Multiple Facets of the Fantasies of the Asian Mind

Jayapaul Azariah

Founder President,

All India Bioethics Association,

New No. 4, 8th lane Indiranagar,

Chennai 600 020, India.

Email: jazariah @yahoo.com

Human personality

• Body, Mind and Soul

• Body, Soul and Sprit.

• Cartesian dualism of

MIND and BODY

• (a) Physical (b) Mental (c) Moral

(d) Emotional (e) Spiritual.

• “What is inside the mind?” is just like asking

• “What is inside of ‘darkness’?” • Inside darkness is there fear? Or do

we see fear inside of the mind? • Mind is a “black box”. • We do not know what is mind or

what is inside of mind or where is this mind?

• 1990s– “The Decade of the Brain” The US Senate

• 2000s “ The Decade of the Mind” Susan Greenfield

• 2000 to 2100 be declared as the

“The Century of Mind Mapping”

It may take It may take one hundredone hundred years to years to complete this prestigious jobcomplete this prestigious job.

• “An idea comes to my mind” A common expression• connects the mind with the generation of an idea!

But where is the mind, in the human body? dictionary meaning of mind –connects mind namely with ‘memory’ and ‘thinking’, which are commonly associated with the brain (the nervous system). Therefore, it is customary to say ‘ body

and mind’. Neurobiological beings• In the body, is mind alone the seat of memory? No,

it is not the only biological component that has memory.

• Blood with the immune system, identity of the invading pathogen

• DNA, which is the molecule of heredity. • Both blood and DNA are distributed through out

the biological body.

• Hence, mind is present in the body and in every part of the body. This thought agrees with the Zen Buddhist concept of human personality, which recognizes both body and mind as one

component as bodymind. Humans are bioneurological beings

• Mind is like a plant, planted in a mud pot

• a fish in a aquarium tank. • Their growth in terms of size is

strictly dependent on the space-capacity of the container. Smaller the given space the smaller is the organism. So is the mind.

• The scale of perception of the world around us conditions mind.

• Asia the spiritual center of the world

• West is technology oriented.

• Spiritual and mechanistic worldviews are the two containers that contain the mind. But where is this mind of the humans? Is it in the body component or in the soul or in the spirit?

• Is there any difference between the Western and Asian minds? If so what is due to?

• Aurvedic dictum

“You are the product of the food”. Food is related to the body and mind.

How does food condition the mind? If mind is that which thinks then is it right

to say that perception, feelings, a will to do and consciousness are the outworking

of the mind? Does mind grow and age?

Are ideas created? Does mind produce an ideology?

 

Indian philosophy on mind• we can’t, however understand

how the human mind can speculate freely and remodel life when it is filled with weariness and overcome by a feeling of hopelessness”. For a productive mind one needs a life free of burdens.

• He continues, “ The mind, inconstant and unstable, must be steadied into an unruffled lake, that it might mirror the wisdom from above. Buddhi or the power of understanding and discrimination needs to be trained. The way in which this power operates depends on our past habits.

• We should so train it as to bring it into agreement with the spiritual view of the universe”.

• Training of the mind - Vedic period by the yogic disciplines

• (i) purification of the mind, body and senses that the divine may take possession of them

• (ii) concentration or withdrawal of the consciousness from the dispersed movement of thoughts running after the senses and fixing it (mind) on the supreme

• (iii) Identification with the real when we reach it.

• An idea is a mental process.

• what is a “mental process’ and where does it take place?

• A mental process cannot be assessed since it happens within an unknown region (cyberspace) of human person. We may infer that the process takes place in the cybermental component of human spirit! Therefore, an idea can not be tested by means of a technical process, since an idea is ‘nonmaterial’ in its composition

• However, a non-biological technical process per se may not also form or generate an idea since it is the product of human creativity.

• Such creative ideas are commonly referred to as a “bright idea”. It is an inventive idea. These creative and innovative ideas can be applied to different situations, other than the one to which it was conceived and proposed. A simple idea can solve a complex or a complicated problem.

–An idea chain.• When is an idea conceived? As mentioned

earlier an idea springs from the inside of a person – may be from the cyberspace of the mindbody. An idea is the product of human interaction with the external environment or an external source of knowledge in put.

• An idea does not come from a mind that is vacuum. An idea arises from an idea. It may be one’s own idea/mindbody or it may be someone else’s, which may be heard or read or seen. Such a blend of ideas is synergy. That is the potency of the combined effect is greater than the sum total of the individual effects.

• Therefore, it appears that no single person can claim originality for an idea that is generated.

• it is not possible to claim ownership.

• One of the ways by which a bright idea can be measured is at the time when it is expressed orally or verbally. This ability is the inventiveness of human creativity. An invention is the “expression product” of an idea.

Bioequivalent and functional equivalent • Mind is associated with the whole body

• Mind must have both functionally and biologically equivalent to the nucleotide sequence of the DNA. There are similarities between mind and DNA. The answer is yes and no.

• But I suggest that following terms may be employed for the components of idea generated by the mind. Some proposed names; for the unit of mind (bioequivalent of gene) = neurgene or neugene

• The entire component of the mechanism is Neunome or neurnome or neurome

• What is the make up of the neugene or neurome?

Many components can be recognized. Religion, Spirituality, Conscience, Mind itself, Will, Intellect, Worldviews Environment- both internal and external.

• listen carefully to your conscience. It is a voice that sometimes says No. It never says “yes” as Socrates has already remarked. This NO is the only bream when all other breaks are gone. This voice can be silenced. Do not silence it. It comes forth from some unknown structure of human brain. It comes before religion and it grows with True Religion. Enjoy the beauty and pleasure of science and follow the voice of your conscience”

• Patent law on Mind • No part of human body can be patented

organs, DNA per se and the DNA sequences per se. • An industrial application of a sequence or a partial

sequence of a gene is patentable. Since mind is a biological component of human body it can’t be patent-able. A theory cannot be patentable since a theory is an idea. But an idea is not a theory. Since an idea is a part of the human body just like the genetic sequence, hence they are not patentable. Both have industrial applications and hence the “expression produce” of an idea or a theory, resulting in an innovation and inventions and all the products are definitely patentable.

Mind enhancement (i) Vedic people by eating certain herbs

(Modtilal (ii) Drug addiction (iii) Genetic mental enhancement (iv) Machine enhanced intelligence and mind

  “ genetics will bring the capacity of speeding and redirecting evolution along paths of our choice… genetics may also be used for mental enhancement”. In the same line of thinking, Coates et al (1997

• Pearson (1999)

“ accelerated development through machine-enhanced intelligence will drive huge breakthroughs in biotechnology, materials , genetics, nanotechnology , energy and travel… By the time (…) dies, she will in all likelihood be able to have her mind backed up on the networked, and uploaded into an android body…”