[Advaita-l] athma is mere function of the brain [was: concept ofsoul]

[sriram]

Dear Sri Sethuraman
Athma is supreme consciousness.That is  It knows that it is conscious.All
forms of energy are inert.They donot have the consciousness to know what
they are upto.For eg.,if you type a letter or a word the comp faithfully
shows it on its monitor but it is not aware of what it is doing.You only
interpret it to be a word or a letter.Human body including the brain-brain
is only part of the body and it is a modification of cells-yes it thinks etc
but who interprets the thinking as good or bad?This is the supreme
consciousness which knows what is what.Brain is like a comp so to say.But
the interpreter is the Athman.
Where exactly is its location I think it is not localised.It is every where
inside the body.Because even after brain`s death there were occasions when
body was alive.Sri Donald O.Hebb a noted biological
psychologist -[1904-1985]has this much to say and I quote``Modern psychology
takes completely for granted thatbehaviour and neural function are perfectly
correlated....
There is no separate soul or life force to stick a finger into the brain now
and then and make neural cells do what they would not otherwise.....It is
quite coceivable that someday the assumption will have to be rejected.But it
is important also to see that we have not reached that day yet......One
cannot logically be a determinist in physics and chemistry and biology and a
mystic in psychology.``.I have my reservations that science cannot prove
everything because human brain has its own limitations.
R.Krishnamoorthy.
----- Original Message -----
From: Sethu Sethuraman <facestudio at hotmail.com>
To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta
<advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
Sent: Saturday, October 13, 2007 8:40 AM
Subject: [Advaita-l] athma is mere function of the brain [was: concept of
soul]


> Since Sri Krishnamoorthy takes on a scientific approach I will play the
devil's advocate only to pick brains a bit more. Extensive studies involving
imaging brain cell activity and recording brain functions during sleep,
prayer, altered-state etc etc have all produced immense insights - most
invariably lead to this conclusions : the soul is merely a function of the
brain. The skeptics' two favourite questions are: if athma is in fact a
potent power, how come it needs the body to function? In other words is
there anything at all a soul can actually do by itself? The second question
is "it's only a matter of time before a fully functional human is created
entirely in the laboratory - be it from harvested genetic material no less.
Assuming this is a complete life-form that can function like any healthy
human on earth, where did it get its "life" from, if not from the brain?"
>
> Om tat sat.
>
>
> G. Sethuraman
> Chennai.
>
>
>
> Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 22:17:45 +0530From: srirudra at vsnl.comTo:
ADVAITA-L at LISTS.ADVAITA-VEDANTA.ORGSubject: [Advaita-l] concept of soul
Dear membersIt was quite illuminating to reread the thread under the
caption.I think so far science has not been able to dissect life to know
where and when exactly it began or for that matter when it begins even
now.Life is in many forms from unicellular to multicellular. Each individual
cell will be alive as long as it is part of an entity called a larger life
and once gets detached from the system it will not be able to play its
role.Why it gets detached at the appropriate time to make way for further
growth -called metabolism-and gets broken down -called catabolism -knowbody
knows.We may at best say it just happens that way.The same process builds up
and the same reverse process pulls down.We have labelled it as aging.The
Bhagavat Gita says it is all Dhehanthara Prapthi:So life gets boosted up we
may call it a form of energy during growth and sl
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