[Advaita-l] Concept of soul

[Mahesh Ursekar]

Pranams Shyam-ji:

First off, let me address some of your concerns about "sensationalizing that
research". I was afraid of the same and so I had already done some basic
spadework. One of the scientists mentioned in my article link, Jack Szostak,
is associated with Harvard Medical School - a reputed institution. The
other, Mark Bedau, has considerable publications in an area called
Artificial Life - something we are talking about here (
http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan/bib/nf/b/markabed.htm).

As per your very pertinent question as to what is life, I agree that is hard
to answer. I have been thinking along the same lines too. I came up with a
working definition "something that can grow and reproduce (i.e. create more
of its kind)" is life. The cell that is being created falls into this
category.

Lastly, like you, I agree that Vedanta is supremely elegant, fullfilling and
profound (otherwise I wouldn't be on this list). I also agree that it does
not have a quarrel with science or for that matter any other discipline. The
orignal post was to resolve certain holes that arise in Vedantic (or for
that matter any religious) thought when we attempt to define the concept of
the soul. The whole point was to remove my doubts by sharing this
information with the more knowledable members on this list.

Thanks, Mahesh


On 8/24/07, Shyam <shyam_md at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Pranams Mahesh-ji
> Sadananda-ji has already provided some very insightful and meaningful
> thoughts in answering this.
> I would like to add a few thoughts.
>
> First of all, as anyone who has had to talk to reporters about his or her
> research findings will tell you, the reporter is interested not in your
> research but in "sensationalizing" that research to draw eyeballs - hence
> ridiculous headlines such as this one.
>
> Now, if any scientist were to actually claim "I can create life within 10
> years" our very simple question to them would be "Respected Sir, It is
> wonderful that you have such fervored optimism, now, pray, please tell me
> what IS life?"
>
> The plain honest answer which any scientist will give you is "I do not
> know".
>
> If Science does not even know "what" life is, is it not perhaps a little
> premature to claim to actually "create" life?
>
> From a scientic perspective, we somewhat know what is sentiency, we have
> some idea of what is conscious and what is consciousness, - but what exactly
> is life>is there a thing we point to and say "this particular thing here is
> what is life" - absolutely not.
>
> We know life when we see it. We know a person is alive or dead (well, most
> of the time) We know a cell is alive or dead.
> But what is life? We only know life it by its absence, when we fail to
> detect its presence, but we have no idea what it actually is to begin with.
> It seems "self"-evident, but hard to define.
>
> Take a live person. He is a conglomeration of trillions and trillions of
> cells - all of which "die" and "get replaced". Let us say i coated all his
> cells with a colour blue. Some period of time later in this live person, i
> may not find a single blue cell as they have all been replaced. So the
> person was more than the sum total of all his cells put together. Then who
> was the "person". Who do you say is "alive" - and - how do you say he is
> "alive" - is he alive because his heart is beating - well i can always pace
> his heart - his brain - science can invent a brain pacemaker in another 100
> years - maybe less - but does any of that answer the question who is this he
> who is alive?
> Now take one cell of this person.
> Give it some food in a petridish and you can say it is "alive" - why - its
> metabolism continues.
> But "what" is it that is alive? The protoplasm, the nucleus, the Golgi
> bodies??
> Let us say we take the nucleus and culture that and say the nucleus is
> still alive.
> Well "what" in the nucleus is alive? the strands of dna?? take them apart?
> nucleotides, and so on....
> Take the case of a prion - it is a strand of protein that not only is
> "alive" - but can cause a debilitating incurable disease such as Creutzfield
> Jacob. So it is alive, but has no cell wall, no protoplasm, no nothing -
> just one strand of protein!
>
> This way if we go on analyzing subcomponents of what appears to be a
> "whole" live entity such as cell, we finally reach a stage where we are
> dealing with nano-particles and chemical bonds, and so on in infinite
> regress.
>
> We basically arrive at that frontier of science which by default cannot be
> broken - the barrier of infinity.
> And it is precisely at this barrier that Vedanta starts and ends.
>
> Vedanta is not opposed to science - but is not related to science. The two
> work in different non-overlapping domains - the secular and the spiritual.
> Yet, you will find a disproportionate number of vedantic students are "men
> of science" - so-called intellectuals, physicists, mathematicians,
> logicians, physicians, astronomers, microbiologists, engineers, etc. Why?
> Because Vedanta is extremely scientific in its approach. As one progresses
> in any scientific discipline one feels drawn to the factual underlying unity
> that Vedanta asserts.
>
> And that brings me to the main point. Vedanta deals with a fact, not a
> theory. It is a fact about one's own self-identity. It cannot be proven by
> any scientific enquiry. It cannot be disproven by any scientific enquiry.
>
> A study of vedanta is not menat for armchair leisure reading - it is a
> serious pursuit meant to understand my self. What is an essential and
> indispensible requirement is shraddha in the Shruti - so when the Shruti
> talks about samsara, rebirth, punya-papa, - we accept it as a fact, not as a
> theory. If it is a mere theory, then yes, every other headline in the Daily
> Mirror talking about life being created or a magic potion for immortaility
> etc etc will seemingly have us vaccilating in our own convictions - "if
> Bhagwan Krishna is wrong about vaasamsi jeernani yatha vihaya, then why
> should i believe anything he says about kshetra-kshejna?"
>
> Which again brings us back to the whole issue of blind faith and shraddha
> and the subtle but crucial difference between the two - which is a whole
> topic by itself.
>
> If man and science get to the point where they align matter to enable it
> to be an appropriate upadhi to manifest consiousness, which is
> all-pervasive, they would have precisely succeeded in doing what a mother
> hen already does, which is create a mass of protein called an egg, incubate
> it, and wait for life to get "created" - only thing is you wont be hearing
> the hen crowing about its wondrous accomplishment of "creating life."
>
> My humble pranams,
> Hari OM
> Shri Gurubhyoh namah,
> Shyam
>
>
>
> Mahesh Ursekar <mahesh.ursekar at gmail.com> wrote:
> The theory that, after the death of a human being, there exists an entity
> called the soul that persists and continues to take a new birth. If we
> create life using chemicals in a laboratory, it appears that the human
> being
> is nothing but matter and after death the result is "ashes to ashes, dust
> to
> dust".
>
> On 8/23/07, Ramesh Krishnamurthy wrote:
> >
> > On 23/08/07, Mahesh Ursekar wrote:
> > >
> > > If we manage to create life from scratch, does that debunk the soul
> > theory?
> > > See below:
> > > http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20249628/
> > >
> >
> > ** And what is the "soul theory"?
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