How is the Self Non-material?

[seekinganswers]

A scientist will often say that what we call the "atman" or what westerners call the "soul" is merely a bunch of brain matter functioning at one time. Now obviously this can be debated by saying that you can't spontaneously pop into existence in a random body, you had to exist before hand.

But that doesn't change the fact that brain damage will often cause personality changes or that psychedelics can often produce religious experiences. Are we simply the brain? does anyone know any good arguments in order to rest aside these doubts?

[devotee]

Please see my other post on your query which should dispel your doubts. The brain is not a generator of consciousness. The consciousness is there even in atoms where in every particle correctly knows how it has to behave. But there is no brain in atoms. Brain is an instrument through which the consciousness works However, it doesn't work only through brains.

OM

[Kismet]

Look at it this way: is consciousness an object or a subject? Can you point at your 'mind' as this or that thing? Can the point of the finger touch itself, while it may touch others?

My answer is no. Consciousness or Chit, is a different kind of entity altogether. Since you can't visualize it or give it any sort of dimensions in space and time, it cant exist in space and time, and so cant be matter, because matter is in space and time....

Hope your doubts are now cleared.

PS, yes damage to the brain does happen, and this may effect various things (mood, vision, etc). But the one thing invariant through all such temporary processes, is the one "I AM." This is the Witness, not the feelings which flit hither and thither.

[wundermonk]

Are we simply the brain? does anyone know any good arguments in order to rest aside these doubts?

Those who claim this shoulder the burden of proof and should explain what exactly does it mean to be conscious. They should also prove that physical "non-living" things such as stones, motorcycle, computer, etc. commonly thought to be unconscious are actually unconscious.

They should also explain why or why not a dead body is to be considered conscious. What precise element(s) are present in a living body that are absent in a dead body?

This post may also help.

[Kismet]

Those who claim this shoulder the burden of proof and should explain what exactly does it mean to be conscious. They should also prove that physical "non-living" things such as stones, motorcycle, computer, etc. commonly thought to be unconscious are actually unconscious.

Exactly my point as well.

They should also explain why or why not a dead body is to be considered conscious. What precise element(s) are present in a living body that are absent in a dead body?

Here I am not so sure. Aren't you falling into the trap of vitalism here?

[Shuddhasattva]

We have no objective proof in physics, only tantalizing hints.

See: interpretations of quantum mechanics, quantum mysticism, implicate order, superstring theory, etc.

Subjective proof is possible through direct experience. For example, when you have witnessed previous lives, you will know that you are more than a body or a mind.

When you have darshan of god and your mind is exposed to realizations beyond the capacity of the senses, or even the higher intellectual mind, to produce, then you know that you are more than the gross physical mind-brain.

The lower mind (antahkarana) is indeed physical, or at least, subsisting within, and completely reliant in its form of manifestation on physical processes - whether biochemical, bioacoustic or bioelectromagnetic.

However, consciousness is an innate property of both matter and space, transcending both. This can be experienced for oneself.

[ZarryT]

A scientist will often say that what we call the "atman" or what westerners call the "soul" is merely a bunch of brain matter functioning at one time. Now obviously this can be debated by saying that you can't spontaneously pop into existence in a random body, you had to exist before hand.

But that doesn't change the fact that brain damage will often cause personality changes or that psychedelics can often produce religious experiences. Are we simply the brain? does anyone know any good arguments in order to rest aside these doubts?

This is a debate i've had many times with my mathematician and scientist friends. They hold that absolutely everything in the universe can be explained purely in physical terms, including consciousness.

I argue that the perceiver or observing consciousness cannot be put wholly into physical terms due to its necessarily "subject-internal" nature.


Now, as for the brain and brain damage: The consciousness that you are requires all of these physical attributes in order for it to experience - you can't see without eyes, a optical nerve, an occipital lobe etc. So when these faculties get damaged, naturally the consciousness becomes subjected to altered experience. Same goes for drug-taking.

In the same way that you need a car to drive, you need a brain to experience. You don't need a car or brain to be brahman, though.

[Kismet]

I figured another simple and yet enlightening example to use with materialists. Consciousness in the mind is like milk tinged with food coloring. The milk remains the same (it is not really effected), but you could not have a given hue of it without the food coloring (samskaras, vrittis, etc).