Book Review: Hindu Theology and Biology; The Bhagavata Purana and Contemporary Theory

This is a review of chapter two of Edelman's book.

Ontology of Body, Mind, and Consciousness

Edelmann’s objective in this chapter is three-fold: i) to provide a general overview of the Bhagavata Purana’s views on the ontological relationship between the body, mind, and consciousness; (ii) to examine the evidence often employed to countenance the physicalistic or naturalistic view of consciousness while also demonstrating the compatibility of certain forms of Judeo-Christian theology with such physicalistic theories and; (iii) to suggest that the theory of consciousness postulated by the Bhagavata Purana offers an alternative to physicalism.

It is the Sankhya/Yoga school of thought’s ontology and metaphysics that informs the Bhagavata Purana’s theory of consciousness. Edelmann does a commendable job of offering a crisp and concise review of the basic ontology that undergirds the Bhagavata’s understanding of the relationship between the body, mind and consciousness. He explains that, according to this view, the human being (and for that matter, all living organisms) are constituted of ‘three categories of substance: the physical body (sthula-rupa, deha), the mind (antar-atman), and consciousness (purusa). After enumerating the twenty-four constitutive elements of matter, Edelmann points to a fundamental difference that distinguishes the Sankhya view from its Western counterparts. In contrast to a wide range of Western thinkers, the mind along with its various constituents are categorized by the Sankhya theory of ontology as belonging wholly to the realm of matter. In other words, in common with modern biology, the Bhagavata argues that the mind and the mental realm more generally can be reduced to material nature. Whereas the mind is treated along with the physical body (or sthula-rupa) as belonging to the realm of matter, consciousness on this view is held to be ontologically distinct from matter, that is to say, not reducible to it or capable of being supervened by it.

After offering a brief overview of the various elements that are said to make up the physical body or deha, Edelmann shifts his attention to the second aspect of the human being, namely the ‘subtle-physical body’, which is divided up, according to this view into four interrelated parts- ‘mind (manas), intellect (buddhi), ego (ahamkara), and awareness (citta)’. This division is intended to reflect the different functions or vrttis of each part. Without delving too deeply into the functional definitions of each aspect of the mental world, the salient point to take away here is that ‘unlike prominent forms of Western dualism, the mind and intellect in the Bhagavata are functions of matter, processes that have no life or self-awareness in themselves; they are only subtle aspects of the same material substance of which tables and chars, for example are made.’

The Sankhya school postulates consciousness as constituting the third and final aspect of the human being. As stated above, this school departs from conventional Western accounts on the subject, by treating consciousness as ‘ontologically distinct from the mental functions and from the body’. It is the ego or ahamkara (an aspect of the mental realm) that acts as the glue, ‘binding consciousness, the observer of all the mental functions and the physical world’ to the body-mind complex. It is the ego that is responsible for the formation of a person’s sense of identity. As Edelmann puts it crisply, ‘the function of the ego is [to] attach or fasten the transcendent self to a particular mind-body complex.’

The implication of this view can be said to be three-fold: identification with the body: (i) is unnatural; (ii) causes suffering and; (ii) removing consciousness from identification with the body and mind is the ‘key to happiness’ and liberation. Note here that consciousness’ identification is not just with the body; if that were the case then upon death the purusa would achieve liberation. Nowhere however in the Bhagavata is such a view supported. The key thing to note here is that the predicament purusa finds itself in has as much to do with its identification with the body (gross) as it does with the mind and its various aspects (the subtle body). At death, though the gross body perishes, the subtle body continues to exist, travelling ‘with the self from one body to another, retaining memories and emotional dispositions’. This view, then, offers a useful illumination of our perceived tendency to come to this world equipped with a seemingly wide and diverse range of psychophysical predilections and predispositions.

In an important paragraph in this chapter, Edelmann explains how the Bhagavata’s view, as the aforementioned account sought to detail, contrasts with Cartesian-style substance dualism. The latter view essentially holds that the body and mind are constituted of different substances and while ‘the first is extended in space, the second is not’. As I hope that the former account has helped to make clear, this view is not shared by the Bhagavata. To recapitulate, the latter view holds that the mind and body together constitute aspects of the same material substance. There is therefore, at least in a substantial sense, no material difference between mind and body. The Bhagavata however does retain some element of the substance dualism claim since it asserts that consciousness is ontologically distinct from the mind-body complex.

Edelman’s economical recapitulation of the aforementioned account is useful: ‘In summary, the Bhagavata presents the living organism- humans and animals in particular- as a composite of three parts: consciousness (purusa), the subtle-physical body, and the physical body. The subtle and physical body are, however, reducible to one category of matter, whereas consciousness is not. When combined, the result is called a jiva or embodied being. The ego fashions the self with a sense of ‘I’ and attaches it to a particular mind-body complex. The result is that consciousness falsely identifies with a particular mind-body complex.’

In his next section in the chapter, Edelmann sets out to define physicalism and in so doing seeks to provide ‘the scientific, theological, and philosophical reasons that have caused many thinkers to adhere to a form of physicalism’. The definition that he offers, though remarkably succinct, does a useful job of conveying the basic, foundational tenet of the outlook: physicalism, Edelmann argues, describes the view that consciousness or mind is ‘dependent upon the brain, comes from the brain, or is reducible to the activity of the brain’.

Darwin’s evolutionary narrative is identified by Edelmann as a key factor contributing to the widespread acceptance of physicalism (at least as applied to the human mind) among the scientific community. In contrast to Platonic or Cartesian theories of ontology, the evolutionary narrative suggests that the mind is materially related to the brain and that the mind/brain evolved for adaptive reasons. Consciousness, on this view, is rooted in matter and is the product of a particular organisation of the brain. The evolutionary narrative then does not regard the soul or the mind as immune to the evolutionary process.

In arguing for a genealogical continuity between man and animal, Darwin was also at pains to demonstrate that ‘there must be an evolutionary history to human mental traits just as there is a history to biological traits: just as bodies had evolved in response to a changing environment, so had all cognitive capacities.’ An important implication of Darwin’s theory was that it rendered incoherent and unsustainable the drawing of ontological distinctions between man and animal. Christian theology sought to justify its exaltation of humanity by arguing that humans possessed a unique set of characteristics (a soul, heightened rationality etc), which distinguished them from their fellow creatures. However, ‘all the characteristics that were said to distinguish a human being from animals in Christian theology were argued [by Darwin] to exist in incipient forms in lower animals’.

In this sense, at least then, evolutionary theory problematizes the Judeo-Christian notion of the human person and the attendant notion of human uniqueness. The implication drawn from evolutionary theory that there exists a striking continuity between animal and man poses fewer difficulties for Indic traditions. This is because such traditions have long recognized that ‘the vital consciousness that animates the human body is the same sort of vital consciousness that animates non-human bodies.’ This is not, of course, to suggest that Indic traditions do not advocate any sort of discontinuity between animal and man. Many of them do; the point here though is that such discontinuity derives less from a conceptualization of the human soul as distinctly unique and more to do with the perception that the human form of life affords heightened capacity for God consciousness.

Edelmann’s summary of the implications of evolutionary theory for the philosophy of mind is useful: ‘evolutionary theory shows [] that the human mind and consciousness evolved along with the mammalian brain through an unbroken chain of incremental steps, and thus the mind or consciousness must be no more than the activity of the brain.’

Outlining certain Christian views of the soul, Edelmann argues that such views may be reconciled with a soft form of physicalism. Recall that physicalism describes the view that the soul/mind and consciousness can be reduced to the brain or to the material. The Thomistic understanding of the self envisions ‘souls as rooted in the organisation of matter’ rather than constituting an ontologically distinct substance. Note that this view departs from the hard form of physicalism since it asserts that though the soul is rooted in the organisation of matter, the soul itself is not material. Edelmann goes on to survey the views of other prominent Christian theologians and suggests that they have all argued for a particular type of physicalism.

Edelmann’s study of Keith Ward’s theological contribution is particularly insightful. He describes Ward’s stance on evolutionary theory as follows: ‘Ward does not question that there is an unbroken chain of natural events that gave rise to consciousness, but only that the process does not have built-in purpose. For Ward, purposive and final causality are built into the structure of matter, and, as it has a propensity towards complexity all its own, external direction from God is not required.’ In other words, for Ward, absent modification, the standard evolutionary account problematizes theistic belief insofar as it characterizes the evolutionary process in too arbitrary and accidental a manner. Ward seems to suggest that the attribution of causality and purpose to the evolutionary process diminishes the conflict that such an account would otherwise have with theism.

Edelmann concludes his discussion of physicalism by exploring the implications neuroscience contributes to the field. He argues that the close relationship between brain states and mental states that neuroscience seems to have discovered offers support to the view of mind/consciousness being dependent on the brain. In a particularly perceptive paragraph, the author argues that from the perspective of the Bhagavata, neurobiologists are only studying ‘the manner in which two categories of matter (gross and subtle) relate to one another’, and not consciousness proper. Their field of study essentially entails the examination of the brain (part of the gross-physical body) ‘in an attempt to understand the mental realm (subtle-physical body)’. But, of course, since this study only involves the examination of two material categories it cannot shed light on consciousness proper since the latter falls entirely outside the scope of the material realm. On this account then, all that they can gain insight into is the ‘manner in which consciousness (purusa) observes the relationships between brain and mental events.’ As Edelmann himself puts it: ‘neurologists are primarily working with the gross and subtle components of matter, since the mental events caused by the brain are material, but these components have no relationship with consciousness itself. There is full agreement between contemporary scientists and the Bhagavata that the body and the mind are material, but in the terms of the Bhagavata neurology as it is conceived of at present does not study consciousness itself.’

The author goes on to suggest that the distinction the Bhagavata draws between the mind-body complex and consciousness proper mirrors certain developments in contemporary philosophy of mind. He points here to the work of David Chalmers and Thomas Nagel, who in their works argue that ‘to understand the mind one must pay attention to subjective qualia, or the sense of what it is like to be a particular organism. Moreover, qualia cannot be adequately described merely in terms of brain states because qualia is a subjective experience, whereas neurology only studies objective matter’. I won’t delve two deeply into this area because I want to post a review of Nagel’s book (Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False) after I finish reading it.

In his final section in the chapter, Edelman sets out to show how and why physicalism can be reconciled with the ontology of the Bhagavata. Essentially, he begins by recapitulating the Sankhya view that the mind-body complex is ontologically distinct from consciousness (purusa). The former can be reduced to matter while the latter occupies a distinct ontological category of its own. He suggests that ‘disputes about the historical origins of mind-body are of minor importance, since they are disputes about not-self and about the properties of matter’ that do not in themselves exist in the ‘state of freedom’. This seems to me to be an important point and it therefore merits greater discussion. Edelmann’s point essentially is that the debate about the origin and development of the mind-body complex is a debate about the origin and development of a particular form of matter. Consciousness, however, is immaterial and therefore must be regarded as, if you like, a non-participant in that debate. Any study that sets out to demonstrate how the mind-body complex has evolved or developed over time cannot in therefore cast any sort of coherent judgment on the existence of consciousness. In that sense, at least then, the debates assumes a triviality since it has nothing to say about the nature of the self proper. As Edelmann explains in a particularly perspicuous paragraph, ‘Darwinism [is] concerned with, and can only make claims about, the mind-body complex, and yet consciousness is distinct from this. Put differently, if consciousness is a witness (saksin) of the mind-body, but is ontologically distinct from it, the historical origin and development of the mind-body complex (i.e. the subject of Darwinian theory) is not a central concern. A central concern instead involves understanding the separation of mind-body from consciousness’.

In seeking to suggest how the Bhagavata may respond to the issue of the evolution of consciousness and seemingly supportive neurological findings, Edelmann suggests ‘that the notion of a non-physical consciousness that identifies with the mind-body complex allows for an alternative interpretation of Darwinian evolution and the neurological correlates of consciousness. Within the ontology of the Bhagavata the non-physical consciousness (purusa) observes the relationships between the mind and brain (which are both part of nature, prakriti), and this allows one to avoid the physicalist conclusions argued for by Darwinists and neurologists’.

The key point to understand here is the notion of consciousness identifying with the mind-body complex. Let me call this the ‘identification thesis’. The author’s argument is that such an identification provides for an alternative interpretation of Darwinian evolution and certain neurological findings. The Darwinian view sees consciousness as having emerged over the course of biological evolution as the material organisation of living organisms developed. However, the ‘identification thesis’ permits for an alternative interpretation of evolutionary history, one that would suggest, for example, that ‘when the self is lined by identification to a body with a small brain, then the capacities of that brain constrain the ability of the self to think and to reason. When it begins to identify with a larger-brained body with densely packed neurons, then the capacity for thought increases, and hence the observer’s experiences of complex thought in that body increases.’ The ‘identification thesis’ argues that the mind-body complex constrains the capacity of consciousness to the extent that the latter identifies with the former. Identification enables consciousness to experience the causal relationships between the mind-body (the focus of Darwinian evolution and neuroscience) ‘even though those causal relationships are distinct from the experiencer’. The strength and cogency of the account lies therefore in the fact that it ‘allows for the evolution of mind and body as in Darwinism and for the neurological correlates of consciousness sought by neurology, yet also allows for the existence of a transcendent consciousness.’

With respect to the possibilities of dialogue (between Hinduism and Science), Edelmann bemoans the understudied and under-expressed nature of the field in theological discourse within Hinduism. He argues that the cogency of the Hindu position depends in large part on the ability of Hindu theologians to express their views on consciousness and the mind-body problem in ways that are intelligible and accessible to Western audiences: ‘If Hindu theologians were to develop a discourse in a language that is accessible to Western thinkers and that takes into account the discoveries and theories of scientific studies on consciousness, then it would be reasonable to suggest that such a discourse should be taken into consideration by Western thinkers in the course of their own investigations into mind and consciousness. Unless and until Hindu thinkers do develop their own discourse of this kind, it is unrealistic to suggest that the sciences should seriously consider them as scientific theories’.