no place for faith in the 21st century.
Brain and mind
The brain and mind are not the same thing. The theory that they are the same is known as type type identity theory in philosophy of mind. This theory has been dead for decades because no logical justification could be given for the brain and mind being identical. It is very clear they are two different phenomena. The brain is physical and the mind is phenomenological
A thought takes place and there is neurological activity. An emotion happens and there is bio-chemical changes.
It is very clear these two phenomena are correlated and this is known as the easy problem of consciousness in neurophilosophy. However, how this interaction takes place, what causes the duality of physical(brain) and the phenomenological(mind) and what are the antecendent causes is a huge mystery in neurophilosophy and it cannot be reduced to any material activity, so it is called the hard problem of consciousness.
There is one thing that is very clear though; materialism cannot explain consciousness. All materialist explanations fail.
Vedic science, on the other hand, has a working explanation but which is based primarily on rational and phenomenological scientific methods and an idealist ontology. I will discuss this very shortly in the next post.
On the idea that science has moved far beyond the Darwin model, this is actually not true. Modern science continues to reinforced the Darwin’s model of evolution more and more, all the time. Admittedly Darwin got the genetics wrong, but he lived in an age when he couldn’t have know about genetics, as we only learnt about things like DNA in the 50’s. You will not find really any reputable modern scientist who reject evolution. The only “scientist” I’ve really come across, who do are “Christian scientist” and “Creation scientists”, which are clearly excluded as scientists, due to the fact that they have an agenda which necessitates them to deliberately distort facts. Obviously that’s not how science works. Sorry to disagree, but I had to make this point, as I love science so much
I also love science. The old understanding of the world was based on the classical physical model where we could model all things in the world as particles acting upon each other and study them in separation(simple causality) Likewise, we did the same for the body and studied everything is separation(different organs, dna, cells etc) We came up with the best theory based on our model that different parts in the body evolve out of random genetic mutations and are kept by natural selection. However, we could not explain is how all these separate parts functioned systematically with one another in precise ways, such that even slight divergences, would cause the system to collapse. We also could not explain how now features could be developed and then integrated within the rest of the system and within the wider environment. For example there are species of bumble bees which fart our explosions? Such could not evolve through random trial and error because the proportions are so fine that an error would lead to the bee exploding lol
We also can note that the features that evolve are environment dependent. So for example organisms evolving in dark environments may not evolve eyes.
However, towards the end of the 20th century our understanding of the world has dramatically changed from the classical world to a cybernetic model of the world. In the cybernetic model all physical entities can be modelled as self-organizing and adapting systems where everything within the system does not function independently or in isolation but in relation with everything else at once. A system does not work in terms of any physical dynamics but in terms of dynamics of information being exhanged within the system and within the larger systems they are embedded in.
This understanding has largely been born out of the discovery of quantum mechanics in which the entire universe is modelled as a quantum system and this also been empirically demonstrated. Admitedly, the biological sciences have been rather slow to adopt this model, but now as quantum mechanics becomes more and more consolidated and is able to model maco-objects, all sciences are starting to the cybernetic model. There is a new wave of biologists now which are accepting cybernetic theories of biology and evolution.
There’s an infinite number of things science can’t explain -Unicorns, the Tooth Fairly, God/Gods, astrology, feng shui, aromatherapy, Chi, ghosts, dragons, Jesus, Tom Cruise, spells, elves etc etc etc
As far as I am concerned all those things are bunk until we can explain them. Like you I do not accept faith and this is mainly because of my Hindu roots which tell me to reject everything that is not scientific. However, I will encourage you to look beyond empiricism if you want to know of any scientific realities which are unseen. As somebody who supports science, you will be aware that there is an observable universe and an unobservable universe. The observable universe is the universe we can empirically know, but not everything can be empirically known. There are limits to empirical knowledge. We know for a fact today that there are realities beyond the empirical world which are not physical and the latest theories in physics are postulating as many as 10 dimensions. There are some objects which are not empirical at all such as mind and consciousness.
If you want to be really scientific you also need to study how there can be an empirical reality at all and this is where you need Vedic science. There is an empirical reality when there are three things present: 1) observer 2) object and 3) instrument of observation. The empirical reality that you see as we know from the latest research in physics is a fundamentally an information field(object) and from the latest in neurobiology we know your mind receive data from this information field and organizes this information into coherent and sensible whole which you call empirical reality. Now at the level of the information level because there is no separability everything is fundamentally quantumly entangled. This is why changes taking place anywhere are going to cause the entire quantum system to resolve. So whether that be how our your room is arranged(feng shui), the position of planets(astrology). These changes are going to reflect in the entire quantum system.
Prana/chi/ki is nothing more than quantum forces. These quantum forces can be channeled using particular techniques(such as asana and pranayama in yoga) to create certain effects.
There is a scientific explanation for everything within Vedic science. However, to accept Vedic science, you are going to have to accept a radically different ontology.
[QUOTE=Surya Deva;32804]There is a scientific explanation for everything within Vedic science. However, to accept Vedic science.[/QUOTE]
Nooooooo This not science. This is no different from “Christian science” or “creationist science”. It’s science, with an agenda. Science doesn’t have an agenda. That’s the point. Genuine science approaches everything with skepticism, and limit everything to what can be tested, and either falsified or excepted. You can’t throw your own spiritual or emotional agenda onto science, and call it science.
This is exactly what I was talking about when I said that a lot of us don’t like the unknown and become tempted to fill in the gaps with nonsense (or non-science) I hope you understand my point, cause it means all the difference between genuine science, and nut job science.
That’s the point. Genuine science approaches everything with skepticism, and limit everything to what can be tested, and either falsified or excepted
Well exactly so does Vedic science. It is limited to everything that can be tested. It is based on the pramana method which accepts 1) empiricism and 2) rationalism and 3) phenomenology. You can test everything within Vedic science.
As I discussed before science is not partial to any epistemology or to any ontology.
Christian science or creationist science is obviously bogus because there is no scientific method in Christianity and its claims cannot be tested.
If you want a scientific method that can go beyond the seen to the unseen you need Vedic science which uses primarily rational and phenomenological methods. Then you will learn about how prana/chi works, how matter comes into being from its potential state, how mind interacts with the world and how your consciousness works. Otherwise you will never know these mysteries.
In the end theoretical knowledge is useless without application though, the proof is in the pudding. You need to practice the Yogic practices sincerely and properly and you will learn all about your pranic systems in your body, the kundalini energy, the various siddhis and finally samadhi. But if you are not prepared to make the effort to do the practice you will never know. It is either your gain or your loss. It ceases being skepticism when one stops inquiring.
[QUOTE=The Scales;32829]take your science to the end and you will still be left with questions. When you get to the end of your science use the yoga to get the answers. [/QUOTE]
Surely you can see my issue with this??.. All we could possibly know for certain about our universe must be answered with scientific means. Science don’t have all the answers, but that doesn’t mean we should fill in the gaps.
The statement ‘when you get to the end of your science, use yoga’ is a very, very weak philosophical statement, because the answer is subject to ones own personal preferences… you could just as easily have said 'when you get to the end of science, use the bible, or the Quran, or the book of morman, or an astrological star chart, or pull an answer out of a hat. ALL THOSE ANSWERS HAVE THE SAME VALIDITY AS EACH OTHER.
The problem is, humans don’t like to admit they don’t know something, They want all the answers, even if it means settling for superstition. We humans, would rather except a conspiracy theory, than no theory at all.
The difference is Yogiadam that Yoga produces consistent and replicable results which what makes it scientific. In modern science we have studied Yoga and we have verified all of its predicates. I think you should look into these studies.
If you think about it Yoga should produce replicable results because it is a controlled experiment. You have to control for variables that can affect your consciousness(posture, breathing, thoughts) as soon as you have stabalized them you commence the experiment by just letting your consciousness go inwards by focussing on only one object(another control) then we simply document what happenes. As the publication above shows what happens is remarkably consistent. Many consciousness researchers have produced similar maps of the stages one passes through and they are more or less identical with ancient Yogic maps.
Yoga is basically a science where the human itself becomes the experiment.
I encourage you to try out the experiment yourself. However, as I said you are going to have to commit to the training.
There is no greater proof than direct experience.
[QUOTE=Surya Deva;32865]I encourage you to try out the experiment yourself. However, as I said you are going to have to commit to the training.
There is no greater proof than direct experience.[/QUOTE]
There’s a difference between studying yoga scientifically, and making claims that yoga fills in all the unknown stuff science can’t answer. ALL religions, excluding none, claim that they are a science and answer all the questions. They distort facts to fit their belief system, which by definition, is no longer science.
I know there is no use in me going on about this, cause anyone who claims to have the answers, also have or the justification for the claims. All religions have phenomenal immune systems.
All this aside, I do practice Yoga everyday, I only just finished my practice an hour a go, and I feel amazing!
However, by studying Yoga scientifically we have been able to verify all those claims that Yoga makes about higher levels of consciousness, extrasensory abilities, ultimate states of pure bliss and love, subtle energy systems in our body, and the profound changes Yoga makes to your being:
Lesh (1970c) reported that certain experiences occur during the practice of meditation that seem to be either unexplainable or indicative of a higher potential of perception, bordering on the extrasensory or parapsychological. As we have already pointed out, many of the siddhis or supernormal powers, and vibhutis, or perfections, of Hindu Buddhist practice are paranormal.
Altered Body Image and Ego Boundaries
Kornfield (1979, 1983) reported that during insight meditation some people experienced an altered body image. Goleman (1978-79) stated that by continually focusing on the object of meditation, one sometimes makes a total break with normal consciousness. The mind sinks into the object and remains fixed in it, and the awareness of one’s body vanishes. Woolfolk et al. (1976) noted that certain subjects experienced a complete loss of body feeling. Deikman (1966a) reported that meditators sometimes experienced alterations in ego boundaries, all in the direction of fluidity and breakdown of the usual subject-object differentiation.
Energy and Excitement
Kornfield (1979) reported that spontaneous body movements, often described as unstressing and releasing, along with intense emotions and mood swings, are common during insight meditation retreats. Shimano and Douglas (1975) described a remarkable build-up of energy during zazen that often became apparent after several days of a meditation retreat. Others have reported the increased energy released by meditation [see Kornfield (1979), Krippner and Maliszewski (1978), Piggins and Morgan (1977-78), Davidson (1976), and Maupin (1965)].
Bliss
West (1980b, 1980c) said his subjects used these terms to describe their meditative state: feelings of quiet, calmness, and peace; pleasant feelings; warm contentedness; relaxation beyond thought; and a feeling of being suspended in deep warmth. Kornfield (1979) said that rapture and bliss states are common at insight meditation retreats and are usually related to increased concentration and tranquility. Goleman (1978-79) said that meditation brings about rapturous feelings that cause goose flesh, tremor in the limbs, the sensation of levitation, and other attributes of rapture. He said that sublime happiness sometimes suffused the meditator’s body, accompanied by an unprecedented never-ending bliss, which motivates the meditator to tell others of this extraordinary experience. Farrow (1977) said that during the deepest phases of meditation, subjects report that thinking settles down to a state of pure awareness or unbounded bliss, accompanied by prolonged periods of almost no breathing.
Hence from the above we can show that none of those things are beliefs, these are replicable experiences that people undergo when doing Yoga. In other words they are real phenomena. So the scales is right Yoga is filling in what modern science cannot. That is consciousness.
You can only see what your senses and instruments are sensitive enough to see. I cannot see radio waves, ultraviolet light, infrared radiation, hear ultrasonic and infrasonic, I cannot see atoms, quarks and quantum forces, black hole does this mean none of those things exist? There is a limit to what we can see as human beings and there a limit to what we can know even with the best instruments we can construct. Yoga allows us to go beyond those limits by reversing the process of perception taking us backwards so we can see everything that makes up the world and it is all done within consciousness itself.
Like I said do the practice of Yoga(asana, pranayama, meditation) and you will confirm for youself everything Yoga says. You will out find about your subtle energy body and the pranic systems, you will out about the great potentials that reside within you and the kundalini at the base of your spine, you will find out about the various powers you have(siddhis) you will find out the truth of your soul, karma and your past lives and the other planes of existence.
But if you do not do this you will never find out. If all of this is true you are the one missing out. Like I keep saying. It is your loss or your gain. If you truly are a skeptic you need to inquire and find out for yourself. I did the same and started out a skeptic and an atheist and I have discoverred a lot through Yoga now through my practice. A lot of my knowledge is based on solid research not an exercise in faith. I am quite allergic to faith actually
If it is empirical proof you want you want there is no other way to find out about supersensory realities other than by practicing Yoga. As it is the only science in the world that works at refining your perception so you can see beyond and that will actualise your highest potentials.
Look, I’m not really fussed what you believe at the end of the day. If it makes you happy, then that’s all that matters. I’m not here to dictate how one should think. I do practice yoga everyday, and it’s great! I know we can all agree on that. As far as the metaphysical claims are concerned, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
It is not really a case of making me happy. If it is true it is true. Atomic energy barely makes anybody happy, but we cant deny the fact that it exists.
It is your claim that these are beliefs that is being challenged here. The studies I cited above shows these are not beliefs but actual realities.
I notice time and again how materialists accuse others of “beliefs” and pretend they have no beliefs themselves. Well, sorry but when you go around telling people that the brain is the cause of their thought and chemicals the cause of their emotions, you are indeed speaking from beliefs. Your belief system is materialism. You really are no different to any other religious believer. So you really should introspect a bit before you criticise others belief systems. You are not immune from criticism yourself.
We can only know about the material world with any certainty. The metaphysical world, can’t be known. I’m an agnostic and make no ultimate truth claims, so philosophically I don’t have any ultimate beliefs . I know you like the idea that there exists a science that can observe the metaphysical world, and that you have evidence, and that’s fine. If I was religious, I’d probably develop ‘scientific evidence’, to back it up as well. I’m not a ‘right fighter’, so I don’t care what you believe and why you believe it. I’m not interested in convincing you otherwise. If you want to call it science, then that’s your right as a human. We will disagree, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
[QUOTE=YogiAdam;32863]Surely you can see my issue with this??.. All we could possibly know for certain about our universe must be answered with scientific means. Science don’t have all the answers, but that doesn’t mean we should fill in the gaps.
The statement ‘when you get to the end of your science, use yoga’ is a very, very weak philosophical statement, because the answer is subject to ones own personal preferences… you could just as easily have said 'when you get to the end of science, use the bible, or the Quran, or the book of morman, or an astrological star chart, or pull an answer out of a hat. ALL THOSE ANSWERS HAVE THE SAME VALIDITY AS EACH OTHER.
The problem is, humans don’t like to admit they don’t know something, They want all the answers, even if it means settling for superstition. We humans, would rather except a conspiracy theory, than no theory at all.[/QUOTE]
There is a vast underlying subtle reality that is by nature beyond the reach of modern science, mathematics, chemistry, and physics.
It is beyond lower rational mind and the perception of the the gross unrefined senses.
This underlying subtle reality can be reached through the yoga.
Not by asana alone but by using each branch in sequence.
Asana / The Good seat. Pranayam/Regulation of energy. Pratyahar/ Withdrawl. dharana / concentration. Dhyana / Meditation. Samadhi / Absorption.
These are the tools the yogi uses to explore himself, the subtle realms, the nature of the phenominal universe and so on.
Until you’ve done so and gained the experience from doing it you will continue to grip to your viewpoint.
It is useless to argue with you.
Go see for yourself.
Step out with a sense of adventure, curiosity. Read scripture to build faith if you need to. Practice all the limbs. Don’t cling to your views. Your faith in the practice will be strengthened by the carrots along the way. Take it all the way to the end.
If you practice in this way YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED!!!
It is not myself who calls it a science. We have always called yoga a science in India. It is called paravidya(higher science) We called it a science for a very good reason because it produces consistent, objective and replicable results. This is by definition science. If it did not produce consistent, objective and replicable results it would not be a science. This is why I am challenging your statement this is a belief or a religion, especially in light of the fact that I have provided you with the scientific evidence.
We can know not just about the material world with certainty but also the mental world. Why do you factor the mental world out as if it is insigificant? It is far from insigificant it is the most intimate and important world we know. The problem with your thinking is that you have decided to exclude a whole dimension of existence and just look at the material world in isolation as if it exists separately from our mind(big assumption) This is not a scientific attitude at all. The fact of the matter is the world of mind can be studied and investigated just as rigorously as the material world can be, and in India a lot of our research has been in this area. We have proven that it is possible to have certain knowledge of the mind and we have created the science of Yoga in order to do that.
Don’t go around telling us our sciences is not a science and your sciences are sciences. You will not make friends with us by discrediting our thousands of years of research into mind sciences. You are currently using our science and you know yourself the benefits it gives and all of that whether you like it or not is built on Hindu metaphysics. It works because our metaphysics is right.
This not science. This is no different from “Christian science” or “creationist science”. It’s science, with an agenda. Science doesn’t have an agenda. That’s the point. Genuine science approaches everything with skepticism, and limit everything to what can be tested, and either falsified or excepted. You can’t throw your own spiritual or emotional agenda onto science, and call it science.