In the previous part, the author shows how perception is a valid and the most important pramaana for gaining knowledge in Indian traditions. He suggests an experiment to show that perception is instantaneous and that such instantaneousness of perception is not explicable without the self. In the present part, Naik presents his proof for the existence of the Self from its Kriya Shakti using probabilities, correlations, and causations.

THE EXISTENCE OF THE SELF – THE PROOF FROM KRIYA SHAKTI

The Evidence Is Ubiquitous

The prior existence of consciousness is necessary for the universe to make its presence known to us. Kriya shakti is the power of consciousness that can cause movement and effect changes in physical bodies. This power is ubiquitous and we are all familiar with it. It is the power we exercise when we move to do anything or to speak. In materialism, this power has its source in the mechanisms of the physical body and the brain. Indian traditions ascribe this power to an intangible incorporeal substance existing within the body.

Socrates was one of the few Western philosophers who recognized the presence of this power in living beings. Physicalists tend to dismiss both free-will and any substance (soul or mind) exercising this free will over physical objects. Physicalism entails that the objects we perceive are all subjective phenomena, a kind of virtual reality as it were, and not real physical objects. However, the physicalist account of perception brings into question the very existence of physical objects.

In Indian philosophy, the perceived world is the real world. Even for Advaita Vedanta with a provisional acceptance of such realism, the perceived world is still the real world. It is not some imperceptible world existing beyond the limits of speech and cognition as held by Indirect Realists. Indian philosophy considers knowability and nameability to be the common characteristics of all objects. A world that can be neither cognized nor referred to by language is an incongruity.

‘Order’ and Verifiability Criteria

In thermodynamics, the terms ‘order’ and ’disorder’ are closely related to entropy which is a measure of the thermal energy in a system that is unavailable for doing useful work. All physical processes within a closed system involve an increase in entropy or decrease in order; this is an inviolable law of physics.

According to some people, entropy can decrease in pockets, apparently defying the second law, but is extremely unlikely (like the odds of shaking the parts of a watch and have them fall into place as a working timepiece). Evolutionists attempt to show how ordered complexity can indeed arise from natural phenomena over long periods of time, occurring one small step after another. However, whether a clock comes into existence or disintegrates, the thermodynamic entropy of the system always increases. Even in evolution, the thermodynamic law of entropy stays intact. Obviously, scholars confuse the notions of entropy and order as defined in thermodynamics with the common sense notion of order.

The author looks at the phenomenon of ‘order’ as a change in spatial dispersions of matter from an initial chaotic (or random) state to a final state of a spatially ordered configuration. This creates a sense of order in our minds. The author comes with the strong hypothesis that order of this kind would never come about through the operations of physical laws alone. This ‘order’ has nothing to do with thermodynamic entropy or thermodynamic order. People arguing against physicalism have rather thoughtlessly used thermodynamic terms and weakened their own cases, says the author.

There are many million instances of such ordered complexity every second arising from disordered dispersals of matter. Brand new cars, clocks, beehives, microchips, aircraft, and giant buildings come into existence all over the planet every second. Order comes out of disorder on a regular basis, yet we fail to notice it amazingly. In all the examples above, there is one thing common: the creation of order out of disorder springs from the presence of living beings. Clearly, life tends to disrupt the operations of the physical universe.

Any hypothesis in Indian traditions needs verifiability for acceptance (unlike the falsifiability criterion of science). The verification criterion that the author chooses to employ uses difference in probabilities between the following two cases:

1. Case 1: The probability of the creation of an ordered spatial configuration when they are subject purely to physical laws.
2. Case 2: The probability of the creation of an ordered spatial configuration when there is the intervention of living beings.

If there should be a significant difference between the probabilities in the two cases, we may infer that the intervention of living beings introduces into the system something over and above the operation of the physical laws. Living beings consist of an extra-corporeal element possessing the power to act upon and influence the spatial configurations of physical bodies.

The Proof

Obviously, in real-life situations, it would hardly be possible to formulate the probability functions for evaluating the exact probabilities in the two cases due to the great number of variables, events and possibilities involved in them. Unlike a simple case like the tossing of a coin, in cases like assembling a clock or an aeroplane, there are thousands of components each of which would give rise to an event space comprising almost infinite possibilities in terms of their locations and their attitudinal orientations in space.

Fortunately, it is not necessary to evaluate the exact values of the probabilities; it is enough for us to show that the probability would invariably be tending towards zero in one case and to a value tending towards one in the other case. The author then derives the probabilities using an idealized situation. Briefly, if m and n represent the outcome of a component in terms of its spatial location and attitudinal orientation respectively and k represents the number of components, the author derives the probability of a product by random mixing of the parts, without any human intervention, as:

[(1/m) x (1/n)] ^k-1

As a vivid example, if one divides the space within the boundaries of the system into 1000 spatial locations and 1000 attitudinal orientations and if the number of components is 100, then the probability of the product to arise would be:

[(1/1000) x (1/1000)]^100-1 = [(1/10)⁶]⁹⁹ = (1/10)¹⁰⁵

The probability value is a decimal point followed by a hundred and five zeroes and a one- a very small number. In a real-life situation, the probability value would be much lower than this number because there would be no ready-made component parts and we would have to compute the probabilities of each of the components arising through nothing more than the operations of the natural laws alone. That alone would be very insignificant numbers. Not surprising that the real-life probability would be such a small number that it may take millions or billions of years for the product to fall in place. The probability thus tends to zero in Case 1 scenario- creation of an ordered spatial configuration of matter from random dispersions of the matter when subject purely to the physical laws.

But now consider what would happen if a human being possessed with an intent to assemble the product were to enter the scene. All the components would suddenly, and magically as it were, obtain 100% biases to be in the exact spatial locations and exact attitudinal orientations as required for them to fall into place as a working product. In other words, the probability of the product production will be 1 or, making some allowance for human error, we may say that it will tend to be 1.

When matter is subject purely to physical laws, the probability of the material parts coming together in some ordered configuration tends to zero. But in the presence of human intent, suddenly the probability of the material parts coalescing into some ordered configuration begins to approach the value 1. Thus, one will have to presuppose the presence of some extra-corporeal entity acting in a goal-directed manner to explain the kind of outcome that obtains in this case; and it is the presence of human beings that brings about such an outcome. Thus, the human being cannot be merely an aggregate of the physical bodily parts but also consists of an incorporeal (intangible) substance possessing the capacity for intentional action.

What Does This Proof Achieve?

Everybody knows that the probability of clocks arising by chance is very low and that when human beings with the intent to create them enter the scene these artefacts do come into existence. What does mathematical proof of a common sense event try to achieve?

Firstly, the mere fact that the phenomena in the arguments are commonplace does not make the reasoning faulty. Some of the most famous discoveries of science (like gravity) were by recognizing the most commonplace phenomena staring at us all along. Similarly, we are looking at a power of the self, or of intentional action, right in its face and are not recognizing it.

Secondly, in presenting this proof, there is the setting up of a verifiability criterion by which the truth of the proposition can become verifiable. Indian philosophy stresses on verifiability criteria and not falsifiability for validity. Thirdly, the proof is the establishment of a correlation between the presence of intention and the outcomes of ordered dispersions of matter happening repeatedly, millions of times every year, in the form of the production of cars, beehives, microchips, aeroplanes, buildings and a million more things. In each case, there is the presence of intention and actions directed towards the material components which acquire 100% biases to be in exactly the required spaces and the required orientations to fall in place. There is a case to establish a definite causal connection between the intention and the results of ordered configurations of matter.

This correlation, or vyapti in Indian logic, enables one to infer the presence of the soul from the presence of goal-oriented actions. For, where there is an intentional action, there is always a soul present as the source. Yet, in contemporary discourse, intention does not have the pride of place as an ontological principle. It simply is a manifestation of some underlying physical state in the brain or body. The ‘explaining away’ is not through a logical elucidation but by asserting a dogma.

The dogma lulls the mind into thinking that the phenomenon cited for the inference of the self is a mere appearance leaving the reader confused regarding the nature of the proof. Thus, it is imperative to undertake a philosophical investigation of the belief that goal-oriented actions are nothing more than manifestations of underlying physical processes and show it to be a mere dogma. This refutation of the dogma forms the second part of the proof for the establishment of the existence of the self.

Refutation of The Dogmas: Inexplicability from Physical Causes

The author considers four major objections to his thesis that proceed from the dogma and show them as unsustainable.

Objection 1: Intentional Action Is A Result of The Body Mechanism

The objection states that human intention, or intention in living beings in general, is a phenomenal appearance of underlying physical states or processes in the body. The author says that this is merely the proposition itself posturing to be an argument. It simply is the overarching assumption of physicalism, namely that natural or physical causes alone can explain all things, disguised as an argument. This proposition needs proof as being universally true and not on a hope that things will work out in favour of the proposition at some future time. Science is yet to account for the outcome of life through physical processes.

All the various phenomena for which science has been able to offer satisfactory explanations so far are phenomena that belong wholly to the domain of the perceptible world (kshetra). One can justify extrapolation for other yet-to-be-explained phenomena in this domain. However, the phenomenon of goal-oriented actions proceeding from living beings is not in the domain of the kshetra. The extrapolation becomes unjustified and unwarranted when it defines the relationship between the two different domains- kshetra and the kshetrajna (the field and the perceiver of the field).

The scientific theory of perception and the modern investigation into the nature of consciousness has many inconsistencies and logical conundrums. It is a known fact that aspects of reality pertaining to the relation between the observed and the observer are exclusions to the general rule. In which case, how can we use the general rule to derive conclusions about those that are exclusions to the general rule? One can thus ignore or discard the conclusion derived from the extrapolation, namely that science will one day be able to explain the goal-oriented actions of living beings solely through the mechanics of physical causes.

The purely physicalist explanation for certain aspects of reality, such as the phenomenal texture of experience, the possibility of perceiving the external objects of the world, the presence of goal-directed actions in living beings, have met with limited success. But the conceptions of soul, mind, and matter as held in the Indian philosophical tradition removes many difficulties and harmonizes the relationships between these entities. In contemporary culture, it is not reason but a hegemonic approach that dictates the way. The great successes of the physical sciences have given these sciences an authority that is paradoxically coming in the way of understanding reality.

Objection 2: The Actions Performed by Computer-Controlled Machines Disprove That Goal-Oriented Actions Require the Presence of a Soul

Even computers, or more specifically computer-controlled machines such as robots, should possess souls since they too exhibit such goal-oriented actions. If we deny souls for them, we should logically deny the presence of a soul in human beings too merely on the yardstick of goal-oriented behaviour. Naik says that the fault lies with the way the opponent has understood the invariable concomitance relationship.

When goal-oriented actions point to the presence of a soul, it does not imply that the soul should be present in the immediate vicinity of the goal-oriented actions nor does it mean that the soul should be present within the object exhibiting the goal-oriented actions. The goal-oriented actions have their origin in an incorporeal soul and not in a material thing. All the goal-oriented actions these machines perform have their source and origin in human beings. It is not really the computer or the computer-controlled machine that imparts goal-orientation to the actions exhibited; human beings alone impart the goal-orientation to the machine. Yet, what is it that provides philosophers and scientists with the ground to maintain such a brazen denial of a soul? It is only through certain dogma that has gained enormous currency in the contemporary world.

Objection 3:  It Is Possible for All Kinds of Objects to Get Created by Accident

The physicalist now comes up with his prized argument. It is solely the physical constitution and configuration that provides a machine to perform these goal-oriented actions. Just like any configuration, the human body too can come into existence by accident even though the probability of such an occurrence may be extremely low. Such an event would mark the beginning of a new epoch; for the human being that comes into existence would be a self-replicating being, entirely physical and soul-less, but goal-oriented. Thus: a) a purely physical being can be a source of goal-oriented actions and, b) all kinds of things, including inanimate things like clocks and animate things like human beings, can come into existence purely by accidents of nature.

These two influential ideas are nothing more than products of flawed and unsound reasoning which believes that like machines, goal-oriented actions of human beings should also be a property of the physical human body alone. The basic flaw in the reasoning adopted by the physicalist is the conflation of the capacity for performing goal-oriented actions for being a source of goal-oriented actions. The originator of the goal-oriented actions is the human being alone.

The legitimate conclusion is that the physical human body can perform goal-oriented actions just as a computer-controlled machine does, but the conclusion cannot overstep its legitimate limit and conclude that the physical human body can thus be the source or originator of these goal-oriented actions. A human being must possess something over and above the physical body – an extra-corporeal element or soul – by which it obtains the capacity to be the originator of goal-oriented actions.

The second point that the physicalist seeks to drive home is that it is possible for any kind of object- simple or complex; inanimate or animate, as an accident of nature. It is all a matter of probability. The incredulity of the proposition that clocks and aeroplanes can be accidental is just a personal attitude and not a legitimate argument to disprove the proposition, say the physicalists. The evolutionists and atheists propagate this idea passionately that it has come to acquire the status of ‘an established truth’.

According to the evolutionists like Dawkins, complexity is the property of an object that has a very slim probability of existing in nature but which still does. Mountains are not complex because their components are in a wide variety of configurations and the aggregate would still be a mountain. Only an object conforming to an archetypal plan (like a clock, aeroplane, humans) would get its respective name and become a complex object.

The author holds that most complex objects would never come by chance. That a clock or a Boeing 747 aircraft, can emerge by throwing pieces of junk around at random is a cavalier attitude not befitting a philosopher. The author takes the examples of the possibility by random mixing or spontaneous transformation of two independent rings into an interlocking pattern and two plates coming together by a nut and bolt as shown below:

The author then shows in detail that there are three primary factors that would prevent such complex object formations by accident of nature. The author examines them in depth in the fourth chapter of the book and in summary, they are:

1. Certain Laws of nature: Laws of nature such as Pauli’s exclusion principle prevent certain kinds of spatial configurations of matter from occurring in nature. For this discussion, we can ignore them because such laws are applicable at the particulate level of the universe and not at the level of compounded macro objects.
2. The presence of interlocking parts: Complex objects like clocks and aeroplanes will never form by accident because they have interlocking parts that pose obstructions for accidental assembly.

• The phenomenon of decay and decomposition: The phenomenon of decay and decomposition, which is universally applicable to all material things, will prevent the accidental production of the parts of the complex product from ever happening. If the parts themselves cannot come into existence, the possibility of the product by accidents of nature gets occluded.

These factors perpetually close the possibility of the spontaneous emergence of complex objects. And the regularity and repeatability of such occurrences occurring in the presence of living beings would be inexplicable unless one accepts the presence of something over and above the physical configuration of the body.

Objection 4: Complex Objects Can Get Created by Natural Selection

Now, the physicalist takes the help of mutation. Some complex objects of the biological or organic world do come accidentally through natural selection. These appear over extended periods of time through the accumulation of incremental changes by mutation. A specific mutant of the parent gene passes on to its progeny which gives it more ability to survive than those who do not have the mutation. There is no intention or design involved in natural selection; it is a blind and natural process. The accumulation of changes by successive mutations over a great many generations results in the manifestation of a complex organism.

Chittaranjan Naik says that had mutation been a universal phenomenon present both in the inorganic and organic worlds, then the physicalist’s assertion that mutation is a blind process would have been true. But its absence in the inorganic world and presence solely in the organic world indicates that it has a binding relationship with the factor that makes a thing a living thing. Now, we have seen that goal-oriented actions originate in an incorporeal substance in the body (soul) beyond the laws of physics. How can we assume then that the phenomenon of mutation itself is free from influence, either directly or indirectly, by the presence of this incorporeal substance?

There are two sources of intelligence associated with the body of a living being:

1. The intelligence that belongs to the soul and which has the capacity of willing the motor organs of the body into goal-oriented activity
2. The intelligence that has designed and architected the body and which provides superintendence of the activities that enable it to perform its various activities in a coordinated manner

These two intelligences are analogous to the two intelligences that are involved in the acceleration of a car, the first intelligence being the intelligence of the driver who presses his feet on the pedal of the accelerator and the second intelligence being the intelligence of the designer of the car who has provided the car with the capability to respond to the pressing of the accelerator pedal with an increase in the speed.

The motor organ responds to the will of the first intelligence by springing into activity and performing the actions willed by it. The second consists of the various supplementary functions not directly willed by the first intelligence but enable the motor organ to function. These include the functioning of the bones, the muscles, and so on for the proper functioning of the motor organ. Such a coordinated activity is an engineering feat only achieved by an intelligent entity, and these activities pertain to the second intelligence.

Admittedly, a mutation would result in the production of new genes which pass on from parent to progeny during the process of reproduction. Now, the reproductive act – at least in those species of living beings that propagate through the sexual union – is one of the five motor functions of the body. While the sexual act is itself driven for experiencing pleasure or for begetting progeny, the support functions that enable the entire reproduction process could not have come into existence without the superintendence of an intelligent agent.

Just as there is necessarily some intelligence behind the coordinated functioning of the various parts of a motor car, likewise it needs admission that there is necessarily some intelligence behind the coordinated functioning of the various parts of the human body including mutation itself. Like each function in a motor car has a purpose or a telos, each part and each function in a human body has a purpose. The presence of phenomena such as cell multiplication, copying of genetic information, and mutation is evidence of the presence of a Supreme Being who not only controls the functioning of the bodies of all living beings but also of there being a purpose behind each of these processes and functions of the body.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, scientists such as J.S Haldane, watched with dismay while physicalism began to take over the field of biology. He wrote that the phenomena of life imply a fundamental conception different from those of physical science. Haldane stated that the widely spread popular belief that the physical and chemical structure of a living organism accounts for its specific behaviour was baseless.

Cell replication and gene mutation within the context of cell replication is not phenomena determined by physical processes alone. Evolutionists like Richard Dawkins attempt to use mutation to show how it can lead to cumulative selection and evolution over very long periods of time. But Naik says, they are demonstrating, contrary to what they had set out to demonstrate, that evolution, if true, cannot be a blind process. It would necessarily be dependent on a mutation engineered by an incorporeal intelligence.

While evolutionists try to portray processes such as cell multiplication and mutation as blind processes, they are, at the same time, unable to explain how these processes began to manifest in living organisms in the first place. As seen before, a very complex object like a living organism capable of performing cell division and cell replication cannot be done by accident. There is occlusion of its creation firstly, by interlocking parts which prevent their assembly by accident and, secondly, by the universal phenomenon of decay and decomposition which prevents the formation of parts of the complex object from the chaotic conditions of matter. The creation of the bodies of living organisms is not the result of a set of physical processes but is the handiwork of an Intelligent Being, says Chittaranjan Naik.

QED

Random dispersions of matter do not rearrange themselves into ordered dispersions of matter when left to themselves and to the laws of physics. The probability of it occurring would be so minuscule that it would likely take a million years or a billion years for the result to actualize in the world. Yet, when human beings with the intent to produce such ordered dispersions of matter are present, these events do occur many times over; even millions of such ordered dispersions every month or every year. There is a correlation along with temporality of the highest order (when A comes before B, the correlation is near 1; when B comes before A, the correlation is near zero). Such correlations prove A causing B; in this case the soul causing ordered physical matter from disorder.

Evidently, the presence of human beings introduces something more into the situation than the behaviour of material objects operating solely under the physical laws. One needs to presuppose the presence of some entity, namely the self or soul, as a resident within the body of the human being. Ordinarily, this would suffice to prove the existence of the self because it constitutes a valid inference.

Yet, the contemporary world views intentional or goal-oriented action as a manifestation of some underlying physical process in the body or brain. Therefore, a thorough examination of all the objections raised by the physicalist shows them as mere dogmas. As a corollary, the invariable correlation between goal-oriented actions and the presence of living beings (the origin of the goal-oriented actions) points to the existence of an element, namely the soul, within living beings. Thus, purely physical causes and physical processes cannot explain goal-oriented actions. It follows then that the physical world does not form a causal closure.

In the next part, the author distils the Indian traditional view of the Self or the soul. He also lays the logical basis for refuting the Western criticisms of the conception of the soul.