CHAPTER 2
There is an archetypal dilemma or dualism about approaching realism for expression and communication. There is an insistence that Reality must always be scientifically explained and understood and for that to happen, the expression and communication can never be anything else but mathematical. Mathematics is the singular definitive language of pure science realism as it alone seems to have the singular, objective, measurable and two-way verifiable vocabulary and grammar! However, as we have earlier stated, at some point of higher realism, even pure science delegates some critical elements to the domain of philosophy for expression and communication.
For example, there is this very famous slice of realism, which is worded as – ‘Do Not Be, You Shall Be’. This sure is a huge element of Reality but it cannot ever be amenable to mathematical expression or mathematical linguistics. It has to and remains in the domain of philosophy. Naturally, philosophy has to ride on the vehicle of vocabulary of languages, resulting in vitiation of the possibility of mathematical precision and irrevocability.
When we talk about the realism of consciousness, this dualism stands before us in its utmost and optimum vulnerability. Consciousness, as human knowledge understands it today, probably cannot be expressed and communicated through a mathematical model. There have been claims of having a mathematical interpretation of consciousness but still not acceptable by scientists. The primary reason being the critical assertion that Cognitive capacities or realism of brain states are not truly Computational and therefore not replicable and verifiable. It is believed that specificity (exactness) of consciousness is cognitive, emergent and vectoral, therefore not amenable for computational singularity. This very dualism stems out of the till date restricted knowledge of humanity about human brain mechanisms and processes. There are great ideas about mechanisms and processes of human brain functioning and also fascinating attempts to structure a mathematical equation to that but, as usual, the fine-line between mathematics and philosophy is blurred.
Therefore, as things stand today, Reality is observer-dependent and observer being consciousness, cannot divest itself of dualism as consciousness itself is a dualistic property or function, because of the way consciousness has been designed and evolved, as an emergent, collaborative and integrated function of body-brain-milieu causality. This of course is the primary and archetypal dualism about arriving at Reality, which we always have to keep in mind, when we later talk about Human and Life-Living Reality and hypothesis of Impossibility of Sanity.
However, it needs to be accepted that talking about consciousness and understanding it is a hugely difficult task because of its abstract nature and predisposition to philosophical expression. Even for scientists, consciousness till very recent times had been a rather taboo subject as it was considered a sure case of discredit and disrepute to the scientists handling it. It is said that there are over 20,000 research enterprises on consciousness and still, definitiveness is missing.
There is this hugely dualistic cyclicality between quantum science and its philosophical dependence on idea of consciousness as it is believed, consciousness itself is probabilistic because human brain behaves like quantum particles in dualistic probabilities of wave as well as particle. Then, the natural question that arises here is if brain is probabilistic and superpositioned in nature, what is the factor or element within human brain or outside, which can be accepted as the ‘Observance’ or observer that makes a Reality collapse for final decision-making of brain states? There is no answer yet on how brain states decide on a particular decision-making, when there are two or more probabilities competing for being Real and True. So, is there another element of observer-consciousness, within the human consciousness, which is being labeled as the ‘Observer’? Ancient Oriental spiritualism claims to have the answer, we shall talk later!
That is probably why when Reality is attempted to be explained with consciousness as its prime platform, it does not suit mathematically but philosophically to quantum science. Dualism explained by another dualism! This creates confusion and conflict. Usually, science corroborates a philosophy but philosophy becoming the basis of scientific hypothesis as well as a theory cannot possibly be considered as objective and singular.
Therefore, when we talk about consciousness and attempt to understand it as a common person, with little take away from pure science mathematical discourse, we need to simplify things and use such language and communication methodology that we all can relate to and internalize easily. This we are going to attempt to do next, with all possible optimality of sincerity.
With all humility at my behest, I wish to state here that the very purpose of my writings is presenting in my own language what I have internalized in my life, through the long process of learning and unlearning, catalyzed by the energy of skepticism. It is a realism in my part that usually, the scientists or experts of specific fields and domains explain their knowledge and wisdom in such words and language, which is rather academic and highly focused on specific idea, replete with subject-specific terminologies. This makes it difficult for common men and women to understand it as average person requires a generalized explanation and holistically related narration, in language and terminology that he or she is familiar with. For example, if a scientist explains a knowledge, which is fourth stage of a research finding, an average person must always be aware of rest of the three stages of knowledge. The scientist usually does not start from scratch and focuses only on last part of a finding.
For an average person, it is tough to spare that much time to get into all details and then relate this new knowledge to his or her earlier knowledge base. The very purpose of my writings is that. I do not say I know and I have discovered. I have internalized things that are there, with persevered attention and then present them in my eBooks so that average reader does have the ease to internalize what I am saying, trying my level best to speak the way we all usually talk and explain. I humbly admit that I am still learning and evolving as a confabulator. No doubt, there are limitations to how much knowledge can be simplified and made expressible for easy apprehension. The complex idea like consciousness defies easy explanations as it involves some ideas and notions that are very modern and seldom talked about in our daily lives. I am hopeful that in partnership with your magnanimity and compassion, we shall have ease in understanding the difficult idea of Consciousness.
The beginning and end of everything is Self. What someone can and does have within the probable and practically feasible domain of perception of Self alone can be subject matter of foolproof verifiability. Otherwise, things begin to slip into the domain of philosophy and literary imagination. Therefore, the primary aspect, which humanity as a whole and an individual in particular should ideally focus about is the very mechanisms and processes that create, shape and stand ‘I’ or Self. Thankfully, when scientists work on the macrocosmic aspects of Reality, it is only an automatic facility that wisdom and knowledge about understanding of ‘Self’ is bettered and facilitated.
It is not that understanding of ‘I’ or Self has been a modern or new phenomenon. Since over 5000 years or more, many arrived humans have realized and even documented so many aspects about existence, self and ‘I’. No doubt, modern science has only put them into great perspective for improved understanding. There have also been corrections and facilitations by modern science. The quantum debate of dualism and non-dualism has always been there with humanity, thousands of years back. Now that we have ease of scientific explanation and secular-objective literature, we can understand it better.
The primary thing about Self or ‘I’ is dualism of its situation or position as ‘Karta’, subject, observer or protagonist. The very complex and yet unresolved idea of Consciousness plays out and installs this situation and position of Dualism very intelligently and categorically. Modern science also somehow establishes that self, ‘I’ or consciousness is not automatically and innately the ‘Karta’, observer or protagonist. It is rather only a ‘Medium’. Consciousness is a medium and it itself is an emergent and evolving entity of the body-mind medium. Therefore, in a sense, consciousness is a medium within a medium! This primary and most critical idea of ‘Consciousness As Medium Within Medium’ needs to be understood with perfect clarity.
There is a very famous metaphor used by both spiritualism and science for explanation of Realism. It is about a honeybee sucking nectar from a flower. A honeybee comes flying, sits over a flower, sucks its nectar and then moves away. Traditionally, or in populist perception and linguistic sensitivity, there seems no Dualism in this act as it is believed that from the perspective of what is being observed, the honeybee is the Subject, ‘Karta’, observer or protagonist and the bee sucking nectar is clear ‘act’. Of course, the flower is the Object as it is doing nothing. The honeybee is the doer of action and therefore singularly qualifies for being the Subject or Protagonist.
The dualism however creeps in when we see and accept the other perspective that is equally true but not ‘observable’ to general sight mechanism. This other perspective says; honeybee and flower are both only Objects as the supposed ‘Action’ is being done on both equally. The action is not honeybee sucking nectar as it is only the Effect of a Cause that is actually energizing the Action. Naturally, it is this ‘Causality’, which is true Subject as it is this Cause, which has created the ‘act’ of this effect playing out between honeybee and flower. It is the energy of causality that created the ‘media’ of a ‘giver’ and another as ‘taker’ but both are just expressing or playing out the ‘script’, directed by the energy of causality.
This Causality, which is the Subject, is the innate symbiotic relationship between honeybee and the flower. The real and true Subject is the innately wired ‘Connect’ of the honeybee to seek nectar from the flower. Two elements are in a relationship, which is an effect of the core causality of survival-symbiosis between the two. Therefore, both the elements of honeybee and flowers are only Objects and both are equally reacting to and effecting something, the cause of which is scripted in the ‘Relationship’ or ‘Context’ between the two. This intangible Causality is the Subject and true Protagonist.
This of course is the microcosmic interpretation of the larger macrocosmic Realism. The macrocosmic Realism says that consciousness is not in flower or honeybee, even while both may be living entities. In other words, consciousness that exists in honeybee or flower is only a small and dualistic medium of the larger and non-local and non-dualistic consciousness, which exists and stays elsewhere or everywhere. The real and true non-local and non-dualistic Consciousness is the Causality of ‘Context and Relationship’ that is just having a medium of body-mind of honeybee and flower. It is the Causality that is the Real and True Subject and Protagonist as it is this Causality, which goes on to create the ‘Matter’ in the form of different ‘Media’ for its unraveling and final expression. This final expression is usually accepted as Reality by all of us as it is what our five senses can perceive and react to. However, this sure is not Reality.
In simple words, it is the Causality that is true, real, core and critical element of Observance but is not automatically observable to we humans through our sensory mechanism and therefore does not qualify as Reality for us. However, this causality, even while being the true Observer, requires the Media for its expression or for playing out its effects. Consciousness of living beings is the media that causality as observance uses for playing out reality, which our sensory mechanism and processes can and does easily see, feel and accept. It is because this consciousness is also a media of our body-mind tangibility, enabling consciousness to perceive reality, thus extending it a misplaced sense of being the observer but it is not as consciousness is just media.
In Oriental spiritual traditions, they called this playing out of the true and real Subject as ‘Maaya’ (the web of causality) and the material medium of body-mind effecting it, as ‘Leela’ (the effect-driven action and behavior) . In Yoga philosophy, there is categorical and definitive reference to the idea of True Subject or Protagonist and also, there is an insistence to rise above and detach from all Causalities to attain the highest position that is ‘reserved’ for humanity.
The idea is that every empowered human has to first detach its own ‘Consciousness’ from the Causalities of body and mind as it is the primary ‘Liberation’ of human life. However, in Yoga philosophy it is insisted that even Human Consciousness is a Media and therefore, this too has to be dumped and an empowered human must also rise above and detach from the Causalities of Consciousness too to ultimately be in Union (Yoga) with cosmic consciousness. This cosmic consciousness is probably what quantum scientists and super string theory proponents call as non-local and non-dualistic consciousness. In microcosmic religious terms, this probably is referred to as God and the causalities are labeled as Design of Divinity.
It is rather interesting that the Buddhist philosophy, which emerged around the same era Yoga philosophy was consolidating, says similar things. Buddha is believed to have insisted on ‘Observing’ the ‘Causalities’ that are causing ‘effects’ within body-mind structures as well as outside in the milieus. Buddha’s famous saying – ‘There Is Suffering And It Has A Cause’, probably pertains to Buddha’s personal experiences with sufferings. He probably understood as how human consciousness and cognition is just a poor and microcosmic Media of infinite causalities in the internal as well as external milieus. He probably reiterated that by observing the causalities, human consciousness could probably rise above and detach from the situation of being a ‘Media’ and thus liberate itself from sufferings. This is something about which we earlier talked detailing the trajectory of knowledge evolution.
So, where do we reach? What we come to accept as finality of acceptance? It seems, we can safely hypothesize, from emergent and assimilative holism of what available wisdom of contemporary as well as ancient philosophical knowledge accepts, that there is a Reality, which is not automatically and innately available for unraveling to a localized consciousness of body-mind-milieu mechanisms and processes. True, right and holistic understanding of Reality is not available to a Media and as human consciousness is just a secondary Media of the primary and macrocosmic Media of cosmic causalities, it does not qualify to be the ‘Observer’. Reality is non-local and non-dualistic and therefore, it is ‘Observable’ only to an entity that too is non-local and non-dualistic. Human consciousness however can never be non-local and non-dualistic and therefore, Reality is never amenable and decipherable for human being. This hypothesis is also what majority of scientists are willing to accept.
There is another way to understand this above proposition. There is a famous saying about Media, which goes like – ‘Medium Is The Message’. What does this mean and what way it is related to what we are discussing right now?
The adage, ‘Medium is Message’ deeply relates to ancient classical philosophy as well as modern quantum science of dualism of observer. The medium is supposed to be neutral and objective, definitely oblivious and detached to whatever it is communicating or expressing. However, it never happens! Why? Simply because in case of humans as body-mind medium, there is a complex media, working out its own causalities and therefore can probably never ever be objective, detached and oblivious to its communication and expressions.
Even in case of non-living media, as we have popularly known as and for which this ‘medium is message’ quote referred to, there are inbuilt, innate and embedded complexities of causalities. Therefore, finally, it is the medium, which itself becomes the message or majorly shapes it. Means, the media, which is supposed to be carriers of ‘content of intent’ of the milieu with objectivity and with whatever is assigned to it, instead starts to load its own intents and contents that essentially has the ‘agenda’ emanating from its own structural and functional mechanisms and processes.
Though humans are best examples of this tumultuous case of ‘Medium Is Message’, with every human becoming a localized and dualistic consciousness, communicating and installing its own personal ‘agenda’, it is widely applicable on all media that humanity creates and thrives on. When in contemporary age, we are experimenting incessantly with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and foraying into high-end humanoid robots, there is always this lurking fear that the ‘Medium’ we are creating and infusing with complexities of perceptional elements, may ultimately stand to develop its own animalistic cognition and organic consciousness to override the installed ‘purpose’ and load its own message and randomly emergent agenda. There are already primary evidences of such eventualities.
This however is not our domain in this eBook. What we are talking about and are attempting to understand is the idea of Consciousness, Cognition and Causality. Our purpose is to see and realize that our body-mind Media uploads its own ‘Message’ and ‘Agenda’ on our Consciousness, through which we as humans perceive Reality. Our own consciousness is also a media and it also uploads its own message and agenda on our meta-cognition of Reality. In simple words, what we as humans see, perceive and express as Reality is and probably shall always be ‘Crude’, colored and doctored Reality. It is because Reality is sensed by us through multiple ‘Filters’ and never as objective, singular and elemental. Therefore, this ‘Medium Is Message’ realism also points out to the situation that Reality cannot be singular and non-dualistic as it is always a summation of different media-engendered parts where ‘messages’ or expression of reality changes or plays out differently.
It is interesting how humanity across Earth, who were separated by huge geographical divides around 2000 years back, could perceive this singular reality about ‘Media’ and ‘Message’ dualism, even though their language differed. The ancient Christian world wisdom and classical Yoga traditions spoke of the same Reality. The Biblical saying of ‘Do Not Be, You Shall Be’ and Yogic philosophy insistence on making distinction between Reality and cognition (pratiti) of Reality have singular reference to the fact that Medium itself has the innate and embedded tendencies to upload its own structural and functional agenda over the ‘message’ it has been chosen to communicate and express. Therefore, people must be watchful to observe distinction between what the media actually has been assigned to communicate and what actually the final message that comes out of it is. This seems to clearly hint that it is well within potential of humanity to understand the dualism that Reality orchestrates and plays out. However, history also clearly proves that only a handful of humans have the empowered consciousness and evolved cognition to see, realize and then act upon this fact about Reality for sanity and lasting wellness.
Therefore, we seem to have good reasons to accept that Reality, whatever it may be, may never be singular and above and all, it may not be something, which average human mind potentials could ever decipher, unravel and establish. Simply because, Reality is not a fixed idea as its pre-state (nothing) is potential of probabilities. Reality is created and installed as a ‘Causality’ comes to stand as the ‘observer’, ending the superpositioned probabilities and thus ‘collapses’ a Reality. Naturally, there are infinite ‘Causalities’ because nothingness has infinite ‘Probabilities’. As there are infinite causalities, there are infinite ‘Contexts’ of observance. Naturally, different observance points and probabilities shall always create infinite cognitions of Realities. Causalities play up and ‘Effect’ different Realities through differentiated media and all different media innately shall affect causalities by uploading their own messages and agenda.
In simple words – There may not and never be a singular definitive and irrevocable Reality; at least for human potentials of perception. And, this shall ensure that human world and human life-living always remains mired in 3Cs – Confusion, Chaos and Conflict, which in turn shall incessantly keep the quantum of insanity sufficiently high.
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