naskarism-blog

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“Love has no gender - compassion has no religion - character has no race.” ― Abhijit Naskar, Either Civilized or Phobic: A Treatise on Homosexuality Amazon: https://t.co/2sbEQ85JzR

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"What kind of civilization is this my friend, where people have to be reminded of their humanhood? Why the heck is it so damn hard for humans to act like humans? Why the heck do the man-made sects get preference over humans? How can a smart species like us be so dumb at the same time? Why can’t we join hands and celebrate our differences instead of turning them into cause of conflict! Why? Why can’t we my friend?"

― Abhijit Naskar, 7 Billion Gods: Humans Above All

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"Whether you call yourself a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu or an Atheist, if you have kindness in your heart and #compassion in your act, you are on the right path of religion." - Abhijit Naskar

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A beautiful conversation with Dr Diane Hamilton on various issues of the mind that make an impact on the human society.

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Living as a whole human being - Udemy Course

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“Don’t study science. Play with it.” ― Abhijit Naskar

From the TED-Ed Lesson Can 100% renewable energy power the world? - Federico Rosei and Renzo Rosei

Animation by Giulia Martinelli

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“Human you are, and your religion, Humanism.” - Abhijit Naskar, Principia Humanitas

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Surgery on Society

How can we treat a nation? How can we solve its issues? This article is for every single person who wants to do something for his or her nation – who hails himself or herself as a patriot. In this article I am going to show you the biological procedure of treating the issues that torment a nation’s soul.

The first step towards treating a nation, is that you must accept that you can’t treat a nation, because it is not the nation that requires treatment. Rather it is the people. It is you, the modern human being of the civilized world who needs to work on treating your own conscience and perception. Perhaps I am sounding a bit complicated. So let me simplify.

The world consists of nations. A nation consists of people. A people consists of human beings. A human consists of fascinating psychological elements, collectively called the mind. And a mind is a product of a hundred billion nerve cells working relentlessly in proper harmony. Thus, a little change at the very rudimentary level of the neural network inside one human brain, has the potential to essentially influence a whole nation, and even a whole world. We have countless examples of such individual human minds inspiring the entire planet. Tolstoy, Gandhi, Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr, Mandela, Subhas Chandra Bose, Vasil Levsky and so on. These are individual human beings who first worked on their own minds, and then embarked on an unforgettable journey to put their wisdom into practice.So, in order to really do something for your nation, you must first stop trying to do something for your nation, and turn your focus on yourself in order to make a better version of that self. Reformed and rejuvenated selves are what we need to reform the conscience of a whole nation.Changes in the neurochemistry of one human being have the potential to inspire the entire national organism. After all, a nation is nothing without its people. When you start understanding the biology behind every single emotion and behavioral response of that people, including your own, you can learn to program them on your side in a way that will lead to the best possible outcome. And this very self-control is the key to a better nation. Also, such human action is contagious. When you start being a better version of yourself, people around you would start to feel the need to nourish their virtue of self-control as well. Your awakening will initiate the awakening of others. Remember, a nation with a thousand awakened citizens and a corrupt leader, is much more alive than a nation with an awakened leader and a thousand corrupt citizens.

So how can one learn to become in control of his or her emotions and behavioral responses. The first step is to accept yourself, the way you are. You need to accept your biology, as well as the biology of others. For example, a man’s biology is designed by Mother Nature in such a way that it is impossible for him to not get turned on when he sees a hot lady with big boobs and butt in front of him. Now, of course, due to social norms, in most cases, men feel ashamed of those sexual impulses, and pretend as much as possible to act as if they are the most decent gentleman on earth. And there lies a crucial element that acts as a stimulant for the common social issue of sexual assaults. I have discussed this matter in minute detail in my book Prescription: Treating India’s Soul.The point is, if you don’t learn to accept your basic biological instincts as normal human elements, then you can never be able to make your country a better place for your children. You cannot fight your biology. Things go nuts, when you try to. Your biology makes you who you are. Without biology you don’t exist. And accepting your basic biological instincts does not mean letting them get hold of your behavior. With the help of the frontal lobes of your brain, you can learn how to manipulate your basic instincts in a healthy way. And this is what you need to do, to reform a nation.Understanding and accepting the biology is the first step towards transforming a nation, or rather a nation’s conscience. Let me tell you some of those basic neurobiological facts of human life. First, we humans are born selfish. Without the element of selfishness we would have never survived this long. And this biological element of selfishness makes each one of us corrupt at a genetic level. So, yes, corruption is biological, it cannot be avoided, but only manipulated.Second, men think about sex way more than women. And a hot figure of a lady always turns them on, whether they are in a relationship or not. Hence, either consciously or subconsciously they end up having an innate desire to have sex with her. That’s the reality of the male psychology. Accept it. Because all men from the civilized world may pretend that they are decent and that they only think about sex with their romantic partner, but the neurological reality is that there is a beast inside all of them, who subconsciously wants to mate with every single woman it encounters. However, sexual repression itself is not the cause of sexual assaults in various nations, especially the developing ones, but it does play a crucial role in the society’s ability to deal with such issues. We see this mostly in developing countries like India. How can the Indians expect to solve the issue of women’s safety when they are not even mature enough to talk about sex. To quote from Prescription: Treating India’s Soul

“Stop talking about “rape” and start talking about “sex”, and within a few decades India will attain the true mindset to prevent sexual assaults.”

Another crucial biological reality is, religion is a neurological phenomenon. It is born in the human brain and dies with it. It does not come from any Supreme Entity, up in the sky. It has nothing to do with any Lord Almighty running the universe. It all comes from the human mind, including the very notion of God. God is a human creation, and so is religion.Hence, nobody is qualified enough to teach you how to be spiritual or religious. Get rid of all those religious preachers from your society. Nourish the neurological phenomenon of divinity within your own mind. Do not let this natural human element to be the tool of exploitation in the hands of bloodsucking preachers and religious fanatics.These are only a few among the rudimentary biological elements that influence the true progress of a nation. And as I have said in Prescription, 

“It is you who needs to transform into a modern human being of the 21st century, not your nation. Your nation shall be defined by the character of each one of you. So, be the change you want to see in your nation. But the change has to come through the methods of Science for an actual ever-lasting impact.”

The general human mind has a common affection for philosophy. But philosophy is useless if it is not directed by science. Science and philosophy are the two wheels of development of a nation. If either one fails, the development of a nation gets stuck. And this has been the problem with many nations throughout the ages. Useless philosophy has overwhelmed the vulnerable minds of many nations. Their heads have become filled with metaphysical garbage which does not have any practical application whatsoever in this modern age. To have an actual impact on the development of a nation, you must incorporate the methods of Science in daily life, only then you will become truly civilized, not before that.Be aware of the science of the human mind. Be aware of yourself. Be aware of your weakness and your strength. Weakness and darkness are common elements of life on planet earth. You cannot avoid them. They are essential part of our evolutionary history. Fear, weakness, rage, lust all are basic features of every complex biological lifeform, and they serve only one purpose, that is survival of the species. But for obvious reasons we hate these elements and love the good ones, like happiness, peace, strength and love. And there is the biggest psychological impediment in the progress of human civilization. Every time humans try to fight the elements they don’t like, their biology reinforces those elements even more and leads the humans to misery. Misery rises in human life, when a human doesn’t accept his or her true biological self.I urge to you in the name of human progress, embrace your biology. Be brave and upright. And have the courage to face your inner self, and emerge as a civilized and liberated being. Liberate yourself from the tyranny of your hatred against your own biological reality, and you shall automatically liberate your nation from all its misery.

Further Reading

Abhijit Naskar, 2015, Neurosutra: The Abhijit Naskar Collection

Abhijit Naskar, 2016, Prescription: Treating India’s Soul (Global Edition) | (Indian Edition)

Abhijit Naskar, 2016, What is Mind?

Abhijit Naskar, 2017, The Krishna Cancer

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Soul is born in the brain and dies with it

What is Soul? Is it magic? Or is it something pretty much physical but seems to be magical? Is it something Science can explain? Or is it beyond human comprehension? In this article you are going to have your confusions surrounding the term Soul, thrown away, once and forever.

But before you learn about Soul, I must tell you a thing or two about the human brain’s affinity towards mysticism. Our species, that is the Homo sapiens evolved around 200,000 years ago, and even before that our previous ancestral species existed, millions of years back. During the most of existential period we lived in the wild alongside wild animals. On the contrary Modern Science has only evolved a few centuries ago. So, compared to the civilized scientific mind of modern human, the instinctual primitive mind is way older and more deep rooted into the brain. That primitive mind has been surviving in the wild environment for a long time in the midst of fear and ignorance. By nature, that mind is easily fooled by supernatural mysticism. It is very gullible. And no matter how much we the civilized human beings advance in the fields of Modern Sciences, there is always a part of us, that tries to allure us with magical nonsense. Because that nonsense has been with us since the birth of humanity. Scientific understanding of things arrived much later, and in fact, if we compare it with our millions of years long acquaintance with ignorance and fear, Science would look in its infancy. So it is not easy for your brain to embrace the newly discovered scientific explanations of various phenomena which you previously knew as correlated to the domain of the Supernatural or Paranormal.

For example, due to lack of comprehension, primitive humans believed thunderstorms were caused by gods or spirits in the sky, earthquakes were caused by earth spirits and so on. But, now it is common knowledge for you, how various geophysical processes give rise to various weathers, and various natural disasters. Now you know that plate tectonics is responsible for earthquakes. All these things are common sense to the general public. In fact, now you know that the planets including our earth revolve around the sun, but a few thousand years ago, this simple idea was perceived by the ignorant population as blasphemy. Because it was against the mysticism of those days.

Science has advanced quite a lot since then. Especially with advancement in the field of Brain Science, we finally have started explore the existential questions of human life. We are finally investigating questions revolving around our own entity and identity. We Neuroscientists are constantly exploring the fantastic domain of the human mind to understand what makes each human being tick the way they do. And one of the most fascinating terms correlated with the term Mind, is Soul.

The concept of Soul goes way back during our tribal days in the jungle. The only way the tribal primitives could make sense of death, is to incorporate the concept of Soul. They perceived Soul as the breath of Life, without which the body would not function. From this, emerged the ancient mind-body problem. Due to lack of any understanding of human biology whatsoever, the primitive humans perceived Soul and Body to be separate because that’s the only way they could make sense of their fellow human one moment walking around and the next moment lying on the ground lifeless. And in order to diminish the uncertainty that goes along with the notion of death they further developed the primeval idea that Soul is immortal which upon leaving the body reaches a peaceful place, which many cultures termed as Heaven. This idea has been celebrated throughout the world for a long time, because of the comfort that it brings. It erases all the devastating anxiety, uncertainty and ignorance surrounding death. Hence till this modern day of fascinating scientific achievements the common human mind deems death as a blissful departure of the soul to another realm – far more beautiful that our planet earth.

And this idea of heaven is so strong in general human mind, that even today, every now and then we scientists come across various individuals who claim to have visited Heaven and come back to planet earth. These people are not lying. They are indeed telling what they experienced during a life and death situation. And here the ancient idea came into action. A person who has heard a lot about the Afterlife during his or her lifetime, once faced with a near death event, that idea would become a reality through his or her neural circuits. During a traumatic event the extremely high level of stress hormones triggers the release of a special neurochemical called DMT, or Dimethyltryptamine. 

DMT is one of the most profound hallucinogenic compounds on this planet. And upon the influence of DMT the human mind experiences a reality so soothing and surreal that makes the person forget about the trauma almost completely. It enables the person to deal with the situation. And what the person hallucinates about during that times, depends on the predominant ideas, fantasies and wishes rooted into the neural network of the person’s brain. So, here the person may not actually go to heaven, but to him or her, the hallucianatory reality of heaven or afterlife seems more real and the actual reality. It’s the brain’s way of self preservation. These near death experiences further strengthen the general idea of an Afterlife and the immortality of Soul in the masses. Now let’s answer the billion dollar question. What is Soul?

It is not really a billion dollar question any more, at least for those who have a basic understanding of human biology. As I have said in my book What is Mind?

Soul is the functional expression of neurons. 

When billions of neurons start firing, the result is a mesmerizing thing called Soul, or which we more simply refer to as the Mind. Mind and Soul are one and the same thing. Although various cultures till this date perceive Soul to be the driving force behind the Human Mind. Cultural ideas have their own mysticism attached to them, so those ancient concepts cannot be accepted literally. Rather a rational civilization must investigate those beliefs  beyond the limitations of primitive superstitions, in the pursuit of understanding the human mind in a better way.

Human Mind, or from an ancient perspective – the Soul, is born from protoplasmic activity within the brain. All regions of the brain’s neural network play their distinctive roles to construct distinct features of the Mind, such as Emotions, Memory, Individuality etc. If you turn even a small portion of the neural network off, the correlated mental feature of that region would completely disappear from the person’s mental life. And this way, if you keep turning off various regions of the brain one after another, in the end, there would be no sign of mental activity whatsoever. Soul would cease to exist. Because the brain that creates this fascinating phenomenon has been turned off. This is exactly what happens when a person is announced brain- dead.

Hence, we can quite naturally deduce that Soul does not come from any Supernatural Domain outside the body, rather it is born inside the biological domain of the body. And along comes the deduction that soul is born in the brain and dies with it. So, there is no Afterlife, or Heaven or Hell, or Reincarnation. With death you simply cease to exist as your self. However your bodily elements which created your individuality, or from a deeper perspective your Soul, gets dispersed into the nature. So, rhetorically speaking you do live on forever, but not as yourself like depicted in many of the religious cultures, rather as an eternal part of the Cosmos.

(This Article was originally published on Goodreads)

Further Reading Abhijit Naskar, 2016, Autobiography of God: Biopsy of A Cognitive Reality Abhijit Naskar, 2016, What is Mind?

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Biology of Kundalini Awakening

Human mind is without any doubt the most advanced and complex organized biological structure on this planet. It is the house of all your ambitions, emotions, feelings, thoughts, curiosity, and everything that makes you who you are. In fact, you are your brain.

And in this brief article you are about to go back in time with me, to encounter something that your ancestors came up with, a few thousand years ago. They constructed a method to tap into their brain, and make it more productive than ever. This method is what you know as the Awakening of the Kundalini Chakras. In time, through interpretations, translations, and reinterpretations, this method got more mystical than it was in the first place. People with their personal ideas and beliefs made this simple system of self-development an ultimate tool in the hands of fanatics to exploit the vulnerable masses.

This system was born in the ancient India, as a method of mental exercise. There was no religion involved in it. It was just like any other ancient scientific discovery. Except here, the land where the method was born, itself made it look like an exclusive possession of the domain of religion.

When you google, Kundalini Chakras, you find millions of picture with a person sitting in a lotus position, with seven bright mysterious chakras or spindles spreading through the spine. The first thing here a rational human being must know is that, all these pictures are mere exaggerated imaginary artworks. They have nothing to do with reality. They look attractive, Yes. And that gives the fraudsters in the profession of ancient mysticism means to exploit vulnerable people. But in reality, kundalini awakening is anything but that.

The seven spindles of Kundalini Awakening, represent various mental states during the practice of plain meditation. And that’s it. There is no mumbo jumbo involved. When you practice meditation, your brain goes through various neurochemical changes, and these changes put an amazing and quite beneficial impact upon your mind as well as your body. That is, practice of meditation on a regular basis makes you more healthy, both physically and psychologically. I have discussed this whole matter in minute detail in my book Autobiography of God: Biopsy of A Cognitive Reality.

So, in short, the spindles that you see in any picture of Kundalini Awakening, are simple symbolic representation of various mental states. Those pictures are not to be taken literally. So, what exactly happens, during this so called awakening process? Through this process, mind simply transcends from your usual state of consciousness into an extraordinary one. I am calling it extraordinary, because, it is by all means an extraordinary domain of pure bliss. It is the state what all of the religious founders of human history experienced. And you can do the same, without any Gurus and Preachers. It is right within you.

In various cultures throughout the world, this transcendental state of consciousness has been worshipped, with utmost reverence, because of its fascinating features. And the ultimate state of the Kundalini awakening is this. This transcendental state of consciousness is represented as the highest of the Chakras. The Sages of India, whom I prefer to call Scientists, termed it as the Sahasrara Chakra, which means the Thousand Petaled Lotus. We modern age Scientists simply call it the Crown Chakra.

Passing through all the mental states of the six other chakras, which are respectively called, Muladhara, Svadhisthana, Manipura, Anahata, Vissudha and Ajna, when you finally enter the Crown Chakra state, you start to lose all touch with reality. First comes the loss of physical awareness, then you cease to identify yourself with the mind. All these happen due to the inactivation of various regions of the brain. Then finally, your entire sense of self, or which you call ‘I’ disappears. And a whole new world opens up in your mind. You literally get immersed into the universe.

This is what different cultures have termed in different ways, such as, Nirvana, Samadhi, Advaita, or the Non- Duality state. Notice that all of these happen inside your own mind. And you are actually not going anywhere. Rather your brain has gone into a state where everything seems surreal and One with you. And this is achieved simply by the practice of meditation. Long-term practitioners of meditation eventually learn to attain the Crown Chakra state on a regular basis. And as a novice, even if you don’t reach that Crown chakra state, you still come out of the meditation as a healthier version of you both physically and mentally. Many of our neuroscientific studies have shown that practicing meditation on a regular basis makes the brain healthier. And a healthier brain gives rise to a healthier mind with more emotional control in all walks of life.

(This Article was originally published on Goodreads)

Further Reading Abhijit Naskar, 2016, Autobiography of God: Biopsy of A Cognitive Reality Abhijit Naskar, 2016, In Search of Divinity: Journey to The Kingdom of Conscience

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Real Education vs Educational Fundamentalism

What is Education? Can you think of an accurate answer to this question? Does the modern civilized society have any idea on the true meaning of the term? Has the society ever been able to understand the true psychological underpinnings of education? Or has it only constructed a sophisticated and hectic structure and stuck the label “education” on it just to gain authentication?

Education means nourishing the mind and make it develop in order to see beyond the limitations of current social perception. It means breaking the barriers of the rugged sociological system that impede in the progress of human civilization. It means trying new things out for the first time in human history and succeeding in a few while failing in some. That’s how a species grows and becomes more and more advanced.

Yet, somehow the craving for security has conditioned the society to perceive education not as an endeavor of the mind, rather as a preprogrammed task created by some sophisticated, illusory structure known as the “system of education”. Education means breaking free from the manacles of limitations put forward by primitive ignorance. Yet today’s fake education is gloriously founded upon the primordial element of “limitation”. And the authorities of this so-called education often take pride it in their ship shape structure where they manufacture dumb manikins.

As I have said in my book “The Education Decree”

“Psychologically speaking, a system is indeed necessary, for any kind of human endeavor. However, the moment the mind becomes dependent on the system and starts trusting the system more than internal faculties of the mind, the very element of education fades away from the system. And that’s exactly what has become of the modern system of education. There is a system alright, but the actual element of education has long gone.

A carefully constructed structure of education is supposed to smoothen the pursuit of knowledge, instead of restricting the flow of knowledge. The ultimate goal of humanity is knowledge, yet modern society has made knowledge secondary and the pompous pride of the system primary. The flow of knowledge towards the mind should be moderated by the faculties of the mind itself, based on the acceptability of nothing but the mind.

Mind is the Alpha – Mind is the Omega. There is nothing else in the pursuit of knowledge. And more importantly, there is nothing else in education. All systems of the society are meant to serve the mind, not the mind to serve the systems.”

Today’s system of education in most countries is based on rigorous indoctrination. This is what I call “Educational Fundamentalism”, which is quite similar to religious fundamentalism. The only difference between these two types of fundamentalism is that the later torments the entire human society, while the former tyrannizes the flourishing and vulnerable minds of the young society. Quite like religious fundamentalism, educational fundamentalism is based upon bookish creeds created by the self-proclaimed authority figures of the system. And this very fundamentalism is the cause of all the growing conflicts between the student-body of the education society and the teachers running that society. And these conflicts further become tools of exploitation in the hands of a handful of war-mongering, authoritarian, blood- sucking, politicians.

In short, today’s modern human society, perceives educational fundamentalism as true education, while the reality is, it is totally opposite of education. Real education opens up the mind to the vast world of possibilities and potentials. It enables the mind to come up with its own unique answers to questions that have been never answered before. Real education creates a complex mesh of neural network in the brain, solely concerned with delicate processing of knowledge, that allows the being known as human, to see something that nobody else can.

A properly constructed system can aid in this process of the growth of mind and smoothen the course of learning. However, the reality is something quite pathetic and of utter concern for us scientists and other thinkers in the field of philosophy. We are concerned because, the modern pedagogy of the system in most countries does not allow the flourishing minds of the young generation to grow at its natural pace, rather it overloads their brain with preprogrammed stream of life-less information and expects them to regurgitate that information in an exact order. Those who succeed in standing up to that ruthless expectation earns the ticket to the next level of the system and eventually they emerge as heartless robots. And those who don’t are quite cold- bloodedly labeled as “failed” and are expected to go through the whole process of regurgitation year after year, until they either succeed or meet their doom.

This is not Education. It is a process of manufacturing computation devices that look like Homo sapiens, and thereby falsely and quite mistakenly labeled as “Education”. This “False Education” or “Educational Fundamentalism” is dangerous for the society, and moreover it is a threat to the entire species, because it takes away the basic cognitive capacities of the mind, which are quintessential for the advancement of the species.

The need of a safe and stable structure is ingrained in the mind as a primitive psychological characteristic. It is a basic instinctual necessity of the cavemen with us. Hence, it is quite easy for the society to fall prey to this innate instinctual need. And slowly it outweighs the urge for growth. It is plain biological evolution. As my dearly beloved Lizi often says to me in order to win an argument, “when Evolution speaks, even the Gods are silent”. And it is indeed accurate. Evolution drives all kinds of lifeforms as well as mindforms. And it is Mother Nature that drives the whole process of biological evolution. Here I’d take a step further and say, when Mother Nature speaks, even the Gods hold silence.

Instincts, drives and urges, all are evolutionary, and as such they serve their distinct purposes in the path of survival. However, these antique elements of the primitive human psyche are kept in check by the modern part of the brain, i.e. the cerebral cortex. The cerebral cortex of the brain is responsible for the modern rational thinking of the human mind, while the limbic system holds all the emotional elements of the mind, including the primordial ones.

Now the point is, primordial instinctual elements come more naturally to the human mind, than rational thinking. This is because all the basic instincts and drives of the mind have been there since the reptilian days, whereas rational and analytical thinking has evolved in the human brain far too recently. Naturally, it takes a lot of practice and efforts to become a rational free thinker, compared to the ignorant minds incessantly driven by the lizard within.

And that’s exactly what has become of this so- called civilized and modern human society and its system of education. Most of the human society as well as its system of education is driven by the lizards of the limbic brain. Hence, it’s not the fault of the system. Rather if anyone to blame it is Mother Nature. She is a wicked old lady, who always has it her way.

However, if you have sufficient insight into the whole process of evolution and can take into account all its correlated ups and downs, you will no longer be able to blame Mother Nature. Because, even though we have been living in the wilderness and surviving with our limbic instincts and drives for millions of years, we also have received from Mother Nature the gift of a complicated and advanced cerebral cortex, which enables us to carefully modulate the wild responses of the limbic system in this civilized world. We truly are an advanced species that has gained the brain capacity look beyond the basic needs of survival. We have learnt to take significant steps in the path of development. And the most necessary tool in that path of advancement is Education. And here, by education, I refer to the real education of the mind, that endows the human psyche with vigor and expands its intellectual perception of the world. And in this whole process of progress, there is no place for the fake education of modern society that does nothing but condition the young human minds to become hypnotized hominid elitists.

To quote from my memoir Love, God & Neurons 

“indoctrination is not just demeaning to the human conscience, it is lethal for the flourishing psychology of the hungry, young mind. The purpose of education should ultimately be the advancement of the species. And for this to actually happen, the world needs the kind of education by means of which character is formed, strength of the mind is increased and the human intellect is expanded beyond its own limits.”

First the world needs teachers – teachers who have broken their own shackles of indoctrination – teachers who can go beyond the narrow- mindedness of the society. A handful of these young, brave and zealous teachers in every nation, shall be enough to rekindle the spark of pure knowledge in the entire species.

(This Article was originally published on Goodreads)

Further Reading Abhijit Naskar, 2016, What is Mind? Abhijit Naskar, 2016, Love, God & Neurons: Memoir of a scientist who found himself by getting lost Abhijit Naskar, 2017, The Education Decree

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Steps of A Healthy Relationship

Love – the most beautiful word on this planet. This one word has revolutionized the whole planet in an evolutionary way. Without this none of us might have been born. It is mother nature’s magical wand by the touch of which everything turns surreal and captivating.

It is the most important ingredient of human life. That’s why the tiniest glance at your dearly beloved can make you experience heaven right here on earth. Or as I have said in my book Love Sutra: The Neuroscientific Manual of Love, “who wants Jesus when you can have the warm embrace of the person who is the living embodiment of all your desires”.

But, despite all the delightful descriptions of love, why is it so hard to maintain a healthy relationship? If the mental state of love is so soothing then why do people often fail to maintain a healthy relationship? The answer lies deep within the neural network of the human brain. In short the cause of failure in relationships is the perceptual difference between the male and female mind. It is all in the fascinating neurobiology of the human brain. The point is, the male and female brain constructs a vivid and gender oriented mental universe. Thus, the male mind perceives every situation of daily life from a typically male perspective and expects the female to do the same, while the female brain observes everything in a feminine manner and expects the male to do the same. And from this very gender based perceptual conflict rise all the predicaments of a relationship. Therefore, the only way to sustain a healthy relationship is to have a basic insight of your own as well as your partner’s mental universe. And the very first thing to know about the male and female mental universe is that the female brain is a highly intuitive emotion engine, while the male brain is an analytical powerhouse.

Through millions of years of evolution, Mother Nature has molded the female brain to thrive over emotions, and the male brain to thrive over competition. From a cursory reading, a man and a woman may seem to be members of the same species. But they are neurologically distinct and unique creatures, who see the world from completely different perspectives.

They think differently, feel differently, get mad differently and even handle problems differently. The male brain is a problem solving machine that uses analytical brain structures to find solutions for basic problems of life, unlike the female brain that uses emotional neural structures to solve problems. Men are born with uniquely masculine neurological circuits while women are born with uniquely feminine circuits. This is what we call sexual dimorphism in clinical terms. And this dimorphism in brain structure leads to distinctive cognitive and behavioral features in men and women. You can read about these fascinating sexually dimorphic features in Love Sutra: The Neuroscientific Manual of Love. In this book I have opened up the entire mental universe of men and women while giving a basic guideline for a healthy relationship. Let me tell you a little more about the fascinating difference between the male and female mind. For example, the male brain is evolutionarily programmed to think about mating far more than women. And this programming has led men to have sexual thoughts more often throughout the day than the women. Women only have such thoughts four or less times in a day. Another fascinating feature of the female brain is its retention of memories connected to emotional events in the long run. Women are much better at remembering emotional events of life in the long run than men. And off course, the female brain is a great emotion sensor. It is capable of picking up emotional cues from the facial expressions and other body movements of people. Men are not so good at this, for which women often blame the men to be less sensitive. And here’s a little tip for all the ladies out there. If you want to make your partner sense your emotions, you can do so by bursting into tears. That’s the only way, the male brain can feel there’s something wrong. It is plain biology.

And as for men, I’d like to tell you, your neurology may not be as emotionally sensitive as the women’s. But that does not mean you cannot grow the virtue of patience. All that women seek in men, is patience with a little tinge of perseverance. And thanks to the amazing neurological feature known as neuroplasticity, the human brain, male and female alike, can learn and adopt new features in the neural network. It is all about making efforts from both sides of a relationship. Relationships don’t fail due to lack of love. Rather they fail because the partners lose touch with each other’s inner selves. They get lost in the storm of confusions and meaninglessness. One way or another they start fighting with each other’s biological instincts, that ultimately leads to misery. You must remember, biological instincts are the driving force or rather guiding force of a species. Everything our ancestors learnt throughout their existence is encoded inside our instinctual blueprint. It is the key to understanding how every single human being is wired. The marvelous interplay of various brain circuits creates the instinctual reality of daily life in both men and women.

Regardless of your gender, if you are conscious about the fact that there lies a complex yet vividly beautiful brain circuit mechanism behind every single impulse of your daily emotions, then you can choose how to react upon each of those impulses. You can thus program your behavioral response in a certain situation for the best possible outcome.

(This Article was first published on Goodreads, under the title “Key to Love”)

Further Reading  Abhijit Naskar, 2015, Love Sutra: The Neuroscientific Manual of Love  Abhijit Naskar, 2016, What is Mind?

[naskarism-blog]

Evolution of the Supernatural, Spiritual and Paranormal

The mystics of modern world who thrive on humanity’s primitive knack for mysticism often proclaim with utter glory that spirituality is what distinguishes us humans from the animals. But the biological reality of life is, the element of spirituality does not distinguish us from the animal kingdom. Rather it is the extraordinarily unique blend of emotions, creativity and intellect, that sets us apart from the rest of the animal society. This fusion of vivid and varied elements of mental features makes us humans. It makes us a species unlike any other.

There is nothing objectively extraordinary or magical about the mental trait of spirituality. The very term “magic” simply reflects one’s lack of knowledge and understanding of a certain phenomenon. The socially hailed magical element called “spirituality” evolved as a counter-mechanism for the fear of the unknown while we were living in the wild. If we look closely, we can discover the existence of this apparently supernatural, paranormal element in various species other than humans, such as dogs. Dogs are spiritual in their own instinctive knack for sensing life in even inanimate objects. And in this aspect, the humans are not much different.

However, due to the extraordinary advancement of our brain circuits, unlike any other species, the humans quite unconsciously learnt to incorporate spirituality in their daily lives beyond the wildest instincts of all the lifeforms in the world.

Now let’s go back in time. Think about the distant past, when our primitive ancestors were surrounded by the permeating darkness of absolute ignorance. In every walk of life, they encountered something incomprehensible. But irony of Mother Nature was that they had no modern means to satisfy their curious yet childishly immature mind in the face of those enigmatic natural phenomena. Thunderstorm, Earthquake, Volcanoes – all these events sparked nothing but fear in their instinctively driven mind. They were the slaves of Mother Nature, and as such they were tormented in every walk of life by the surrounding harsh environment.

Unlike now, instinct used to get the best of them, back in those days of incessant hardship for survival. Instincts drove their scared mind to forge explanations of paranormal nature our of their fear, anxiety and ignorance. Their mind was immersed in the sea of ignorance, where there was neither a single shred of data available to them, nor they had the brain capacity to comprehend such data. All they could sense with their instinctive mind was the overwhelming abundance of power-play by some sort of force, stronger than them.

Hence, they felt the growing urge to appease that supposed supernatural force with rituals of worship. And they began worshiping all the natural elements of nature, such as stones, hills, trees, lakes, animals and many more, driven by their craving for a sense of security. As such practice grew more prevalent, the brain circuits for such mental trait, began evolving. And slowly their worship of natural elements acquired stronger roots of spirit origin in their mind. Thus they learnt to impose the primordially concocted idea of spirits on various elements of nature. Thus in the mind of early humans, a whole new world of nature spirits was born. In this world, the lakes were home for lake spirits, the trees were home for tree spirits, the rivers were home for river spirits and so on.

Thus evolved the early neurological ground for spirituality, which would later pave the way for the arrival of the modern structure of religion in the human mind. Since then the human brain has evolved a lot, especially in the intellectual domain. However, despite the intellectual development, the early instinctively spiritual sense of a Supernatural Force driving the universe, still prevails in the psyche of the general population. This primitive idea got even more reinforced when a few individuals in the history of humanity publicized their mental union with their preconceived notion of that Almighty Force or Entity. Thus, through misinterpretation of individual experiences of the simple yet subjectively extraordinary mental state of transcendence, the primitive sense of spirituality got psychologically molded into the modern humanized conception of God and Gods.

(This Article was originally published on Goodreads, under the title “Man’s Invention of God)

Further Reading

Abhijit Naskar, 2015, Neurosutra: The Abhijit Naskar Collection

Abhijit Naskar, 2016, Autobiography of God: Biopsy of A Cognitive Reality

Abhijit Naskar, 2016, Biopsy of Religions: Neuroanalysis towards Universal Tolerance

Abhijit Naskar, 2016, In Search of Divinity: Journey to The Kingdom of Conscience

[naskarism-blog]

Cause and Treatment of Misogyny

Apparently we are the smartest species on this planet. We are so civilized and advanced that we have invented cures for countless diseases, stepped foot on the moon and even sent a probe outside our solar system. But, have all these extraordinary scientific achievements truly improved the quality of life?

We the scientists have made life more comfortable, but how much really have we contributed to solving the quintessential problems of life? Modern technology has made life sophisticated, yet the whole human civilization craves for the basic elements of human existence. Civilized humans have the whole world on the palm of their hand, yet they cannot find peace and happiness. With all our scientific achievements have we really discovered any practical means to resolve the ancient conflicts of the human society yet? Have we discovered the path towards happiness?

The answer would be a straight no. Human mind is the birth place of all our inexplicable scientific achievements as well as the never ending conflicts of human society. These conflicts grab onto the human consciousness like incurable diseases.

And one of those dreadful diseases is misogyny.

Misogyny is the society’s common innate prejudice against woman. It has made the whole human civilization crippled. If you truly look, you can find misogyny everywhere in your society. Misogyny runs in the veins of the so called civilized humans. You can find it in the movies, where it is all about objectification of women.

You can even see it in the very English language, where we gloriously use terms like “Man” and “He” to refer to both genders. That’s why I try my best to avoid such stereotypical terms in my scientific works. I cannot accept such nonsensical norms in language just because the society says so. And I urge to you to think before you use such language. Ask your rational mind, and you’ll receive the answer.

We have misogyny in our society because throughout our existence as a species we have been male-dominated. It is only recently that women have become equally productive in all aspects of life. But in our primitive days, it was men fighting to protect their mates and progeny, and women nourishing the children and taking care of the home. The men were the providers of the family and the women were caretakers. And this strategy worked well for around 200,000 years. That’s why all the religious scriptures were written by men.

It’s not because God chose the men to convey the divine message, but because men appointed themselves to be the monitor of the divine domain driven by their subconscious desire masking as God’s will to become the authority figures of the society.

In my book Biopsy of Religions: Neuroanalysis towards Universal Tolerance, you can read in detail about how the human beings of our history constructed such fascinating organized structure of religions and why most of those religions promote sinister ideas of misogyny and polygamy while despising the common biological phenomenon of homosexuality.

What’s the point of so many scriptures and highly venerated figures in philosophy, if they don’t possess the simple ability to teach us plain ordinary everyday kindness for both man and woman?

Men are neurologically designed to crave for authority and power over everything around them. It is the product of millions of years of evolution, so it cannot be erased just like that over a few decades or even centuries. It’ll take time, till the society starts to perceive men and women to be equal. But for that future to arrive sooner, we must join hands and start making efforts right now. The actions we take now shall define our future. We cannot just leave the primitive biological feature of misogyny untreated just because it’s evolution. Evolution is a relentless process of biological life. It never stops. And things we do now, shall prepare a less primitive evolutionary future of the human race.

Now is the time, that you think over this matter seriously. Because if we don’t, we’ll end up carrying on the monstrous prejudicial tradition of misogyny forever. We’ll end up leading our world back to the Stone Age.

As I have said in my book Prescription: Treating India’s Soul, “neglect of women is the major cause for the society’s downfall.”

The man and the woman are the two wheels of the society. If either one becomes defective, the society cannot make progress. There will be hope for the well-being of the entire world only if the humans, men and women alike, stop deeming the women as some kind of inferior creatures. We, the responsible citizens of the world can build a better future for the entire species, only by improving the condition of the women.

And here I am not advocating for feminism. Even though the advocates of feminism gladly use the term to refer to equality between man and woman, the common human brain is not capable of perceiving such equality beyond the gender bias of the very word. It’ll be same as using Man to refer to both genders.

Hence, the only words suitable in this scenario are Humanism and Human, rather than Feminism and Man. The future of the human society is at stake here. Those of you who will one day become parents, remember, it is imperative that you raise your children as modern humans of the advanced human civilization, rather than raising boys or girls.

If only one generation takes action in raising their children as Humans, rather than raising boys and girls, the future human civilization shall get rid of the sinister phenomenon of misogyny sooner than you can imagine.

Dear sisters and brothers, share this article with your freethinking friends and start working together in the pursuit of making this world a better place for the future generations.

(This Article was first published on Goodreads)

Further Reading

Abhijit Naskar, 2015, Love Sutra: The Neuroscientific Manual of Love

Abhijit Naskar, 2016, Biopsy of Religions: Neuroanalysis towards Universal Tolerance

Abhijit Naskar, 2016, What is Mind?

[naskarism-blog]

Science behind ESP

ESP or Extra Sensory Perception. One of the most controversial human experiences on earth. It is a topic on which a lot has been discussed and debated yet very little has been known. So, in this article I shall bring you all the plausible scientific explanations behind this bizarre phenomenon of the human mind.

The first thing you need to know about ESP, is that we scientists have not yet fully understood the phenomenon. Moreover, many scientists except for those who are somehow connected to the field of parapsychology, turn a deaf ear to all the possible scientific explanations. That’s not really the concern of us Neuroscientists. Our purpose is to unravel the mysteries of all kinds of human experiences, no matter how bizarre they look on the outside. So, we cannot completely defy something so fascinating as ESP. Explanations for the most bizarre phenomena on earth most of the times are very hard to find, but that doesn’t mean there is no explanation. It all depends on how far one is able to go, in the pursuit of finding the explanation.

To be honest, all humans on planet earth experience some kind of extra sensory perception in their daily life. But before we proceed, I should give a basic introduction to this idea of ESP, for those who are hearing it for the first time. ESP is a kind of perception which is perceived not with the five senses of the human body. It is what many people call Sixth Sense. It manifests in the human mind in many ways.

You’ll probably get it more easily if I give you some examples. How many times has it happened that you are for no specific reason thinking about someone and the person arrives at your door or gives you a phone call!

How many times has it happened that you had a dream of a relative, and the next day you find out that the person has been in some kind of trouble. Or perhaps while doing your daily chores, quite out of the blue, your heart starts racing, hands shaking and you start sweating. And along comes a feeling that something bad is about to happen. And later you find out that somebody you know or one of your blood relatives has been in an accident.

All these bizarre phenomena fall into the category of ESP. Some of us neuroscientists and the parapsychologists have been studying these phenomena for a long time. And the evidence is too significant to call these phenomena as coincidence. ESP do indeed occur.

So far we have developed several possible scientific hypothesis for ESP. But the most plausible one is that human brains are capable of sharing information through Earth’s geomagnetic field. And we have countless clinical reports that show, any kind of anomaly in the geomagnetic field affects the neural functioning of the brain. So the link between Mother Earth and the human brain has already been proven. And that’s the link we scientists are following to understand ESP. To have a detail perspective on all the scientific explanations behind various ESP phenomena you can read my book Your Own Neuron A Tour of Your Psychic Brain. The book deals with all kinds of apparently paranormal phenomena, such as ESP, vivid near death experiences etc.

But you must remember, despite the fact that we have highly plausible scientific explanations for ESP, it is still all hypothesis. We haven’t yet been able to prove it as a fact of Science. The biggest problem with understanding the Science behind ESP, is that until now we have no way to replicate an ESP phenomenon. Because they happen naturally in the human mind, and mostly in incidents of crisis. And we cannot take the unscientific risk of triggering an ESP phenomenon in the human mind by putting another person into a crisis.

Such phenomena are unpredictable. And in most cases they occur out of the blue. So it is close to impossible to trigger such phenomena in a controlled environment.

And as I said they happen to everybody. And in quite unexpected ways. So, all those people who claim to be real psychics are actually either con artists or pathologically delusional. We can classify those psychic claims into four categories of people. In the first category, we can put all the fraudsters. These people cover the majority of the psychic claims. In the second category, we can put naive uneducated lay people who due to superstitious reasons believe that they possess psychic abilities. Mostly they make their psychic claims based on gut instinct which they believe to be ESP. Now comes the third category. In this category, we can put the people who claim to be psychics due to some kind of pathological condition. Which means an anomaly in their brain makes them believe that their hallucinations are some kind of ESP. Now comes the fourth category. Even though I am calling it a category, we simply don’t have enough evidence to back up the theory. Based on everything we have seen through decades on parapsychological research, there could a slight possibility that there are a handful of people in the whole planet, who probably have some sort of grip over the natural phenomenon of ESP. But again, it is our hunch, not a scientific fact. And in usual circumstances these true psychics, which we might call them, would be so rare, that you may never meet them in your lifetime. In most cases whom we do come across in our daily life as psychics, are con artists.

If we talk about psychic abilities, even you have such abilities. How many times has it happened that you think of a word and suddenly the person in front spits out the very word. These are random incidents that occur in everybody daily life. It cannot be controlled or simulated. It is something that happens when you least expect it.

So don’t fall prey to all the fraudsters around you claiming to be psychics. In most cases they use what we call in psychology Barnum statements. Astrology, tarot card reading, and all those hocus focus stuff around you, use these statements. The special feature of these statements is that they happen to be true for almost any human being. And especially when a person goes to a psychic expecting answers to various confusing questions, his or brain automatically embraces the common statements from the psychic as exclusive remarks about the person. Your brain always keeps anticipating a pattern even in the chaos. So unless you have a true rational mind filled with scientific curiosity it is very likely for you to become a prey to those predators who are always looking to feed on the sufferings of good and gullible people.

However, if a grieving person visits a psychic to get in touch with the departed soul of his or her dear one, in the hope for having solace, then I really don’t have any idea how to convince the person that the so called psychics are frauds. Because to the grieving person, the psychic acts as a ray of hope – the last resort to say good bye to a person whom he or she cared about.

But for this very purpose we have the field of psychiatry. We have developed highly advanced anti depressants, mood stabilisers and various other medications that can help in easing the grief. Now it is upto a person’s own conscience, which one to choose.

As far as the human mind is concerned, when it is in distress, all it cares about is finding hope. And it doesn’t matter to the mind where that hope comes from. It is all about self preservation. And above all, it is about survival. When the mind is weak, it is easy to succumb to all kinds of fantasies and superstitions. But when such fantasies and superstitions become barriers in the path of the civilization’s progress, then it is imperative that we the modern human beings do our best to shake them off.

The point is, your brain always constructs various cognitive mechanisms to reinforce superstitious belief systems. Every human being is neurologically predisposed to be superstitious. However, to counteract such superstitions the brain has also developed the feature of reasoning in the neural network of the frontal lobes. But in times of distress, that feature gets highly suppressed by the overwhelming feeling of sadness and anxiety. Hence, lack of reasoning leads the mind to seek absolution in the supernatural domain of the society.

However, those who practice reasoning and rational thinking in daily circumstances, are much more likely to avoid the hocus focus stuff in times of distress, than those who don’t. It is all about realization of the self. Understanding your inner potential. Get acquainted with various domains of your mind. And that’s the purpose of my work. To make you familiar with your inner self.

(This Article was originally published on Goodreads)

Further Reading

Abhijit Naskar, 2015, The Art of Neuroscience in Everything

Abhijit Naskar, 2015, Your Own Neuron: A Tour of Your Psychic Brain

[naskarism-blog]

Unraveling Conscious, Subconscious & Unconscious Mind

Human mind – what a fantastic phrase! It is the most fascinating biological operating system on this planet, that cannot be simulated on any computer no matter how advanced. Unlike a computer’s operating system, each human brain constructs its own unique operating mind, that later on drives the entire mental universe of that specific brain and none others.

In this brief article we shall dive into the various levels of human mind. These levels are commonly known as Conscious, Subconscious and Unconscious Mind.

Now, do not get baffled by the superficial terms. These sophisticated terms only look complex from the outside because since Neuroscience is still in infancy, we the neuroscientists have been busy ourselves studying the neurological roots of the mind. And what we have discovered is that underneath their blinding shine of sophistication, there lies plain human biology. The biology that constructs your mental universe.

In short, your Conscious mind is responsible for all your perceptual reality. It is the part of your consciousness that enables you to be aware of your environment as well as interact with it.

Now comes the subconscious mind. This one is the part of consciousness that in usual circumstances of your daily life remains hidden right below the surface of your conscious awareness. It is the mind where all your suppressed emotions and desires are trashed.

And in the end comes the unconscious mind. This part of your mind remains asleep throughout your lifetime at the bottom of your consciousness. It is the most primitive mental construct which you share with the reptiles. It holds an innate beast that has been there since your reptilian days.

Now, let me tell you about the amazing neurology behind all these levels of the human mind.

If I ask you, are you conscious right now? You’d go right ahead and tell me – yes. That’s because your conscious mind is constructing an awareness in you about everything around you. And underneath that operation of your conscious mind, there are billions of neurons working in proper harmony. Various brain regions work together to construct your conscious awareness of your environment. In this whole construction process, there are two brain regions that require specific mention. These are the limbic system and the frontal lobes of your brain. The limbic system is responsible for all your emotional responses, that are major elements of your conscious experiences. And the frontal lobes, or more specifically the prefrontal cortex acts as a filter for those emotions as well as your behavioral responses. Emotions and behaviors that the prefrontal cortex deems inappropriate, never reach the surface of your conscious mind. Hence, they are trashed into the depth of your subconscious mind. They remain hidden in the depth of your limbic system.

Over time the pile of subconscious kinky desires and repressed emotions gets heavier. And if this junkyard of your subconscious mind is not cleansed every now and then by bringing the repressed emotions up to the surface of the conscious mind, then it would start affecting the mental and physical health of a person. All the repressed emotions and subconscious desires in time lead to some kind of psychological or physiological breakdown, if kept unchecked. It is what we call Conversion Disorder in clinical terms. Previously it was known as Hysteria.

We get to know the essentials of hysteria from the joint work of Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud, known as Studies in Hysteria first published 1895. The book contains an introductory paper and five individual studies of hysteria – Breuer’s famous case of Anna O. and four more by Freud. But the condition of Conversation Disorder or Hysteria dates back to Ancient Greece.

It can happen to anybody. However women are more prone to having hysteria than men, because of their innate monthly hormonal storms. The harder you try to keep your feelings inside, which you think as inappropriate to express, the more vulnerable you become to conversion disorder symptoms.

Does this mean, you should just express every single inappropriate feeling and desire of yours in public? Off course not. I am not a psycho psychologist to suggest you that.

But here is another way to keep your subconscious mind light and with less junk. You just need to clean your subconscious sewage drain with a close friend or your romantic partner every now and then. You just need to talk your feelings out to someone close. It is that easy. Just spit all of it out, whether it is sorrow, anger or kinky sexual thoughts. It is better to express your repressed feelings to a friend for free, than to pay thousands of dollars to a psychiatrist for the same emotional outburst later in life. You can read more about the emotional domain of the human mind in my book The Art of Neuroscience in Everything.

Now comes the unconscious mind. This part of your Mind goes back millions of years to the reptilian days in our evolutionary history. Several ancient regions of the limbic system house this primitive side of your mind. It holds some of the basic instinctual behaviors such as aggression, territoriality etc.

This primitive part of your mind gives rise to those emotional and behavioral traits that never go well with the modern norms of the society. These traits assisted our hominid ancestors to survive in the wild. But today in this civilized world, that monster from our primeval past is kept strictly dormant under the watch of the frontal lobes of your brain. However, in times of utter distress, this beast wakes up and takes hold of your conscious mind and responds in the form of fight or flight. And when it comes out, it actual enables you to tackle a life and death situation in a way, that you can never do with your usual state of consciousness.

For example, we have countless reports of parents lifting vehicles to rescue their children in life and death situations. In these incidents the primeval beast inside otherwise ordinary people lashed out to save their dear ones. And that fight or flight response resulted in an incredible strength which we call hysterical strength.

Thus, though I am calling this ancient part of our consciousness a beast, I am calling so, considering its beastly features. And if such life and death situations occur, that beast is our nearest biological hope.

So, as you can see, all your conscious, subconscious and unconscious realms of the mind have their own basic biological features. They function in proper harmony with each other to give you a rich mental universe. And now that you know how they function, you can make your mental universe even richer and healthier.

(This Article was first published on Goodreads.)

Further Reading

Abhijit Naskar, 2015, The Art of Neuroscience in Everything

Abhijit Naskar, 2015, Homo: A Brief History of Consciousness

Abhijit Naskar, 2016, What is Mind?

[naskarism-blog]

What is Consciousness?

Consciousness is something all of us share, or rather without it, we’d cease to exist. It is what makes us the most advanced species on this planet. Consciousness is the most simple and common phenomenon on this planet, yet in the hands of hardcore philosophers and mystics it has become the most complex one. So, the question I shall be answering today is — what is consciousness?

In short, consciousness is the basic awareness of being alive in any organism. It is the rudimentary biological phenomenon that enables an organism to respond to its environment. Every single organism on this planet has consciousness. And the higher we climb up the tree of life, the more complex and advanced the consciousness becomes. And the species that possesses the most advanced consciousness on earth is us, the Homo sapiens.

Consciousness has remained an enigmatic mystery for time immemorial, mostly by the exaggeration of the philosophers. However, with the advancement of Neuroscience in the last few decades, we have truly begun our journey to explore the true biological foundation of consciousness. And even though philosophers and mystics throughout the world want you to believe otherwise, the foundation of consciousness lies in the complex interplay of the brain circuits. Or in short, consciousness is born in your brain.

Human brain is the most complex organized structure in the universe. It is the biological organ with mind boggling capabilities. It is made up of a hundred billion nerve cells or neurons. And the relentless activity of these neurons gives rise to the fascinating phenomenon, which we call human consciousness. All our feelings, emotions, thoughts, ambitions, religious sentiments and even our sense of self are simply born from the activity of these little specks of jelly in our head.

Every living creature on this planet is conscious. It is the most common element of life. Without consciousness life doesn’t exist. Because consciousness enables a creature to understand the basic biological needs of survival. It is all in the nervous system. Even the plants have a kind of nervous system. The response of a plant to physical stimuli is a consequence of long range electrical signaling through the entire plant body. This is similar to the basic characteristics of the neurobiology in animals.

We can tell a lot about a creature’s level of consciousness by understanding their perception of death. For example, we see a fascinating behavior in crows concerning death. When a crow dies, other crows vigilantly gather around its body. They perceive the death of their fellow crow as murder. And their vigilance over the dead crow serves a significant purpose. By sticking close to the crow that was killed, other crows may improve their chances of learning about the predators that they need to avoid.

Human rituals for dealing with the dead are vivid and varied. While on the other hand, few animals show more than a passing interest in confronting a dead animal of their own species. For example, African elephants hold a funeral while touching and grooming a dead elephant. Similar behavior can be seen in bottlenose dolphins, chimpanzees and certain species of magpies. We are only starting to understand those behaviors and their level of consciousness.

In short, the more complex the neurobiology gets, the more advanced one’s consciousness becomes. And in humans this advancement has gone far beyond the primitive concerns of survival. So the bottom line is, your vividly conscious rich mental universe is simply a construct of your neurobiology. It is what makes you you. It is what makes you unique. It is what makes you attain unimaginable feats of excellence.

However, the air of mystery surrounding consciousness has provided the philosophers and mystics means for survival for ages, but as we neuroscientists keep on exploring further the mysterious domain of consciousness the majority of the philosophers feel threatened. Because the very existence of the philosophers and the mystics is predicated on their metaphysical approach towards explaining consciousness. Which means, the longer they keep it a mystery, the more they can manipulate the minds of masses with magical mysticism. The purpose of a scientist is to understand every single mysterious phenomenon of this universe, while the hardcore philosophers only attempt to sustain the mysteries as long as they can.

Every true scientist is a philosopher, but not every philosopher is a scientist. Philosophy enables us to imagine the infinite, while science helps us get there. As my dear friend and Mathematician Ronald Cicurel says “our brain works on hypothesis”. Here a hypothesis is nothing but a plausible future scenario that our brain simulates based on our predominant ideas, fantasies and beliefs. And then we start working on making that hypothesis a reality.

The point it, there is a fascinating mechanism behind everything in this universe. And we scientists attempt to understand those mysteries. Here one might say, it is typical materialistic perspective. While the reality is, there is no such thing as materialism. The very concept itself is an illusion. Our species evolved around 200,000 years ago in Africa. And we have spent most of our lifetime in the fear of the unknown. We have remained ignorant for thousands of years. And now that we have started to become the true master of the planet, and to reveal the secrets of everything that surrounds us, this very venture feels like a dreadful change to the masses. Thus, in order to sustain the mystery of the unknown, the concept of materialism was born in the human mind. Nobody is to blame here. It is plain subconscious behavior.

However, it is the responsibility of us scientists and all those young students of science to share our discoveries with the world in simple tasteful words. It is our responsibility to awaken the people into the new world of science and reasoning. The darkness of ignorance and fear only thrives in the absence of knowledge. Once the flame of knowledge is bright enough, there shall be no more darkness.

(This Article was first published on Goodreads.)

Further Reading Abhijit Naskar, 2015, Neurosutra: The Abhijit Naskar Collection Abhijit Naskar, 2016, What is Mind?