The "I" in "Me"

For a long time I have struggled with one question - "Who is the "I" in "Me"? My brain, thru' the exclusion principle, had reasoned that it itself, that is my brain itself, must be the "I", since it is the store house of my thoughts and my thoughts is what makes me who I am. I was comfortable with that idea, since it seemed rational, however, I was not comfortable for long. If that is all that is there to be known, if that is the ultimate truth, I should have been at peace with myself. As I had reasoned, knowing the ultimate truth will bring me peace, it will make me calm, it will quench my thirst, my brain will quieten down. Well, I was nowhere close and still ain't.

Hindu philosophy offers another explanation. It says, "I" is the atman. Atman is not any part of the body, not even brain.  It further says, it is not possible to know the "I" thru brain. An analogy to explain it more vividly - one does not need any light to see the sun, sun is seen in its own light, similarly, one does not need brain to see "I" the atman. Seeing atman is like self awakening. Seeing in this case, ofcourse,  is not the seeing thru' eye, it is to know, to experience, to awaken, to become self aware, to realize that "I" is different from the body and "I" is the only constant, hence it is the only truth.

Question is how to get to this "I" in "Me". Hindu philosophy says, you get there thru' guru. Guru, it says, is the only way.

The key takeaway for me has been that brain is not the way to get to "I". All this while I have been thinking that brain/intellect could be a way to get to the "I" in "Me". It was a revelation to me, when I heard what the Upanishad's say, that this is an independent path.

Good and Evil

Over past few years, I have distanced myself from every small mundane thing that gets attributed to God! While, I do not know if He exists or not, but I am not ready to believe that He manages things at a micro level. I have started looking for reasons, other than divine intervention, as an explanation to the mundane things that happen around me. Question that I am not able to answer is how small is small or how mundane is mundane for God, if He exists!

Earlier, it was thought that only Earth existed which of course meant that Earth was the only thing that God had to worry about and hence his intervention or hand was seen in everything, from mass disease, to war, to a freak accident on the road. However, as Earth lost its importance in the vastness of universe, it no longer is the only thing for the God to worry about hence may have fallen down a few notches in His priority list. What if tomorrow we discover that this universe is not the only universe that there is? What if we realize that there are infinite universes? Would we still hold a place of importance in the God's scheme of things?

What I do not know is where it ends or where it all began. Only when I have a clear understanding of that, would I be able to accept or reject existence of God with certainty. Till then I have my eyes and ears open, ready to see and learn things that takes me closer to that goal. Not sure, if I'll be able to get there in my life time, but I am hopeful.

Different but related issue is that of good and evil. If I assume that God does not interfere in daily affairs, would that mean God does not care about good and evil? Would it be right to believe that good and evil are not absolute and have nothing to do with God? Would good and evil not get defined in relation to society and the general rules that the society imposes on all individuals for the general good of the society?

My logic of good and evil - reader’s discretion advised - good is all those actions that allow the general society to thrive, under the present evolutionary conditions. On similar lines, evil is all those actions that puts the general well being of society at risk, under the present evolutionary conditions. Note that I have mentioned "under present evolutionary conditions". Why is this so important? Well, what may be good for the society today may not be so in future, based on what may change in the environment and surroundings. The same actions that are considered evil today may become part of how we live, since that may become necessary for the species to survive. It may be difficult to digest this, since we evaluate everything in the timescale of one lifetime or two or max three, however, the changes that I am referring to happen over hundreds and thousands of years. The rate at which these changes happen is so gradual that it does not come as a shock but as part of species’ collective behavior change.

There is an interesting work of fiction – The Time Machine, by HG Wells which illustrates this point very lucidly. The protagonist uses the time machine to travel 800,o00 years into the future. He finds that there are two human races, one that lives above the ground and another that lives under. The one under the ground feeds on the race that lives above ground. He, of course, finds this shocking.

Precursor to this situation is that the moon was struck with a huge meteor and broke. At the time that the moon was hit with the meteor, there were huge upheavals on Earth. Of the humanity that survived, some continued to live on the surface of the Earth and some went underground. Over many thousands of years both these races diverged genetically, so much so that the race that developed under the ground started feeding on the race on the surface, for its survival.

Protagonist enters into an argument with the lord of the race that lives under the ground. The lord says, “Who are you to question evolution of past thousands of years? It is no more evil than a carnivore eating a herbivore.”

I rest my case with a final observation that, good and evil is not absolute but is temporal in nature! It has nothing to do with God, if He exists. Just so that my point is clear, my argument is not a case for negating existence of good and evil. Good and evil do exist. However, what is considered good or evil today may not be so forever and hence may have nothing to do with God. That is all!

Games God Plays 2.0

Does this happen with you, that sometimes when you think about something really intensely, that thing or related things manifest themselves! It is possible that this is just the tricks that our mind plays. When we focus our brain in one specific direction, our brain starts noticing related things, which to us appear as if have manifested themselves, while they have always been there. I am sure you remember how you started noticing all the new cars on the road, when you were contemplating buying one for yourself.

The latest that this happened to me was about the time that I was juggling this idea of “existence” in my head. I was in my favorite book store and there on the shelf, I saw this book, exclusively placed for my attention. “The Varieties Of Scientific Experiences – A Personal View Of The Search For God” by Carl Sagan. I had never heard of this book. In fact what was surprising and amusing to me was the title. It was so explicit as if inviting me to open and read it. It of course helped that the author is very well known scientist and one of my favorite science book authors.

So what did I find in the book? Well, some more interesting ideas about God. We think of God as someone who is omnipotent, omniscient, compassionate, who created the universe, is responsive to our prayers, intervenes in human affairs and so on.

Imagine that there were some definitive proof that there is someone who has some but not all these properties. What if there is a being who is the creator, but is indifferent to our prayers? What if this creator does not even know about our existence? What if this being is omnipotent but not omniscient or vice versa. What if, he understood consequences of all his actions but was unable to do many things, so he is condemned to his own creation where desired ends could not be accomplished. Much like a chain reaction that has gone out of control!

Consider all the possibilities; worlds without gods; gods without worlds; gods that are made by preexisting gods; gods that were always here; gods that never die; gods that do die; gods that die more than once; different degree of divine intervention in human affairs; zero; one or many prophets; zero, one of many saviors; zero, one or many resurrections; zero, one or many gods. And related questions about sacrament, religious mutilation, and scarification, baptism, monastic orders, ascetic expectations, the presence or absence of an afterlife, days to eat fish, days not to eat fish, days to eat only sweet, how many afterlives you have coming to you, justice in this world or the next world or no world at all, reincarnation, human sacrifice, temple prostitution, jihads and so forth.

As science advances, there seems to be less and less for God to do. It’s a big universe, of course, so He is profitably employed in many places. But what has clearly been happening is that evolving before our eyes has been a God of the Gaps; that is, whatever it is we can’t explain lately is attributed to God. And then after a while, we explain it, and so that’s no longer God’s realm.

We have so humanified God that we have even extrapolated all our weaknesses on him. We have placed God at a higher level in power and moral hierarchy, but not of intelligence! We have bound him by our own mental limitations! Physically, we picture him with nostrils, breathing oxygen, thus banishing him from airless worlds! We have him with a navel, appendix and all other vestigial organs in our body, making Him an inefficient machine.

How about the start, if any, and about the end, if any? Possibilities that exist – God might have no beginning but might have an end. Or, God might have a beginning but no end. Or, God might have no beginning and no end!

Another interesting idea related to “existence” that I picked from Richard Dawkin’s book “The Selfish Gene”. It is not our existence as an individual or even as a species that is important, as we are just tools used by something else for its survival and propagation. That something is called Gene. It is after all a Gene that replicates itself and moves from one generation to another. Everything else is left behind and gets destroyed.

We as complex organisms are just “survival machines” for Genes. Genes over many hundreds of millions of years have evolved these complex bodies that help them survive longer. Genes manipulate the survival machines and program them such that the survival machines have the best chances of producing as many offsprings as possible, thus enabling Genes to thrive from one generation to the next.

Games God Plays

I am sometimes amazed at what our brain is capable of. At one moment it is grappling with Outlook, which is taking more time than normal, to come up, and the next it is wondering about the billions of years that have passed and the billions that have yet to come! It can float back and forth in time. It can go to the farthest corners of the universe, that are imaginable, and to the innermost nook and cranny of our own physical form, that we can think of, in a blink!

Brain is probably the only thing that can think of itself, everything else is thought of by the brain and not by itself. Is that not interesting?

What is my relation to my brain? Do “I” own my brain or does my brain own me or is my brain and “I” the same thing? I won’t know what would “I” be without a brain. Religions talk about “soul”, which is supposed to be “I”, but I find it easy to identify myself with brain than with “soul”.

Brain is a container and a factory, a container and a factory of thoughts. Brain is bound by the limitations of everything that is physical, it must age and die. But thoughts are not physical. These are impressions and will survive. Survive in some other container; survive in the form of effects that they bring about when they are acted upon. What my brain contains and what it produces is what makes me, me! That is the only thing that differentiates me from you and you from me! I am my thoughts!

Recently on my way back from States my brain took me in a direction that I had stopped thinking about for a while, till someone dear to me rekindled those thoughts in me. While I was getting into my seat in the plane, my thoughts started racing towards the question of “existence”, existence of everything. Put differently, using double negation, the topic is “why there is not nothing”?

Why did existence of anything come about, even that of God, if there is one? Why there had to be anything, anything at all?

I discussed, I read, I thought. I must say, I have not discussed enough, or read enough or thought enough, but whatever I could, it did not reveal any rational reason for the existence.

Just for the records, I am not negating it for the sake of negation. I am not a nihilist. I am just inquisitive.

I dwelled upon the question of existence some more, I realized my situation was not that bad, I knew a few things already, namely, that we exist! That I am! Taking that as a given, I had to start working backwards.

The thought journey that I will now take you thru’ has reference to God, but, I am neither propagating belief nor disbelief, because I myself do not know. I am just sharing some thoughts and hence a piece of me.

Here goes -

That we exist, we know. But why and what for is the question. Is it for His amusement? If we assume that it is, then is it logical to assume that He would likely to be more amused by more number of intelligent species than just humans?

Is there a reason for us to believe that we as a species occupy a unique and privileged status in His scheme of things? Did He specifically create the humans or did he only set the basic physical and governance laws and let evolution handle the rest, including evolution of consciousness?

Consider this, if I were to architect a system, I would create the basic building blocks and set some rules for those building blocks to come together to create more complex entities. That is the most simple and elegant way of going about it. Now, why should we expect him to architect this universe any differently?

If that is a plausible scenario, then can we deduce the following from it?

a) Is it not likely that in other places in the universe, which follow the same basic physical laws, as us, the probability of evolution of intelligent species, as ours, is same as it was in our case?

b) Also, if He did set the basic laws, is it not likely that He would have set some very different basic physical laws for different areas/ places / universes, just so that He has more variety and more amusement? What is there to stop Him?

Why should we not assume that the chances of existence of other intelligent species, that follow the same physical laws as ours and otherwise are pretty high?

What might happen when other intelligent species, following same physical laws, come in contact with us? What might happen when the intelligent beings, following different physical laws, come in our contact? This is assuming that the other intelligent beings have reached a state of intelligence and maturity, where they could cross over from one physical law state to another.

Why should we not assume that such communities, of other intelligent beings, already collaborate? Why is that we have not been discovered by them as yet? Is it possible that we have been discovered or rather we were always known and it is just that in the grander scheme of things, He wants us to evolve to a certain level before allowing us to become part of larger community? He wants our species to figure out how to use our intelligence constructively and not annihilate ourselves and others? Otherwise, we are no good for the grander community of other intelligent species.

So where does that leave us? Is He asking us to reach a state of maturity where we have figured out various basic laws of nature, and have made our peace with them, before we connect with others? How do we get to that maturity level? Do we think, reach within, and realize, or do we continue to experiment, reason and explore?

Probably both!

He probably does not want to bring two intelligent species together till both have reached a state of maturity, where they collaborate, instead of annihilating each other.

Given the fact that Universe is much older than our solar system, and there may be many more Universes, it is fair to assume that other intelligent species probably had much more time to evolve. Hence, it is fair to assume that whatever species are out there are much more mature than us. This leads to some very interesting conjectures -

a) Chances that we are discovered by other intelligent species that reveal themselves to us, are much more than us discovering them.

b) We have not reached a stable/ mature state in the grander scheme of things, and that may be the reason that we have not been “discovered” yet. Clearly, we as a species, have some ground to cover.

c) When the other intelligent species do reveal themselves, they will be benign. Since, He would have set the same condition of maturity for the other communities as well. Chances of scenario, like the one in the Hollywood blockbuster “Independence Day”, are limited, very limited!

Is it logical to assume that there probably is a hierarchy of such connected communities and also that there is an entry criterion, in terms of maturity and evolution, to go from one level to the next, leading ultimately to Him and understanding His game, which He is playing for His amusement!!!