The following is what I wrote to my friends in the year 2004. This is about one of the best books I have read so far. This book has influenced my thinking in a huge way.

If I have to write about the same topic again, I will put it in a different way, but the essence of it will remain the same.

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In the year 2002, I happened to read a book: How the mind works, by Steven Pinker. It is a popular science book, somewhat controversial – but extremely brilliant, witty and thought provoking. Especially so to me, because at that time I was completely new to the ideas it presented. They are probaly old, well known and generally accepted concepts in the scientific circles, but I was never good in Sciences anyway, so it had a fresh appeal to me. I read and re-read parts of the book even today, for the sake of pure enjoyment and fun. So, What is so interesting about it?

The book tries to putforth in a very powerful way how present day Science tries to understand ‘Mind’. In other words, it explains away the apparently mysterious phenomenon called ‘Mind’ using two Scientific theories! One is the Computational theory of Mind and the second one is the age old Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection. These two are the answers to the ‘What’ and ‘Why’ concerning Mind.

Philosophers in the West have puzzled over one question for thousands of years. If Mind is non-physical, how come a non-physical ‘thing’ is controlling a physical substance (body) directly? What is the link? You think: ‘I have to go there’. Thinking is abstract. Non-physical. In a split second, your body is moving there. How come? Who did it? How did this abstract, non-physical thought actually move your body? The question has been answered only very recently. After the advent of computers. Our ‘Mind’ or rather Brain is an information processor. It stores information concerning everything as images/symbols and processes them. So, it is the physical brain, with physically stored information that is triggering physical actions. There is nothing abstract in this. This is what is computational theory of mind (probably I have done some great injustice to the theory here, but this is what is my understanding).

Probably the most controversial and mis-understood of all Scientific theories is Darwin’s Natural Selection. But it is the only theory that can show a natural phenomenon by which complex life evolves from simpler forms. There is a lengthy discussion on the theory in the book, which was not enough for me to completely understand it. So I had to check the references and read another book ‘The Blind Watchmaker’ by Richard Dawkins. This is THE BEST book on natural selection written for an absolute lay man. Nobody fails to understand and appreciate the theory after reading it.

To explain how the so called mind and intelligence have evolved in humans and why we need not have any chauvinistic feelings about them, the author uses Natural Selection to explain some of the functions of Mind in the light of this theory.

A new subject has been developed recently (again, controversial) basing on the theory of natural selection called Evolutionary Psychology. It tries to explain the human psyche/behavior in the light of Darwin’s theory. It may look funny some times and is easily prone to wrong interpretations. But this is what is used to explain many of the functions of mind in the book and why those functions are needed and how they fit into our present day life. Among many other things, it explains what are emotions and why they are needed, what is anger, why there is War, why does the spirit of ‘Family’ exist, What is disgust, What is laughter etc etc. The author has made the discussions extremely entertaining with very funny examples and jokes.

Finally the author ponders on the meaning of life and draws some beautiful conclusions. Somewhere in the early chapters of the book, he discusses the question of ‘What is Self?’ and concludes that there is actually nothing called a ‘Self’. There is just a self-replicating organism/matter that can process information. Its information processor (brain) is self-aware because it can process information concering itself. That is it! There is no point in suspecting that there is anything beyond it like a soul. He says that after explaining away all the physical and chemical composition of a droplet of water, is there anything left to explain the ‘wetness’ of the drop? Same with ‘Self’.

I was lost in the cleverness of these arguments. I was confused for a long time. So, if there is nothing beyond this information processing ‘Mind’, why are we concerned about spiritual Sadhana? What about the Jeevatman merging into the Paramatman of our Philosophy? What about Self Realization? Do they become meaningless things after explaining what is Mind? Or, is all religion and Sadhana just reduced to petty things like trying to control the passions of humanity or calming down the emotions?

Then I realized that this intellectual problem is addressed to some extent in the book called ‘Mandrajalam’ by Master E.K. In it, a character called Giri Sarma (i.e, Master DjwhalKhul in Theosophy) goes to the Charvaka Ashram and listens to some excellent arguments from Charvaka concerning the myth of soul. Charvaka argues that just like how red color is emerging from mixing turmeric with lime, by natural phenomenon mind and body are emerging. This can happen entirely naturally, no Soul or Atman is needed. Giri Sarma, after some pondering, finds a solution to the puzzle. He realizes that for such a natural phenomenon to occur, there should be a ‘Karta’ or Doer. And he concludes that that is Atman.

Same solution probably applies here also. Agreed that there is a natural phenomenon that results in complex and intelligent life. Why? For serving what? Science can’t answer this question. Similarly, information means ’something meaningful’. Meaningful to who or what? Brain is information processor to what? Maybe, these are the questions that can show a direction to the confused. But I will be declaring myself an obvious fool if I openly ask anybody these questions.

There are two paths here. One is to accept that because we understand a great deal about mind, there is nothing beyond it. If we are happy and content with it, that is fine. If we are not convinced, we have to now look for ourselves what is beyond Mind. That is nothing but ‘Aatma Vichara’ or ‘Who Am I’ or Spiritual Sadhana or Meditation. People will call me a fool, if I ask these questions, because our present day scientific understanding clearly says that there is nothing beyond Mind that can be investigated by Scientific enquiry. Still I am asking these questions means I am a stupid. Some people also say that this is nothing but a language game. Just because we can form all kinds of combination of words, we have just formulated the sentence ‘Who Am I? But all combinations of words are not meaningful. So also, this question is not meaningful. The question may look intriguing, but it has no real implication in the world. Our mind is not designed to deal with such problems. Its very purpose is different (information processing concerning external objects).

So that iw where we finally come to. This object of the enquiry ‘Who AM I’ is called Atman by Giri Sarma. There is no way to intelluctually convince somebody that Atma or Soul exists. Everybody has to look for it by himself/herself. No other way. In the meantime, if I call it Atma for my satisfaction, it is ok, but the truth is that I actually don’t know about it yet. So it is justified in a way to be called a stupid. This stupidity will go only after realizing it. Till then, I should not be angry for getting called so by others.

There is one more important point I want to emphasize. Ignoring some egotists who call themselves scientists, scientific method is actually a very humble way of acquiring knowledge. Philosophers have suffered for hundreds of years with questions like ‘How do I know anything for certain?’. From that enquiry, an ‘objective method of knowing’ has emerged. That is what we call Science. It has a very limited and narrow scope of what it CAN find out. For Science to know about anything, the object of enquiry should be ‘verifiable’/'falsifiable’. Means, one can make any statement. But, if that statement can not ever be made false by any means, it does not come under the scope of Science. Like, God exists. How can we prove it false? So Science can not deal with it. But if you say, ‘I know of a particular animal that does not burn in fire’, it is verifiable. (People believed that Salamanders do not burn in fire for hundreds of years because Aristotle told them so). We can put a Salamander in fire and see. That comes within the scope of Science.

Also, Science says that nothing is ever absolutely proved to be correct. If you say water boils at 100 degrees Centigrade at 1 atm pressure, it remains true as long as somebody from somewhere gets a different result. The knowledge body of Science grows and alters continuously with new observations, criticisms and verifications. So, anything is ‘true’ under so and so conditions so far. If any new observations come in, it could change. That is the in-built humbleness/truthfulness of Science. So what actually Science says about ‘Self’ or ‘Soul’ is that – it is not in its scope of enquiry. We have to appreciate that.

Similarly, Spiritual enquiry does not invalidate Science. These two belong to two different realms and can be complementary to each other. We can not deny Science just because we are interested in meditation. On the contrary, if rightly studied, Science opens up our minds and fills us with a child like wonder towards everything. It is a religious experience to know that our very existence is an extremely improbable miracle. That our brain solves problems that are beyond any hope of solving by artificial intelligence. It enhances the poetic sense, contrary to the beliefs of an English poet who lamented at Newton’s discovery of prism that ‘The Rainbow has been unweaved’. (Read ‘Unweaving the rainbow’ by Richard Dawkins).

For me personally, reading these books proved beyond any doubt that we live in a very REAL sense in ‘MAYA’.