“If Vishnu exists, I am his avatar.” – Kedar Joshi

“Science, religion, history, philosophy all spring from myths just as mere facts arise from universal truths.” – Raam Gokhale

“It is a myth, not a mandate, a fable not a logic, and symbol rather than a reason by which men are moved.” – Irwin Edman

Scene & Players: Ram, Kedar, Sushama are at Sushama’s spare house enjoying tea.

Sushama: Myths, legends, fables, fairy tales share many common elements. I can guess why you’ve chosen to focus on myths but I’d like to hear it from you just the same.

Ram: OK. Legends, like King Arthur, can have origins in actual historical events. Fables, like Aesop’s, have a moralizing component. Fairy tales, like Cinderella, strive to entertain children. Though all at their best utilize explanatory elements, only myths have as their raison d’etre the goal of explaining some pre-existing reality. For example, the only word among them ambitious enough to go after ‘Creation’ is ‘Myth’. Nearly every culture has a creation myth, a cosmogony.

Kedar: Well, besides explaining a pre-existent reality, myths can also serve as propaganda, a story to bring about a new social order. I’m reading a book called Asura that argues that the Hindu myth Ramayana is a bit of propaganda intended to justify the oppression of India’s native Dravidians by the invading Aryans.

Sushama: Yes, the lure to propagandize is compelling even for philosophers. For example, let’s not forget Plato’s propaganda myth in The Republic about how philosopher-kings, guardians and everyone else have respectively gold, silver and iron in their souls.

Ram: Maybe we can generalize by saying myths are in the business of supplying meaning to facts, whether the meaning is elicited from the facts themselves or imposed from without as in the case of propaganda. But even propaganda myths strive to explain given facts…they just might not be the best explanations. And being in the business of explanations, it’s not surprising myths are the origins of all of mankind’s explanatory endeavors, namely science, religion, history and philosophy. Their origins are not only shrouded in myths, they’re also enshrined in them.

Sushama: Isn’t that putting the cart before the horse, Ram? People surely have the idea/concept/theory before they dress it up in a story.

Ram: Good point. Let me rephrase: the origins of explanations lie in myths largely in the sense that that was the preferred mode of setting down explanations in ancient times.

Sushama: Then I agree. Thales, the first philosopher recognized as such in the Western tradition, probably owed his famous, ‘All is water’, fragment to the Babylonian myth of creation. All Thales did was to leave their god Marduk out of the picture. This might suggest that the myth came before the idea. But the Babylonians probably viewed water as constitutive of everything before they set it down in myth. The idea came before the myth, and maybe before Thales.

Still myths clearly have played a role in philosophy (a little lost in her own thoughts): in Empedocles’ reign of love for instance the connection with myths and mythologizing seems to resurface. And certainly Parmenides’ proem with its invocation to the goddess is styled after Homer. And of course, we’ve mentioned Plato who’s chockfull of myths from the Charioteer to the Cave. And even in the modern period, myths play a role from Hobbes state of nature to Marx’ dialectical materialism. And more recently philosophers like Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam and Daniel Dennett have freely used modern day ‘myths’ to illustrate philosophical points…

Ram:  Uh…thank you Sushama for that summary of the role myths have played in the Western tradition but perhaps we should turn to a tradition where the connection with myth is alive and kicking, namely the Hindu tradition that our friend Kedar wants to address.

Kedar?

Kedar: Oh, where to begin? I suppose at the beginning…If I may quote the Brihad-Aranyaka Upanishad,

“In the beginning was the self, the Purusha (the male principle), alone, afraid, wondering what made him lonely and fearful. If there was loneliness and fear, there could also be company and pleasure. Restless, he split himself.”

I should mention that there is also the Advaita Vedanta school of Hinduism that maintains that the undifferentiated Brahman is the only reality, that all differentiation is Maya or illusion.

Sushama: This differentiation cuts pretty deep. For example, the Rigveda has a passage translated as, ‘in the beginning, there was neither what is nor what is not’. This addresses the fundamental divide Parmenides would later discuss in his proem, though it doesn’t take the latter’s counterintuitive plenum position.

Perhaps because the differentiation is so fundamental, the so-called illusion, is an independent ‘reality’ in itself, identified with the always-existing feminine force in nature, namely Maya, just as Brahman is the masculine.

 Ram: Interesting. The beginning is the very beginning. A creation myth has to explain everything, even how any differentiation at all arose. Thus the Bible’s Genesis describes how the world was first without form and void until God separated/differentiated the heaven and the earth, light and dark, water and land.

And curiously, in Christianity, like in Hinduism, there is an alternate creation myth where the differentiating element is also a separate and distinct god: the New Testament’s, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” If I may be so bold, the Word, being in essence language, is the differentiating element, here distinguished like Maya in Hinduism, as a deity in itself.

Sushama: Well, the Christian holy trinity—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost—are all masculine. One is left wondering how something as significantly distinct as the feminine arose. Surely not just out of Adam’s rib?

Kedar: Like the creation of the world aren’t there two myths in Christianity about the creation of man? A Garden of Eden in which Eve was created from Adam’s rib and an Eden where Adam and Eve were created at the same time, both from dust?

Ram: True. Still even if ‘Eve’ was ‘coeval’ with Adam (pardon the pun), a female deity is not coeval with God as in some forms of Hinduism.

Sushama: Hinduism seems grander for that in some ways…though having male and female deities couple to produce creation is also part of the cosmogonies of many primitive people.

Kedar: In anthropomophing the forces of nature, Hinduism may’ve been trying to placate the common run of religious-minded people. The doctrines at their core however are profoundly philosophical: regardless of the attribution of male and female, everything is one and many at the same time. Different forces or deities are posited to explain the two aspects. And since the tendency towards the ‘many’ is a fecundity, it seems reasonable to describe it as female and the tendency to be one with the male.

Ram: Hmm…I remember reading how creationists in the US drew support from the fact that the big bang theory became the accepted theory in cosmology. They thought a beginning view of creation supported the Genesis account better than the preceding steady-state theory. But I think modern day physics with all forces identified with their field particles and nothing, no God, not even time, outside the primordial atom supports the Hindu creation myth better than a Biblical creation with a God and time outside creation.

Kedar: The time-scales used in Hindu cosmology —on the order of several billions of years—also come surprisingly close to modern physics as noted by the likes of Fritjof Capra and Carl Sagan. For example, Capra wrote as follows (borrowing Ram’s laptop, looks up a quote):

“This idea of a periodically expanding and contracting universe, which involves a scale of time and space of vast proportions, has arisen not only in modern cosmology, but also in ancient Indian mythology. Experiencing the universe as an organic and rhythmically moving cosmos, the Hindus were able to develop evolutionary cosmologies which come very close to our modern scientific models.”

Ram(taking back the laptop): Yes, I remember reading that in The Tao of Physics. Though science does weigh against making the primordial elements in any way ‘sexy’: sex differentiation didn’t originate till life and certainly ‘creation’ had been around a long time, contrary to the Hindu athropomorphing tendency.

Sushama: Perhaps the most charitable interpretation of Hinduism is as Kedar was suggesting: male-like and female-like forces are only used to characterize the one and the many aspects of creation in retrospect; the primordial entity in itself is described as nirgun, that is devoid of any characteristics.

Ram: OK. Hindu myths make a pretty good stab at philosophy. How about historical accuracy? Do the Ramayana and Mahabharata myths/legends have their basis in historical fact?

Kedar: Hold on. You’re jumping from philosophy to history. Hinduism is not done with science. Having explained the origin of the universe, Hinduism also draws support from evolution’s origin of species. The ten avatars of Vishnu range in order from fish, to tortoise, to boar, to Narasimha, a beast-man, to Vaman a pygmy form of man—this curiously parallels human evolution. Only later do you get into the quasi-historical avatars of Parashuram of the iron ax, Ram of the bow and arrow and Krishna of the sudarshan chakra, the Frisbee-like weapon of power. Only then do you have the historical ninth avatar, the Buddha, who showed humanity the path to enlightenment, to be liberated from the world of suffering.

Ram: Interesting.

Kedar: Well some say co-opting the Buddha as the ninth avatar was another instance of Hindu propaganda. If Christianity had been popular in ancient India, Jesus might’ve been regarded as the tenth avatar, just as Islam co-opted Moses and Jesus as prophets in their own right, though Mohammed is their last and greatest prophet. 

Sushama: So much for ‘history’. Getting back to ‘science’, Hindu mythology’s view of evolution is very much in the zeitgeist here in India but we must anticipate a facile objection to it: modern homo-sapiens appear in the story of the lion-man Narasimha and also the pygmy Vaman which wouldn’t have been the case if these avatars were supposed to be evolutionary stages.

Of course, this is too facile because the myths are stories first not scientific theories. But to lay some claim to have insight into the latter, it is sufficient they contain allegories to modern theories—and this they surprisingly do.

Ram: That leaves a big question: HOW? We’ve formulated our theories of the origin of the cosmos and of species in the light of observation and experimentation. What did the ancients do?

Kedar: Well one theory is aliens or ancient astronauts; our ancestors were visited by aliens who they viewed as gods and these ‘gods’ gave them insight into the nature of things not to mention how to build the pyramids, a feat we’d find hard to duplicate today. Didn’t Von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods first propose this idea in the 70’s?

Sushama: Impressive Kedar. I would’ve thought you too young to know this reference which was all the rage once. Still if you’re going to be knowledgeable about old books I think you can pick better ones.

Kedar: Well myths, even myths about the origins of myths arise in a historical context. We started dreaming up Roswells and Chariots of the Gods at the dawn of our own space-age. That’s when we must look up original sources.

Sushama: I prefer to think the origin myths were original to the original myth writers, lost though they may be in antiquity. Only human writers, not aliens, could do justice to the interplay of characters, motives and emotions that are woven through the twin tapestries, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.

We are capable of great insights—philosophical and scientific as well as artistic—when we do not have distractions like the sights, sounds and smells of the cities we live in, the laptops, smart-phones and other gadgets we’re more often slaves to than masters of, the social networks that blanket us but provide little warmth. We—Indians, Greeks, Babylonians, Egyptians, etc.—were great once not because some futuristic aliens helped us but because we have always had the capacity for greatness as long as this so-called future doesn’t stand in our way.

Ram: Very eloquent Sushama. Our capacity for greatness may not have only been manifested in insightful story-telling. My grandmother used to tell me that Hinduism’s 330 million gods, far from being a farcical contradiction to the Vedas’ monotheism or at most dualism, was an allusion to the fact that there were once that many ‘god-like’ men and women. She also used to say—many Indians today believe—that things like the brahmastra of the Mahabharata was an atom bomb, the secret of which was known to the ancients. That knowledge led to their destruction just as it will lead to ours. Then we would start over, an endless cycle of creation and destruction, day and night of Brahma.

Kedar: That’s not quite right. The current cycle of Brahma didn’t end with the great war depicted in the Mahabharata. It has continued to today’s kaliyug at the end of which the last avatar of Vishnu, Kalki, will arrive destroying all immoral people marking the end of the cycle.

Sushama: From your quote at the beginning of the dialogue I gather you see yourself as Kalki?

Kedar: Not necessarily. Vishnu can have many minor avatars besides the ten main ones of the Vedas—for example, the girl Mohini who served immortal-life-giving nectar only to the gods but kept it away from their enemies, the asuras.

For me, I believe my purpose is to do philosophy and possibly through political means, contribute to the destruction of evildoers like any avatar of Vishnu. Remember Kalki has to survive to the end of kaliyug which may be a long way away; besides there are some who believe kaliyug hasn’t even started yet; anyway all this may be beyond my lifetime which I expect to be short in any case.

Ram: OK philosopher-king avatar, what exactly is an avatar of Vishnu? I mean if we’re not restricted to ten and for all we know there could be 330 million, or whatever is the current number of ‘god-like’ individuals to borrow my grandmother’s idea…what exactly is an avatar? Could I be an avatar? Could Sushama be an avatar, now that you’ve reminded us there can be female avatars of a male god? Can that guy from the movie Avatar be an avatar?

Sushama: Good point, amusingly put! Remember Advaita Vedanta’s famous equation, ‘Atman is Brahman’? God is in all of us, the world is ensouled with Him or rather It. This is consistent with a difference between Christianity and Hinduism:  God in the latter doesn’t exactly create the world; he splits and becomes the world. In fact the etymology of ‘Brahman’ is the root brh which means to grow or swell. This ‘becoming’ is why evolution is consistent with Hinduism in a way it isn’t with Christianity.

So the one has become many…but, through meditation or yoga, any of us can become ‘self-realized’ and return to the One. This gets back to our potential for greatness that I waxed poetically about earlier.

Kedar: Well an avatar of Vishnu clearly has to be different than the common run of men. While ordinary men through self-realization may live the Hindu version of the good life with the Gita’s different stages, only an avatar of Vishnu directs traffic as it were on the road of history; everyone else is merely another car pivoting around the cones or ignoring them at their peril. In this way, Hindu mythology, as does the Christian one, does the job of history and eschatology as well as philosophy and science.

Still the difference between an avatar and a human may only be a matter of degree. Lord Ram as elaborated in his birth-myth was only half-Vishnu since Kausalya his mother-to-be ate only half of the payasadan given to the childless King Dasharatha; the other queens ate smaller portions and hence their sons, Ram’s half-brothers, were lesser percentages of Vishnu.

Ram: So you seem to be saying that the difference between an avatar and an ordinary human may be quantitative, of the amount of ‘God-stuff’ in each but the amount of ‘God-stuff’ can’t be increased through meditation or yoga; it can only become self-aware which admittedly is a good thing in itself; still the gulf between an avatar and an ordinary human can’t be bridged, that a Krishna can impart self-knowledge to an Arjuna but an Arjuna can’t thereby be a Krishna.

Kedar: Yes it is a matter of degree. But quantitative differences have a way of becoming qualitative after crossing some threshold level. Lord Ram and me for that matter, have a portion of Vishnu but moreover that portion is sufficient to give the avatar the paramatma of Vishnu which ordinary humans lack.

Ram: Interesting…and certainly consistent.

Sushama: Oh c’mon! In trying to understand the consistencies in Kedar’s positions, Ram always seems like he’s justifying them. I’m sure that’s not his intention in this case—it’s just the typical pitfall of philosophers.

For my part, I still have to ask, what makes you think you are an avatar of Vishnu?

Kedar: The reasons are astrological…

Sushama (cutting off Kedar): Hence open to interpretation…

Ram (cutting off Sushama): Or entirely dubious…

Kedar: I expected as much. Anyway, I’m quite ambivalent about my quote, “If Vishnu exists, I am his avatar.” On the one hand, I phrase it conditionally, like a reductio, because I often doubt Vishnu exists. On the other hand, certain astrological and other reasons lead me to think I might be an avatar of Vishnu, albeit minor. Yet again, since humanity and the kaliyuga, in some ways, appear to be on the brink of apocalypse, I, who, on certain rational assumptions, thinks of himself to be a serious avatar of Vishnu, might just be none other than Kalki, Vishnu’s tenth and final Maha-avatar.

My ambivalence regarding my quote is connected with my uncertainty about myths. You remember the title I suggested for the dialogue: ‘Myth—Reality, Illusion or Fiction?’ I’m not sure where the truth lies.

Sushama: Reality, Illusion or Fiction…sounds like Goodman’s Fact, Fiction and Forecast.

Ram: One of the reasons I rejected it, the main being it sounds too much like a textbook…not at all the urbane, witty tone I always strive for…which by the way you’re killing Kedar!

Sushama: Ha, Ha! But Goodman’s Fact, Fiction and Forecast is witty and urbane Ram. Similarly Kedar’s title sounds intriguing: even an illusion as a genuine appearance is more real than fiction; the three indeed are the three possibilities for myths.

As for restoring your desired tone may I suggest this would be a good point to introduce the ‘Great Man’ theory of history you wanted me to research. The way to step down from Kedar’s too lofty plane of gods to mere mortals would be by a detour through heroes.

Ram: Yes, young men can be ambitious even heroic, but delusional that’s a form of insanity.  

Sushama: Now you’re killing the urbane tone, Ram. All three of us are crazy in our own way. Anyway, the great man theory.

The great man theory was first formulated by Thomas Carlyle. The idea is simple: history is driven, shaped by great men and women; history is nothing more than the biography of great persons. And indeed, after the theory, there were many 19^th century encyclopedias of history that read like a collection of biographies.

The definitive counterargument to this theory was formulated by Spencer who said that such great persons are the products of their societies, and that their actions would be impossible without the social conditions built before their lifetimes.

Ram: I didn’t know about Carlyle vs. Spencer but both their ideas are developed in Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Napoleon is first seen as a great man who shapes history only to turn out to be at best a diminutive embodiment of the collective will of the French people who, abstracted as infinitesimals, can be summed up in a sort of historical calculus. The historical calculus is envisioned capable of even predicting history’s future course.

I also remember coming across this idea in Asimov’s science fiction novel, Foundation, with its science of psychohistory.

Kedar: Uh, getting back to Hindu myths, the avatars of Vishnu definitely fit into the great man theory. Vishnu says he will return periodically to free Mother Earth from her burden of evil which like dust on furniture has a tendency to accumulate. So an avatar acts contrary to the masses rather than merely reflect them. Still there is a concession to the Spencerian sort of counterargument as well. As humanity degrades further and further throughout the different epochs or yugs, the avatars become less and less pure good. Lord Ram operated within the means, adhering to principles despite tragic consequences to his father and later wife. Krishna believed the ends justify the means as exemplified by his devious methods of killing the enemies of his cousins the Pandavas. Kalki influenced as he would be by the current kaliyug would presumably be even worse. An avatar, or a ‘great man’ shapes history but is also shaped by it.

Ram: Hmm…reminds me of Einstein’s explanation of his theory: “Space tells matter how to move and matter tells space how to curve.”

Sushama: Interesting analogy. If history is space and human beings flimsy or weightier matter depending on how great they are, maybe God is light, having a dual nature: God having a tendency to be one and many at the same time just as light is a single wave and many particles at the same time…

Sorry. I got carried away. Anyway like space, matter and light, an avatar’s work is never done. Thus even after Kalki, the whole thing starts again and more Vishnu avatars would be needed to rid the world of the never-ending accumulation of evil. Sometimes I wonder: is the whole system rigged to provide Vishnu job-security?

Kedar: Very funny Sushama, but now you’re being too witty and urbane.

Vishnu doesn’t need job-security. Vishnu’s job is a dream job—literally! In fact, I was torn between my Vishnu-avatar quote and the following: ‘I am God; I am asleep; and Kedar Joshi is my dream’.

In Hinduism, Vishnu sleeps on the ten-headed snake Shesh in the eternal ocean and from his navel, Brahma appears and creates the world. Vishnu has ten major avatars in the world created by Brahma at the end of which the cycle either begins again or, if it has cycled through enough times, Shiva destroys the world.

My personal interpretation of Hinduism is that the world is just a dream of God— call him Vishnu if you like. This is the view of many yogis like Paramhansa Yogananda who said “God consciously dreams His cosmic play and is unaffected by its dualities.”

Sushama: Well that’s one view. But in the Gita, we find a competing dualist picture of the world, where matter is real as the body of God and is not an illusion though the forms it takes are. And in Hinduism you can find adherents of every other interpretation, even the 330 million gods.

Still, I too find the dream interpretation compelling. It unifies and makes sense of a lot of separate strands in Hinduism. The idea that the sensory world is Maya makes sense if the illusion is someone’s dream. The triumvirate of Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh (Shiva)—which by the way you reference and reverence when you say the three-letter AUM—makes sense because an initiator, dreamer, and awakener is needed if the world is a dream. And why Brahma the creator should be demoted, unlike the Christian Yahweh, to just growing out of Vishnu’s navel makes sense because what causes a dream is secondary to deities like Vishnu and Shiva who show humans how to deal with life though it may be only a dream.

But isolating one strand as essential to Hinduism may be contrary to the spirit of the religion which, like the Gita’s three ways to God– of devotion, knowledge and good deeds—intentionally resists unification.  I even have a problem with there being a single word, ‘Hinduism’.

 Ram: Still the dream interpretation is the most interesting from a philosophical viewpoint. Let’s focus on that.

But tell me, does Brahma grow out of Vishnu’s navel like lint? Or does the swelling/growing root brh mean the birth of Brahma is more of a burp than a big bang? I’m just trying to assess how far to take the etymology and the demotion of the creator…

Sushama: Really Ram—neither lint nor burp, more like a lotus. But there is the myth of how Brahma, is cursed for his vanity in creating the world by not even having a single temple dedicated to him.

Ram: Interesting. Brahma is demoted but Brahman is exalted. Both are creators; are they the same or different?

Kedar: Brahma is the creator of the universe which, having both good and evil components, does not redound to the glory of the creator. The Brahman of the Vedas on the other hand is nothing less than the ensouled undifferentiated reality of the universe. It doesn’t create the universe so much as is the universe in its true form. It is so worthy of praise that the adherents of both Shiva and Vishnu try to appropriate Its job for their own deity. Shiva-ites claim that the underlying undifferentiated reality is Shiva and Maya the illusion maker is Shakti, Shiva’s consort. Similarly Vishnu-ites cite the Bhagvad Gita’s cosmic form of Krishna having both godlike heads which issue life and demonic ones which devour life as proof that Vishnu is the ultimate, undifferentiated reality.

Ram: I’m sorry. I’m not sure why Brahma is needed if either Vishnu or Shiva fulfill his role or why Vishnu or Shiva are needed if Brahma can be identified with Brahman and fulfill his role.

Sushama: Well we’ve already mentioned how the logic of dreams requires three entities.

For a deeper reason, perhaps we can look to the Rigveda passage I alluded to earlier. It says the reason the world was created may be known to the creator or maybe even he knows it not. This by the way is also like a dream whose why’s and wherefore’s we often do not know. And even in Kedar’s passage, the Purusha splits itself because undifferentiated it is lonely and fearful, not out of any moral reason.

Either way, a moral purpose is lacking. There is no prescription for humans for how to deal with the world of illusion. Shiva and Vishnu represent two different responses to how to deal with Maya. Shiva advocates escaping illusion through meditation into a state of awakening or opening the third eye. Vishnu through Krishna advocates a disinterested devotion to duty, that is, living the dream, playing the hand you’re dealt to the best of your ability.

Ram: OK so Vishnu and Shiva are two answers to a problem posed by Brahma, the purpose of creation or, translated to the human scale, the problem of how to live the good life if the world is an illusion. Brahma is demoted because he has no satisfactory answer to the riddle posed by his own creation. Is that it?

Kedar: Partly. Brahma is also demoted because he isn’t purely good. Each positive brings with it, its negative, a what-is-not comes with what-is.

Ram: I guess every religion has a problem of evil. Why is there evil in the world if God is omniscient, omnibenevolent and omnipotent? Christianity also deals with this problem by on the one hand demoting God—by giving him an equal and opposite number, Satan as he’s depicted in the story of Job—, or on the other hand, making some evil necessary for giving man a choice, a choice for which he may be rewarded or punished. It’s all part of God’s overall plan which is for the greater good of humanity.

Kedar: If God has a plan, I don’t see how man has a choice. So much for free will in Christianity. Also in the dream interpretation of Hinduism, characters in a dream don’t have free will. They only seem to the dreamer to have it.

Ram: This is getting close to the contingency vs. determinism dialogue I want us to have at some point so let’s skirt that for now.

Sushama: I think Christianity’s second answer is not tenable. Not all evil is necessary for giving humans a chance to exercise free will. Natural disasters kill untold innocents. Does that fit into God’s overall plan for the greater good of humanity?

Ram: Yeah Christianity does try to salvage the free-will apology for evil by its doctrine of original sin so that nobody is really innocent. But for me the only true answer that Christianity can give is a less than omnipotent God. God himself admits as much when he says to Job, “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?” This question greatly diminishes man’s power in relation to God but it also hints at God’s limitations: God is kind of saying, ‘Do you know what I had to deal with?’

Sushama:  In Hinduism one answer to the problem of evil is all differentiation—including that between good and evil—is illusory; the other answer is God, at least the worship-worthy God whether Vishnu or Shiva, didn’t create the world. I wonder, does that make him less than omnipotent?

Ram: As my college philosophy professor was fond of saying, “a little omnipotence goes a long way.” But seriously, I would like to discuss the first answer. If evil is an illusion must good be also?

Kedar: Good exists outside the dream in the character of the dreamer that finds the dream repugnant enough to require intervention. Evil on the other hand doesn’t exist in the character of the dreamer but only in the dream. Still, I’m not sure: if God had a different character, what is good and evil in the dream would be different.

As philosophers, we want to say the Good is good independent of whether God wills it. But Hindu cosmology is so cosmic that there is no place left for the philosophers’ Good to reside.

Sushama: I disagree. Vishnu could have dreams of eating sweet moduks and be drawn into ‘intervening’ in them. That wouldn’t make gluttony good. Gluttony would remain gluttony and good good.

Kedar: But these are only concepts that characters in the dream have. Outside the dream, Vishnu only has likes and dislikes.

Ram: But Kedar, haven’t you had the experience of going to sleep with a problem—it can be as simple as trying to recall a tune—and waking up with the answer? There can be a rightness to dreams. And if a dreamed character, or the dreamer for that matter, can be right in an epistemological sense, why not an ethical one?

Kedar: So a dream can be used to judge the mind of the dreamer?

Ram: Why not? Freudians do it all the time.

(They laugh as they realize this is a convenient place to stop)

Radhaa sees you everywhere

as drinking sweetness from her lip.

Radhaa serves you in the house.

Moving in the haste to meet you

She takes her little steps and falls

Radhaa serves you in the house.

With bracelets of white lotus shoots

she keeps alive that doubtful love

Radhaa serves you in the house.   (GeetGovindam, 6.12, trans. C John Holcombe)

Radhaa is Krishna’s consort. In the texts where her references are explicit, we find that of all the ‘gopis’ (milkmaids), she is the closest and the dearest to Krishna.  But, at the same time, we find that Radhaa and Krishna do not consummate their love into marriage. In fact, Krishna does not marry any of his beloved gopis. His wives are the famous princesses of grand and rich status.  Also, references of Radhaa in the Indian classical texts came up much later. We can find the first such reference in Jayadev’s GeetGovindam. Prior to this, Krishna was depicted sporting with all the Vraj (Vrindavan) gopis, instead of showering all his love and attention on one consort. So, the very reference of Radhaa in the stream of the Hindu, and in particular, the Vaishnava consciousness should signify something meaningful and important. Besides being a cowherd girl who witnesses all the grand and the miraculous spectacles of baal gopaala, (infant Krishna), she participates with him in the rasa liilaa.  What does then, Radhaa symbolize and why is she, and not the wives of Krishna, worshipped beside him? My paper will attempt to answer some of the fundamental, yet essential Hindu philosophical concepts pertaining to Radhaa, by closely studying two texts, viz a vie Jayadev’s poem GeetGovindam and Panuganti Lakshmi Narasimha Rao’s play Radhakrishna.

The practice of Bhakti (the union with the divine) is a central Hindu philosophic thought, which aims at the attainment of salvation. There, however, needs to be an external guiding force, which can show the ‘maarga’ (path) towards Bhakti. This external force may come to us in the form of scriptures, or a guru. On the other hand, we may say that Krishna’s lively sporting with the gopis reflects Bhakti. The gopis are deeply in love with Krishna, and they leave all their work, duties and responsibilities aside, to sport with him.[1] This complete surrender to the lord is Bhakti. Not only one who participates in it seeks pleasure in its enriched rasa, but also the one who simply listens to it rejoices. Thus, the gopis become the embodiment of the knowledge which guides us to Krishna. “…since rasa is existentially a matter of experience, it is appropriate that the words of scriptures become embodied in the form of gopis; who function as guru…by exhibiting rasa…”[2]

 At the center of all this is Radhaa, who is Bhakti personified. She stands for total surrender and eternal love. Among the gopas and the gopis of Vrindavan, and among the other devotees she is the ‘dhaaraa’; the connecting stream which relates the devotee with the devoted.  In the sagun Bhakti tradition, union with the Supreme draws on varied emotions (bhaava) through which the devotee approaches the deity. These may arise out of the relevant associations which one makes with the deity: of a servant, a lover, a mother or a friend. Radhaa satiates all these roles, and hence becomes the exemplar of Bhakti, in its purest form. She manifests herself in the form of gopis and offers varied emotions for satisfying Krishna.[3] Often, in the absence of her beloved, she mourns and feels desolate. However, her sense of longing is not for her personal and sensual gratification. In the GeetGovindam, she recalls the time when Krishna made love to her. She wishes her beloved to return to her and seek pleasure in being with her, as before. [4]  Interestingly, her sensuality therefore, lays “in the enjoyment of being enjoyed”: Both Radhaa and her consort share a mutual love and each one of them is willing to negate oneself for the sake of the other. [5]

Taking cue from the Gaudiya sampradaya, Rao, in his play, Radhakrishna, epitomizes Raadhaa as the eternal, indefatigable power of Bhakti. Although dejected in the absence of Krishna, the idea to punish her lover gives Radhaa jitters. She doesn’t want Krishna to run after her and to fret for her: “Would it not be wickedness on my part? Won’t his tender feet become sore? Wont his lips image with his hot gasping breath…” [6] Rao’s Radhaa is very patient and clam and understands that the cowherd Krishna belongs to all the gopis. She says: “I know my lord, my husband is a husband to several other women…let all of them attain deliverance through his grace…” [7] Whenever possible she offers him her service: “May I wipe away, with the edge of my saree, the pearls of sweat from your radiant cheeks? May I caringly rock you in the cradle of the creepers of my arm to nap…” [8] As a ‘bhakta’ par excellence, she acts as the lover, server and the mother.  

In a way, the love between both Radhaa and Krishna exemplifies the love which is manifested in the secular image of the lovers. Radhaa does everything which any ordinary woman may do for her beloved. These emotions are vividly articulated in the GeetGovindam. Radhaa feels jealous seeing Krishna sport with the other Gopis. She burns in the absence of Krishna, and awaits his return. Krishna, on the other hand, realizes his mistake and longs for Raadhaa. Both pine for each other, until their final union. Thus, beneath the explicit erotic overtones, the GeetGovindam portrays the emotions which are experienced by the human lovers, and transfers them onto the love play of the lord and his consort. Hence, with Radhaa as Krishna’s consort, the Bhakti maarga becomes clearly defined and exemplified. Without her, perhaps, there can be no liilaa, and henceforth, no Bhakti.

At the same time, it is important to mention that both Radhaa and Krishna stand apart from the figure of archetypal lovers, for unlike the latter, their love is not consummated in a nuptial bond. We find that Radhaa is married to another man, and so are the other gopis. However, their intimacy with Krishna is not an illicit one. Their love for Krishna is transcendental and by no mean conformed to the social milieu, which bears many responsibilities, codes of conduct and thus, endless conformities. In a married life, these may occur in the form of bearing children, taking responsibility of families, etc. In this sense, their love is pure and eternal. This concept of love relates well with the “madhurya bhaava” (sweetness), as opposed to the “aishwarya bhaava” (social pleasures). And in this way, Radhaa comes to represent a consciousness which is ‘jaagruta’, that is, the one which never dies: She is that force of love and Bhakti, which is eternal. In contrast, much as the married gopis, Krishna is charged with social responsibilities (of a king), and his marriage can be understood in this light.

Quite interestingly, a similar idea gets conveyed in Rao’s play. The long exchange of dialogues and meetings between queen Satyabhaamaa (one of Krishna’s wives) and Krishna (the king) takes place within the walls of the palace and the queen’s chamber. As a wife, not only is Satyabhaamaa envious of Radhaa, but draws clear distinctions between her and Radhaa on the basis of class.[9] Unlike Radhaa, Satyabhaamaa’s jealousy and anger need to be pacified and her ego inflated each time she witnesses her husband mention the name of the “other” woman: Radhaa. Thus, as a queen, Satyabhaamaa circumscribes herself to the social responsibilities, and issues of status and class. Conversely, Radhaa’s union with Krishna is always pictured in the idyllic settings; in the lap of nature. Moreover, Radhaa refuses to accept Krishna as her lover when he is in the guise of a king. She demands that he must appear as the cowherd boy, who is the cynosure of all the gopis: “And it is not a king who stole my mind, But a tender and very plain cowherd…” [10]We can therefore see that the husband- wife relation bears the mark of social responsibilities and is socially circumscribed. The figure of Radhaa, however, conveys that as the force of Bhakti, she transcends all social norms.

Radhaa also stands for the ‘aadhaar’ (the basis) of all existence. In the Indic religious systems, the male deities are often worshipped with their female consorts, and so, Krishna too has his consort in the female form of Radhaa: “She embodied in a Goddess, has the turning world cast down”. [11]Thus, the female deity is the Shakti (the one who sustains the world). Unlike Krishna, Radhaa does not represent the godly or the kingly power, but the power of nature, the idyllic, which sustains all forms of life, including Krishna. Together, they exist as the cosmic dualities that are inseparable. This reality is most explicitly celebrated in the GeetGovindam: Jayadev’s protagonists (Radhaa and Krishna) long for the embrace of each other and their erotic desires are finally fulfilled with their union. Also, the poem beautifully dissolves all binaries of the male and the female; you and me.  Radhaa says: “As I am ornament in play, I am Krishna too in this…”[12]

Both as Shakti, and as Krishna’s beloved, Radhaa has the power to destroy all temporal attachments and material realities. As shakti, “she is the sharp sword of Krishna that cuts the bonds of karma, allowing the true seekers to differentiate between the real and the eternal (Krishna) from the impermanent (the desires and the wealth of the world)” [13] Because Radhaa is the embodiment of nature, she is also the maaya, the one who is responsible for making all the apparent and temporal functioning seem real. Nonetheless, it is through this maaya that the Supreme, from his nirguna form, descends on earth, assuming a form. Through maaya, then the Supreme assumes the role of a friend, lover, and guide, thus evoking an intense relation with his devotees, and showing them the path of liberation.  

Henceforth, Radhaa is the silent lover of Krishna. Without any complaint, she renounces her material duties and comforts for him.  One can contend that she operates as the conscious force which draws us closer to Krishna and for this, she manifests herself in several forms of Bhakti; in the idol worships, bhajans, kiirtana, satsang, dhyaana and knowledge (gyana) Just as Krishna, she is omnipresent because she exists in every maarga (path) which leads to him. In the Hindu classical literary traditions, she comes to symbolize the feminine principle that creates the world through the power of maaya, and without her nothing can function. In the Shaivite systems of belief, the idols of Shiva and Paarvati, manifested as ‘Ardhnaariishvara’ represent the importance of a dual cosmic existence for the sustenance of the world. Similarly, in the Vaishnava thought, this duality is celebrated through the symbolic figures of Radhaa and Krishna. In the holy chants of all the Vaishnavas, the name of Radhaa is the first spoken word, only after which the name of Krishna is spoken. This explicitly defines the importance given to Radhaa in the Hindu philosophic, spiritual and mystical contexts.

It is not possible to cover the entirety of argumentation theory in a single course. This is even more so for professors who are teaching such introductory and general studies requirements on-line (distance-learning) courses. Our goal in this pedagogy, like Gotama’s, is practical argument drawn from the theoretical basis of argumentation. This can be extracted from Gotama’s Nyaya-Sutras to craft a sequential outline plan for a course in argumentation for social policy (deliberative) arguments. We want to achieve the goal of imparting an holistic view of the subject and provide formal validity, value appeal, and the relevance of the classical traditions. A draft of this article was presented at the Second International Conference on Argumentation and Rhetoric (21-23 September 2012) at Partium Christian University, Oradea, Romania.

Theoretical orientation

For teaching practical argumentation, the Nyayan syllogism has advantages over the traditional Greek model that is used. Gotama Akŝapâda (which means his meditative habit) is the author of the Nyaya-Sutras and lived around second century BC, although it is argued that the principles of inference expounded in the Nyaya Sutras go back to the time of Panini in the sixth century. The format of the Nyaya-Sutras that we have today was designed by Gangesa around the twelfth century.

In addition to teaching the logic of a syllogism, we can extract from this text an introductory model for teaching deliberative arguments. Our project is not for decoration or spice but for presenting a holistic perspective of the theory and practice of argumentation as it ‘always is’. Many writing courses are overly familiar to students, so much so that they do not always make the difference between a language class and the distinct subject of argumentation and rhetoric. The Nyaya-Sutras is an example of a text that can raise interest and teach the concepts of argument to today’s students.

One of the perennial tenets running through all traditions is that ‘सत्यमेव जयते  (‘Truth alone triumphs’). In the Nyaya-Sutras, this is the holistic concept of truth as ‘What is, is true’, that ‘All what is, is’. There is a stable, knowable reality within our three dimensions, five senses, and intellect, and our nearness to understanding it determines largely how well we discern accurate interpretation and best policy, the preconditions in the classical traditions to progress in both spiritual matters and daily living. This goal is associated with light, and -arg- is the Indo-European root meaning ‘to shine’. From this worldview, this general picture of things, argumentation begins on the recognition and admission that there is truth and that best policies are argued on the basis of it. The writer’s job is to communicate what is best for everybody as opposed to a thesis based on personal agenda or desire. That is, as Richard Weaver expressed it, the difference between teaching rhetoric and argumentation as ‘utiliter loqui’ (pragmatic speech to close a deal, sell, win) and ‘vere loqui’ (right speech to communicate the truth, the accurate interpretation, or the best policy).

In this context, one of the issues that should be covered early on is that of relativism. The Buddhist doctrine of the ‘two truths’ can help, for it teaches that there is a ‘common sense’ truth (samvrtisatya) for daily, concrete perceptions and understandings, and an absolute truth (paramârthasatya) for ultimate reality. It is interesting to remark that the Sanskrit term for ‘relative’ also implies hidden, false, obstructed. The teacher might point out that English has lost the distinction: relative truth was ‘treowe’ (trustworthy, sensible) and absolute truth was ‘sóð’. Since social policies of deliberative argument cannot be true or false but instead are practical, fair, efficient, etc, social policy is a matter of what is sensible. Argument is a science of causes (hetu-ŝastra) and a science of inquiry (ânvikŝiki). We want to prevent students from entering argumentation superficially as a ‘fakika-ŝastra’ or science of sophism.

Teaching the fundamental skills of argument provides a way to show the historical and cultural dimension of reasoned debate, and I believe teachers should want to take advantage of this opportunity to do so. We can show how the cognitive process of inference does not change because it is ever-present and constant in humans trans-culturally across all epochs. ‘Valid reasoning is not devised or constructed by people, it is observed and thus we can learn and teach it, because it exists in the reason of things and has its origin in God’ (St. Augustine, De doctrina Christiana, 2.32). Logic is identified, the syllogism does not create things but, as the Nyaya-Sutras also teaches, re-aligns things into their proper relationships, which to the minds of this Sanskrit treatise was (is) synonymous with integration or ‘yoga’. Indeed, this is the perennial aspect of argumentation as a general science. Nor does logic change with innovations in technology or science or philosophy because it is the very precondition for those innovations. Logic is the same for us today in our lecture halls as it was for the medieval schoolmen in their stone scriptoria, the ancient Greeks beneath their white porticos, the ancient Aryans in their preceptor’s hut, and the Talmudic scholars in their courtyard yeshivot.

The process of inference

The Nyaya defines inference as ‘knowledge that is preceded by perception’ and gives three basic ‘movements’:

a) From a perceived effect to an unperceived cause (sesavat, hypothetical reasoning). If Z, then what are the possible causes? X caused Z (alone); X and Y both caused Z (separately); X and Y caused Z (together); X caused Y and Y caused Z (chain); X is present but not related to Z (association).

b) From a perceived cause to an unperceived effect (purvavat, consequence). If Z, then what are the possible consequences?

c) Co-existence or simultaneity (samanyatodrista, implication). If Z, then what else must also be?

       According to the Nyaya, the process of inference is always justified, being a kind of innate mechanism. As shown in this passage, the objector’s reasoning is correct but not the outcome.

If we see a river swollen, we infer that there has been rain; if we see the ants carrying off their eggs, we infer that there will be rain; and if we hear a peacock scream, we infer that clouds are gathering. These inferences, says an objector, are not necessarily correct: a river might be swollen because it is embanked, the ants might carry off their eggs because their nests have been damaged, and the so-called screaming of a peacock might be nothing but the voice of a man. However, the swelling of a river caused by rain is different from that which results from the embankment of a part of it – the former comes with great rapids and currents, an abundance of foam, a mass of fruits, leaves, wood, etc. The manner in which ants carry off their eggs just before rain is quite different from the manner in which they do it when their nests are damaged. The ants run away quickly in a steady line when rain is imminent but fear makes them to fly in disorder when their nests are damaged. The screaming of a peacock that suggests gathering clouds is different from a man’s imitation of it, for the latter is not natural. If in such cases any wrong inference is drawn, the fault is in the person and not in the process. (NS 2.1.98-99)

That is, the inference-process can be improved but must be already in the person naturally, it is not installed but only sharpened.

To develop the three movements, the instructor can design short exercises for each. Present a real or invented question about why something is the way it is, include several hypotheses for students to eliminate in their search for the explanation. Present an observation (event, proposal, natural phenomenon, invention, conflict) and ask students to construct steps to the unperceived effect that it will likely lead to. Present an observation and ask students to identify what else can be inferred to exist that the same time.

Teaching logos/syl-logos

A list of premises is a set of ‘logoi’, but not formally integrated. The Aristotelian contains two premises and a conclusion. Only one premise and a claim is an enthymeme, the missing one being understood or ‘kept in mind’, which is what that word means literally. It is such that ‘If the premises are true, and the structure is valid, then the claim must be accepted’. When a syllogism contains more than two premises, it is a chain (epikheirema):

- Democracy means rule by the people.

- For people to be able to rule, they must be informed.

- There are no properly informed citizens in a society where there

   is no free exchange of ideas.

- There is no free exchange of ideas without free mass-media.

- Therefore, freedom of media is required for a democratic society.

(from Richard Weaver)

A list of reasons from which the claim must be derived necessarily is simply an enumeration (accumulation):

- Institutions like charities exist only through private donations,

   these generous people provide money that is not otherwise

   available.

- Charity donations provide tax breaks for the benefactor.

- A generous donation is the same amount of money one would

   spend on a nice dinner.

- If we were in their situation, we would want others to help us.
- Charity is not a question, it is an obligation of Holy Scripture.
- Studies have shown that people who give regularly to charities

   have lower stress-levels.

- Therefore, a person should give to charity.

Students see first that these are in fact appeals to advantages and values, that they are reasons (logos), but they are not integrated to derive the claim necessarily (syl-logos).

Syllogism in the Nyaya-Sutras

Next, students observe the structure of the Aristotelian syllogism and explained what the internal mechanism is that connects the terms.
1. Smoke can be seen on the hill.
     (middle)                            (major)
2. Smoke accompanies fire.
    (middle)                     (minor)
3. Therefore, there’s fire on the hill.
                                  (minor)      (major)
More relevant examples can be designed to illustrate the concept.
Should a university require a dress code for students?
1. Students desire (minor) what will train them for their career subjects (middle).
2. The career subjects (middle) studied at university normally require dress codes (major).
3. Students should therefore desire (minor) a dress code (major) at university as part of their training for careers.

The Nyayan syllogism contains five steps (avayava). The first is the proposition QED (pratiĵna); second is the evidence or reason (hetu); third is a general rule (udâharana) plus an example (drŝtânta); fourth is the application of the rule (upanaya); fifth is the conclusion inferred (nigamana). The application in (4) is a formal device but attention to it illustrates the importance of checking that the example is categorically consistent with the term it serves. This is where the advantage is over the Greek syllogism.

1. There’s fire on the hill.
2. Smoke can be seen on the hill.
     (vyapti)                            (sâdhya)
3. Smoke accompanies fire, like in a hearth.
    (vyapti)                   (pakŝa),    (drŝtânta)
4. A hearth’s fire is smoky.
5. Therefore, there’s fire on the hill.
                                (pakŝa)      (sâdhya)

- – - -

Proposition:     ‘Sound is non-eternal’
Reason:           Because it is produced.
General rule:    Whatever is produced is non-eternal,

+Example:       like a pot.

Application:    So is sound produced. /is categorically similar.
Claim:              Therefore, sound is non-eternal.

We can see that the Greek model is steps 2, 3, and 5 in the Nyayan model. (1) and (5) are identical and we can recall Protagoras’ words when the Muse tells him ‘There, where I was in the beginning, you will find me at the end’ (The Way).

            The advantage of the Nyayan model is the example (drŝtânta) and the application of the rule (upanaya). This provides contextuality or modality to the syllogism. These bring the logic closer, almost in visual terms, to the audience. Once the statements of the syllogism are completed (sketched out), they may be re-expressed in more idiomatic terms in the prose of a text (essay or speech).

Symbolic structure

To illustrate the concept, a sketch can be made of the argument if needed. The teacher will likely spend several class lessons completing exercises in this manner before having students translate them into prose form. The task of sculpting a syllogism into prose without altering the validity of the logic is important.
            Nyaya                          Greek
‘Sound is non-eternal’
1.         S          nE                    – -
2.         S          P                      S        P
3.         P          nE, p                P        nE
4.         S&p     P                      – -
5.         S          nE                    S        nE
- – - -

1. Reading The little prince (R) makes you greatly advantaged (A).
2. Reading this book (R) instructs about understanding human nature (U).

3. Whoever understands human nature (U) is greatly advantaged (A), like one with many years of experience in life (y).

4. Reading The little prince (R) and life experience (y) both teach the same things about understanding human nature (U).

5. Reading The little prince (R) makes you greatly advantaged (A).

1.         R         A                     – -
2.         R         U                     R        U
3.         U         A, y                 U        A, y
4.         R&y    U                     – -
5.         R         A                     R        A
- – - -

1. Health insurance (HI) cannot be dictated by an employer (~D).
2. Having health insurance (HI) is a personal choice (PC).

3. Personal choice cannot be dictated by another, like the choice whether to commute (cm) to work by public transportation or drive by car.

4. Health insurance and commuting are both personal choices.

5. Health insurance cannot be dictated by an employer.

1.         HI                    ~D
2.         HI                    PC
3.         PC                   ~D, cm
4.         HI&cm            PC
5.         HI                    ~D

(4) will often remain unstated in the prose of an essay, but it is useful to check the accuracy of the example/comparison.

Quality control for the syllogism

The oldest and still most reliable way to check the validity of syllogisms is Aristotle’s ‘six rules’. The Nyaya-Sutras (1.2.5) gives the following syllogistic fallacies: they are more practical because they are the most frequent errors of informal logic.

1. Erratic (savyabhicara, ambiguity) – in Aristotle, akin to the ‘fallacy of the four terms’.

a) two meanings

1. Whatever is in sense experience is material.

2. All knowledge comes from sense experience.

C. Therefore all knowledge is material.

* Two middle terms (in experience and from experience)

b) confusing evaluative and descriptive senses

1. Most people are cheaters, so cheating is natural.

2. What is natural is right.

C. Therefore it is right for me to cheat.

* The term ‘right’ is shifted from descriptive in (2) to evaluative in (C).

1. It is just for a man to suffer what he has caused another to suffer, ‘an eye for an eye’.

2. What is just is right.

C. Therefore a man who killed should be killed.

* In (1) just is evaluative and in (2) it is descriptive.

2. Contradictory (viruddha, contradiction)

3. Equal to the question (prakaranasama, petitio principia)

4. Unproved (sadhyasama, unwarranted assumption)

5. Mistimed (kalatita, irrelevance)

Instructors might want to include the fallacy of the ‘Undistributed middle’ (All As are B; X is B; X is A), however it is not as typical as the other five, being in most instances intuitive. Aristotle’s fourth and fifth rules concern negative premises and conclusions, also discussed in the Nyaya: A syllogism may not contain two negative premises; If one premise is negative then the claim must be in the negative; If the claim is negative then one premise must be negative.

The 5 topics

The Nyaya treatise offers four principle topics (τοποι, loci) of persuasion to which we will add the syllogism for a total of five topics. Here is the discussion from NS 2.1.126.

Persuasion is effected through praise, blame, warning, and prescription. Praise is speech that persuades us to a certain course of action by extolling its (moral, advantageous) consequences, ex: ‘By the Sarvajit sacrifice gods conquered all, there is nothing like Sarvajit, it enables us to obtain anything and vanquish anyone.’ Here, there is no direct command to perform the sacrifice but the praise is extolled in such a way that we are persuaded that we should do it. Blame is speech that persuades us to adopt a certain course of action by acquainting us with the shameful, undesirable consequences of neglecting it, ex: ‘Anyone who performs a sacrifice neglecting the Jyotiŝtoma falls into a pit and decays there’. Here, one is persuaded to perform it because of the very undesirable consequences of not doing so. Warning is the mention of a course of action, the obstruction of which by some person led to bad consequences, ex: ‘On presenting oblation, one is to take the fat first and the sprinkled butter afterwards, but alas! the Caraka priests did it the other way around, which extinguished the fire’. Here, the foolish action of the Caraka priests serves as a warning to others to avoid such action. Prescription implies the commendation of something because of its antiquity.

The instructor will cover these in a modern idiom. Falling into a pit and decaying there is not the most effective strategy, however fearsome it might seem. Praise and prescription are fairly clear but the distinction between blame and warning is not. We will interpret them to mean these argument types:

1. Praise                       Advantage (value)

2. Blame                      Disadvantage (fear, negative consequence)

3. Warning                  Principle (propriety, ethical adherence)

4. Prescription             Precedent (tried-tested-true)

*5. Syllogism

Rule of adherence

The things that are praiseworthy, disadvantageous, ethically proper, has precedent, and logical are identified in the audience (C. Perelman, The realm of rhetoric). This provides the course instructor with the material needed to introduce points about audience profiling and an audience’s values and preferences. It will become clear why Gotama selected these four.

Let’s take the argument from fear/warning as an example. This strategy attempts to establish that one or several undesirable consequences will follow from not accepting the proposal. ‘The majority of people naturally obey fear, not shame; they avoid what is base because of the penalties and not because it is disgraceful’ (Aristotle, Nicomachean ethics). The argument from fear is a fallacy only if it cannot be shown that it is real or likely. The writer shows that the fear/threat is so and that the proposal can reduce, delay, or eliminate it. The threat must be real (not one-in-a-million), and tangible (touching the audience directly, not others in a foreign country). There are several occasions when an audience will psychologically minimize or ignore a threat.

- Improbable: they do not believe it will really happen.

- Remote: it might happen but it will not affect them.

- Unimportant: even if it happens, it won’t be so bad.

- Distant: other people might be affected but we won’t be.

Other requirements for constructing the appeal might be included. Examples of points that can be discussed at this point are:

The fear must be such that the audience has learned to react to it before. People do not have significant reactions to fears that they’ve never encountered and thus do not recognize them.

Threats that are too familiar are also not very effective, ex: arguing that government corruption will result if the proposal is not accepted will not be persuasive in a country where this is the normal condition of things. In an argument about avoiding processed foods, the threat of obesity is not going to be worth much because we are all told several times a day in the media that we are overweight.

Any suspicion of personal gain must be eliminated from the speaker/writer. An insurance salesman should not use buying insurance as a remedy to avoid the danger.

If the danger is not believable, the audience will often reject the writer as being a fear-monger rather than as a source of valuable information.

When the solutions given to eliminate or reduce the threat are insufficient (ex: proposing that we should delay any action towards a serious threat until more information comes in), then a ‘surplus anxiety’ remains and the audience will become insensitive to the threat in the future.

Refutation – Jati

Refutation is defined as ‘reasoning that reveals the character [of your proposal] by showing the absurdity of all contrary characters’ (NS 1.1.40). Objections to one’s proposal must be treated because refuting them has a persuasive ‘character’ or status. This is really an ethics of intellectual activity:

The methodological principle is that it is always best to give the strongest possible interpretation of an argument or a view, particularly if [it] undermines a position that we currently hold. If our aim is to see our position fully tested, the best way to do that is to meet it head on and answer the strongest objections that could be brought out against it. That is more than to follow the dictum Know your enemies; it is to hold that one should give battle to the strongest forces that can be mustered against oneself, so that the victory will be decisive and not Pyrrhic. Besides, there is always the possibility that we might be wrong and thus that the development of the strongest possible case for a position contrary to ours might make us see where we are mistaken.

(Jorge Gracia, Philosophy and its history)

Gotama enumerates the perennial forms of refutation in various parts of the Nyaya-Sutras.

1. Wrong in principle: the opposing view violates something which the audience accepts as ethically binding.

2. Undesirable consequences (as above).

3. Reciprocity: the opponents would not wish their view applied to themselves.

4. Hidden agendas: the opposing position is motivated by some personal gain or bias. In Sanskrit this might be in some instances akin to ‘wrangling’ or ‘cavil’.

5. Analogy: the opposing view is like something considered absurd or shameful, impractical, etc.

At this point we should mention the tact of granting concessions to opponents. Concessions should be short and not too generous, otherwise they can weaken one’s position and then ‘out of a superabundance of fairness, we concede things to our opponent even though they are wicked, false, inept, or dubious’ (Vico, Instituzioni oratorie). ‘Do not say of any error, It is merely a matter of opinion,for no man indulges an error of judgment, without sooner or later tolerating an error in practice’ (Charles Spurgeon, Morning & evening). Here is a list that can be incorporated into our project:

 - The opposing view does not follow logically from the premises given for it; is hypocritical, contains a contradiction.

- The opposing view is dangerous.

- The opposing view is not financially advantageous (wasteful).

- The opposing view is trying to deceive the audience.

- The opponent is biased, promotes a personal agenda or ideology only.

- The opponent’s view will lead to undesirable consequences or an absurd situation.

- The opposing view is ethically wrong in principle /or impinges on the rights of others.

- The opposing view violates an existing law.

- The opposing side proposes something they would not want applied to themselves.

- Show that the opponent’s position was tried before and failed or led to some undesired or embarrassing results.

- The opposing view is based on false assumptions or on ignorance of key facts, or fails to notice important distinctions and nuances.

- The opposing view is short-sighted, will not work in the long-term.

- The opposing view will open more problems.

- The opposing view does not get to the source of the problem.

Another strategy is to identify what people generally accept and then show that your view is consistent with it. C.S. Lewis was a master of this technique of identification. There are two forms that can be used.

a) Something accepted by opponents leads to its own refutation:

We know that the body works on a chemical and material cause-effect basis. But this cannot be all of it because such a strict materialism refutes itself: if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, then I have no basis to suppose that my beliefs are true, and hence I have no basis to suppose my brain to be composed of atoms.

(C.S. Lewis, Miracles)

b) Something accepted by opponents leads to your view:

Few people would be willing to allow water sewage treatment or garbage collection to be in private hands. We readily agree that police, firefighters, and electricity are public utilities. Parents consider the public school system to be a public utility so that their children can be taken care of while they are at work. Since these things are needed by everybody, and medical treatment is also needed by everybody, even more so, then why are so many afraid to treat medicine as a public utility?

(Lev Krotkin, The individual and social process)

- – -

Those who claim to care about the well-being of humans…should become vegetarians for that reason alone. They would thereby increase the amount of grain available to feed people elsewhere, reduce pollution, save water and energy, and cease contributing to the clearing of forests…When non-vegetarians say that human problems come first, I wonder what exactly it is that they are doing for human beings that compels them to continue to support the wasteful, ruthless exploitation of farm animals.

(Peter Singer, Animal liberation)

Pedagogical model

It is not possible to cover the entirety of argumentation theory in a single course. This is even more so for teachers who are doing on-line (distance-learning) courses. Our goal, like Gotama’s, is practical argument. From the above discussion, we have a sequential outline plan for a course in argumentative writing:

1- STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

2- DESCRIPTION, CONNECT READERS TO THE PROBLEM

3- THE 5 TOPICS

a) The argument from perceived advantage or value

b) The argument from disadvantage;

c) The argument from principle

d) The argument from precedent

e) The argument from syllogism

4- REFUTATIONS

5- CLOSING

Steps 3 and 4 are interchangeable, of course. Exercises can be easily designed for each step. And all of the steps will fit nicely together for longer essay tasks. Thus, the goal of imparting an holistic view of the subject and providing formal validity, value appeal, and the relevance of the classical traditions are accomplished. 

Source

The sacred books of the Hindus, vol.8: NYAYA SUTRAS OF GOTAMA. Edited by B.D. Basu. Sudhindranatha Vasu, Bahadurganj, India 1913.

This paper attempts a critical examination of the mind-brain identity theory which holds that the mind or consciousness is nothing but a physico-chemical process in the brain. This theory is borne out of the quest by contemporary neurophysiologists and scientists to give an account of the operations of the human mind in pure physicalist terms, with particular reference to the complex workings of the human brain. If we are to take this view seriously, then we will be accepting the hypothesis that man is essentially a material being without any form of immaterial constituents whatsoever. However, it is doubtful whether this type of reductionist outlook of man provides an adequate understanding of the human person. This paper takes an exception to the identity theorists’ reductionist thesis by raising two objections against this theory. The first is on the difficulty of locating the neuronal correlate of consciousness or mental states which is attributed to brain activity. The second one stems from the implication the theory has for the doctrine of afterlife, and the belief in immortality popularly expressed by theistic persons. This paper concludes that the claim of the identity theorists is a case of mistaken identification of how the human brain works for a physicalist interpretation of consciousness and of the human person.

Introduction

Over the years, philosophers have engaged themselves in the analysis of the nature of the human person and such preoccupation has led to the formulation of various theories and speculations about the nature of the human mind, the nature of the human body and the question of whether any forms of relationship can exist between the mind and body. This is now commonly referred to as the mind-body problem[1] in contemporary philosophy. It is also worthy of note that given the wide array of views on this subject matter, there are no consensual positions yet as regards the identity of the basic constitution of the human person. In this essay, however, we shall focus on the mind-brain identity theory[2] which basically identifies the human mind with the brain and ascribes the functions of the human mind to neural brain processes. It is a modern version of materialism referred to as central state materialism, which considers the human mind or consciousness to be a brain process. In the formal mode of speech this amounts to asserting that mental and physical expressions, although having irreducible meanings of their own and being mutually untranslatable, do refer to the same physical reality.[3] Consequent upon this notion, all human mental expressions of emotions like, sadness, pain, thirst, anger, love, hate and so on would be regarded as nothing less than the physicalist interpretation of stimuli and signals by the brain. This mind-brain problem which is still with us raises the question as to whether the mind is no more than the idle side-effect of our brain processes or whether the mind can, in some degree, influence behavior.[4] Following from this is the issue of how one can describe subjective mental events in the brain in accordance with the laws of physics as strongly advanced by the proponents of this theory.

Meanwhile, in discussing the mind-brain identity theory, one must pay attention to the scientific character of the theory. It is a well known fact that the proponents of the identity theory view themselves as champions of a scientific philosophy that strictly relies on scientific findings and methodology which is said to be free of a priori preconceptions and bold speculation. A good reason for the physicalist outlook of this theory lies in the identity theorist’s rejection of the dualist position which affirms that mental events are completely different from physical events because they are non-physical in all their aspects and consist in changes in the non-physical state of immaterial entity, the soul. In essence, the mind-brain identity theory denies what dualism affirms.[5] In fact, this theory holds that one can give a comprehensive account of man without recourse to any form of spirituality or ‘ghost stuff’. That is, as J.J.C. Smart claims, “for a full description of what is going on in a man you would have to mention not only the physical processes in his tissues, glands, nervous system, and so forth, but also his state of consciousness (which are his brain processes): his visual, auditory, and tactual sensations, his aches and pains.”[6] This statement by Smart, brings to the fore the scientific character of the identity theory. Our interest here is to critically examine the tenets of this science-inspired theory and the physicalist interpretation they gave to the human mental phenomena. Let us attempt a succinct conceptualization of the mind-brain identity theory.

An Overview of the Mind-Brain Identity Theory

This theory which came to prominence in the early 1950s and 60s and was advocated by philosophers such as U.T. Place, J.J.C. Smart, Herbert Feigl, and D.M. Armstrong, to mention a few. Although, there are slight variations in the position of these scholars, they generally hold the view that there is no existent immaterial substance called mind existing independent of matter. The mind-brain identity theory essentially holds that the mind is identical with and not ‘above’ or ‘over’ the human brain and that mental events are just brain activities. It also claims that there are no ghostly immaterial substances or events to constitute our minds. The arguments offered by proponents of this view are very instructive and compelling given the fact of recent developments in science which seeks to understand the human person from a purely scientific viewpoint.

In his famed article titled; “Sensations and Brain Processes”, J.J.C. Smart stresses this point by asserting that “a man is a vast arrangement of physical particles, but not, over and above this, sensations or state of consciousness.”[7] This statement by Smart reflects the denial of consciousness as something that has an independent existence outside the brain which is a physical entity.  A denial made possible by neurophysiology which is a major scientific influence on this theory, and has presented the world with radical views on how the human consciousness can be interpreted from a physiological basis and not in immaterial and mentalist terms as was the norm in classical philosophy. As Smart explicates further;

It seems to me that science is increasingly giving us a viewpoint whereby organisms are able to be seen as physico-chemical mechanisms…that is, for a full description of what is going on in a man you would have to mention not only physical processes in his tissues, glands, nervous system, and so forth, but also his states of consciousness: his auditory, and tactual sensations, his aches and pains.[8]

It is obvious from the above that the major thrust of this theory is to argue for the possibility of applying the method of scientific investigation in knowing the human mental state which is nothing but a physical expression of brain processes. For instance, electrical current can be applied to the brain of a person suffering from stroke or epilepsy to determine the pain mechanisms and tensions they are going through. Of course, such feelings of pain which is supposedly tangible, would be considered by the identity theorist as merely emanating from a physiological stimulating processes of the brain.

Similarly, U.T. Place in his work titled: “Is Consciousness a Brain Process?” suggests like other thorough going identity theorists that we can identify consciousness with a given pattern of brain activity, if we can explain the subject’s introspective observations by reference to the brain processes with which they are correlated. [9] But he believes that there is one obstacle that can hinder the understanding of consciousness in this way; this he referred to, like Smart, as Phenomenological fallacy.  To him, this phenomenological fallacy;

…is the mistake of supposing that when the subject describes his experience, when the subject describes his experience, when he describes how things look, sound, smell, taste or feel to him, he is describing the literal properties of objects and events on a peculiar sort of internal cinema or television screen, usually referred to in the modern psychological literature as the ‘phenomenal field.[10]

Thus, in order to avoid this mistake or obstacle, we must realize, as Place advocates, that we describe our conscious experience not with reference to any mythological phenomenal properties but to the actual state properties of the concrete physical objects, events and processes which give rise to the very conscious experience.

Although Place wrote copiously to defend his views, J.J.C. attempted a reformulation of his arguments by reasoning that to ascribe both immaterial and material qualities to man will be to commit Occam’s razor fallacy because there are no philosophical arguments which compels us to be dualists. He also granted the fact, unlike Place that there are certain undeniable facts about this vast mechanism called man. But he reduced such behaviours to dispositions and such dispositions are mentally derived, if this is the case, it follows that dispositions are brain processes. Smart unwittingly stressed the thesis of the mind-brain identity theory as follows; in his words:

Let me first try to state more accurately the thesis that… in so far as a sensation statement is a report of something that something is in fact a brain processes. Sensations are nothing over and above brain processes.[11]

It is obvious from the above that the mind-brain identity theorists hold a materialist view of man that everything including one’s own consciousness, thoughts, and sensations are purely material or physical. They take an uncompromising attitude towards the belief in minds conceived as non-physical in nature. They rejected the any interpretation of the mind as something phenomenal, subjective and private as conceived by the dualists. For them, mental phenomena do not enjoy any existence ‘over’ and ‘above’ the physical phenomena; in short, they are to be considered as physical phenomena. Extreme materialists like J.J.C. Smart assert that “conscious experience must be processes involving millions of neurons and are therefore explainable as ‘brain states’ and not ‘spirit’ or soul states.”[12] From this premise, it becomes obvious that the advocates of this theory are monists of the materialistic bent because they argue that only material substance and their states exist.

According to the major proponents[13] of this view, everything human beings think, feel, sense, will or desires are explicable in the term of physics because human sensations can only make sense when it is interpreted as the process of exchange of information between the nerves, central nervous system and the brain which are all material or physical in nature. The emphasis on the physical existence is referred to as physicalism in contemporary philosophy of mind. The term physicalism as described by Thomas Nagel is the idea that a person, with all his psychological attributes is nothing over and above his body, with all its physical attributes.[14] This claim is consistent with the physicalist claims that:

Human beings are fully material entities whose workings and properties may be completely explicated by the concepts and theories drawn from an ideally complete physics. There is no room for immaterial or supernatural interventions in the physical causal chains which run through a person’s central nervous system, reaching from inputs in the form of physical stimuli through behavioural outputs.[15]

It follows from this description that human beings are considered by the physicalist as parts of the natural, non-spiritual, physical world, not in any way related to the supernatural ghost or spirit mysteriously associated with the body. Thus for the physicalist, it is wrong to conceive of a mind as a separate substance from the body, because whatever the mind is, it cannot be immaterial. If this is the case, then some account that locates it entirely within the natural world must be possible. This physicalist trend running through the ideas of the philosophers of this persuasion shall now be subjected to a critical evaluation.

A Critical Evaluation of the Mind-Brain Identity Theory

Let us begin our critique of this theory with the first objection raised against it; which is that the mind-identity theory creates a difficulty of locating the points of correlation of consciousness within the brain. If consciousness which includes a person’s mental functions and self awareness are said to be causally related to or dependent on activities in the brain, then it would seem that consciousness share the same characteristics with neurons, brain cells and tissues. The claim that consciousness can be reduced to physiological processes is untenable since when we are talking about consciousness, there are the internalist and externalist aspects. The internalist aspects are those which are subjective to a person, like holding of beliefs, opinions, rational thinking, and other mental actions. The externalist aspect, on the other hand, has to do with the external world, like an awareness of one’s surroundings, being awake and experiencing the natural world. The identity theorists seem to interpret consciousness only from the internalist perspective without paying attention to the externalist aspects of consciousness.

Again, even if the brain is believed to be responsible for our conscious states, the question on whether the neuronal correlate of consciousness is physical would still persist. Is human consciousness just as physical as the tissues that make up the brain or are they immaterial qualitative states that subsist inside the “brain stuff?”[16] Can we speak of the mind or consciousness as brain processes in this way without falling into some kind of categorical confusion? It would be quite impossible as physicalism cannot grant that consciousness which it tried to reduce to mental state has certain incorporeal and distinctive features. Consequently, speaking of locating neuronal correlate of conscious states in the brain as the physicalist conceives it, is indeed a difficult task.  Although modern day physicalist believe that every conscious precept, how the brain represents stimuli from the senses is associated with a specific coalition of neurons acting in a specific way. That is, there is a sort of unique neuronal correlate of consciousness. Thus, the questions we can raise here are: how the brain processes does translate to consciousness? How are this physical process connected with the facts of consciousness? The chasm between the two classes of phenomena would still remain intellectually impassable. In short, the passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness is unthinkable.[17]

Contrary to the claims of the identity theorists, human consciousness cannot be reduced to mere physical processes in the brain because consciousness is that aspect of man which involves human experience and awareness of such experience. It is not a material process in the brain because it is not physical, measurable or scientifically quantified. If the mind-brain identity theory were to be true, then how come we do not know when the brain interprets our mental activities just as the brain interprets other reflexes like electric shock, or burns? Another issue that may posit a problem for the advocates of this theory is the fact that it would be difficult to interpret how a Being can be conscious of her consciousness in physicalist terms. In short, the doctrine of the passage from the physics of the brain to corresponding facts of consciousness in explaining the idea of the human person is a case of mistaken identification.

The second objection to the mind-brain identity theory stems from the fact that it has a serious implication for the doctrine of afterlife and immortality held by many religious people around the world.  The mind which the materialists identified with the brain is often regarded as the soul by theistic persons. For instance, Descartes uses the word “mind” to refer to the soul. He used the mind interchangeably with the soul and the soul for him, is capable of immortality. He believes that with this kind of consideration, it is possible to show that the destruction of the mind does not follow from the corruption of the body, and thus to afford men the hope of a life after death. This Cartesian presumption is similar to what we find in many theistic metaphysics nowadays. The Traditional Yoruba African Religion provides us with a good insight here. The Yoruba believe that there is a state of existence, attainable by human beings, beyond the limits of our present mortal life spans. That there can be some kind of continuation in existence after death is attested to by the actions and practices of living people such as veneration of the ancestors, ancestral festivals, and concept of the ‘living-dead’, belief in spiritual superintendents of family affairs and punishment of moral offenders.[18] In this case, the soul or spirit is believed to have the capacity to transcend death, and enjoy eternal life or eternal doom after death, depending on whether that soul was good or evil during its sojourn on earth. In fact, it is further believed within this system that one’s fore-bears can become ancestors and serve as mediators the supernatural world and the physical world, providing access to spiritual guidance and power.  Thus, within this kind of belief system and such religio-cultural framework, the mind-brain identity theory cannot hold because it reduces man to a purely material being who cannot transcend death. This is a shortcoming of their scientific vision. It suffices to note that scientifically speaking, human beings may not know what happens after death, but many are adamant that there is life after death.[19]

Conclusion

So far, we have been able to examine the main thesis of the mind-brain identity theory which postulates and defends the sameness of reference to mental and physical properties in understanding the human person, in terms of mind and the brain. Some objections to this theory have also been raised especially as it concerns its physicalist conception of man. But as we conclude, it is pertinent to state that although the theory entails a kind of extreme reductionism, it also has some merits because it is true that the mind or consciousness needs the brain in order to function properly. However, this close connection between the mind and the brain neither guarantee the assumption that the mind and the brain are the same thing nor consciousness is a brain process. It is quite difficult to grant the view the identity theorists are putting forward, because consciousness is not a material entity that can be qualified in the same physicalist way as other bodily experiences. It is the considered opinion of this paper that human consciousness is not qualitatively identical with brain processes.

Notes and References

[1] This notion is explicated by Peter Lloyd; he opines that the mind-body problem has remained essentially unchanged since Descartes put it forward in 1641. The problem is: what is the nature of the conscious mind, and how does it relate to the body? See. Peter B. Lloyd, “Is the Mind Physical?” in Philosophy Now, No.6, 1993, pp.1.

[2] The mind-brain identity theory is otherwise referred to as central state materialism or identity theory or modern physicalism.

[3] Fanny L. Epstein, “The Metaphysics of Mind-Body Identity Theories” in Nicholas Rescher (ed.) American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 10, No.3, 1973, p. 111.

[4] This mind-brain problem which is a fall out of the identity theory is stated clearly by John Beloff when he writes that however contentious, the philosophical problem of this theory as distinct from the physiological problem can be stated quite simply as follows: What, essentially is the relationship between events in the brain and those private, subjective, introspectible experiences that together constitute our inner mental life? This concern raised by Beloff is consistent with our first reason for rejecting the thesis of the identity theory which shall be attended to later in this paper. See. John Beloff, “The Mind-Brain Problem” in Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 8, No. 4, 1994, p. 509.

[5] The disagreement between the dualism and identity theory consists in the acceptability of whether human beings possess separate mental or spiritual aspects that is independent of the body.

[6] Here, Smart stated the thesis of identity theory when he writes that: it is not the thesis that, for example, ‘after image’ or ‘ache’ means the same as ‘brain process of sort X’ (where ‘X’ is replaced by a description of a certain sort of brain process). It is that in so far as ‘after-image’ or ‘ache’ is a report of a process, it is a report of a process that happens to be a brain process. See J.J.C. Smart’s influential work; “Sensations and brain Processes”, Philosophical Review, LXVII, 1959, pp.141-56.

[7] J.J.C. Smart, “Sensations and Brain Processes,” in V.C. Chappell (ed.) Philosophy of Mind (Englewood Cliffs, 1962), pp.160-172. Also, this same article is published in David J. Chalmers, (ed.) Philosophy of Mind: Contemporary Readings (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002) pp.60-68.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ullin T. Place, “Is Consciousness a Brain Process?” in British Journal of Psychology, 47:1, Feb 1956, p. 44.

[10] Ibid., p.49.

[11] J.J. C. Smart, Op.Cit., 55.

[12] J.J.C. Smart, “Materialism” in Feigl Herbert (ed.) New Readings in Philosophical Analysis, (New York: Appleton-C, Croth Corp., 1972) p. 378.

[13] The philosophers that are often recognized as the major proponents of this theory were deeply influenced by the writings of the logical positivist like Moritz Schlick, Rudolf Carnap, Carl Hempel, and even Bertrand Russell. They are regarded as Tough-minded scientists who tend to refute the claims of those whose mission was to relegate the mind-body problem to the limbo of speculative metaphysics. The works in this category of includes the works of the following philosophers: (i) Herbert Feigl, “The ‘mental’ and the ‘physical’,” in Herbert Feigl, Grover Maxwell, and Michael Scriven (eds.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. II (Minneapolis, 1958), pp. 370-497. (ii) J.J.C. Smart, “Sensations and Brain Processes,” in V.C. Chappell (ed.) Philosophy of Mind (Englewood Cliffs, 1962), pp.160-172. (iii) Ullin.T. Place, “Is Consciousness a Brain Process?, “ in V.C. Chappell (ed.)Philosophy of Mind (Englewood Cliffs, 1962), pp.101-109. (iv) Hilary Putnam, “Minds and Machines,” in Sidney Hook (ed.), Dimensions of Mind (New York and London, 1960) pp. 138-164.

[14] See. Thomas Nagel, “Physicalism,” being the text of a Paper read to the Pacific Division American Philosophical Association in Seattle, 5 September, 1964.

[15] K.T. Maslin, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001), p. 73.

[16] The expressions “Brian Stuff” and “Ghost Stuff” are oft quoted terminologies of J.J.C. Smart.

[17] John Tyndall, “The Limitations of Scientific Materialism” in Paul Edwards & Arthur Pap (eds.) A Modern Introduction to Philosophy (New York: Collier-Macmillan Publishers, 1973) p. 217.

[18] Ade P. Dopamu, “Change and Continuity: The Yoruba Belief in Life After Death” The Text of a paper prepared for “Continuity and Change: Perspectives on Science and Religion”, June 3-7, 2006, in Philadelphia, PA, USA, a program of the Metanexus Institute (www.metanexus.net), p. 1.

[19] Ibid.

Contact the author at: Philosopher.bayo@yahoo.com or +2348032347935

The Hindu mythical traditions form an integral part of the oral culture which has preserved an interesting lineage of listeners and narrators. It is no wonder, therefore, that the myths in the Indic systems are a part of a living tradition, which aims at our reformation. Taking cue from the classical text of Shrimad-bhagvatam, by Ved Vyas, this paper intends to understand the concept of death in human life, its daunting nature and the wise means of dealing with it, by referring to the myth of the king, Pariikshita and the serpent, Takshaka.  The concept of death is then appropriated in the contemporary scenario where man’s incessant fear of death and incognizance are contrasted against Pariikshita’s discernment. This notion is further elaborately looked upon by analogizing the environmental destruction of Takshaka’s habitat with the large scale environmental destructions today and henceforth, the fomenting clout of Takshaka.

The story of Pariikshita is nothing spectacular except, for its antiquity and association with the sacred lore, as it represents the common human knowledge about the inevitability of death. Through an unexpected turn of events, Pariikshita comes to know the time of his death, otherwise not known to human beings. We all know that we shall die but Pariikshita knows exactly how much time he has to live and hence he sees the looming death which we choose to ignore. “What is the greatest wonder,” asked the Yaksha from Yudhishthira to which he replied, “Forgetting death which is always round the corner.” [1]

Contrary to the average human behavior, and the plight of Pariikshita, the Mahabharata offers us the character of Bhishma whose mind was focused on the mortal end of the body and who was also blessed with the power to postpone his death as long as he pleased. But he chose to welcome his death gracefully in the battle of Mahabharata. Seeing Krishna descend from his chariot with his eternal weapon: the ‘Sudarsana Chakra’ on his finger, Bhishma threw down his weapons, folded his hands and welcomed death at the hands of Krishna. [2] Bhishma was not only aware of the temporality of life but also he was untainted and untouched by worldly corruption, and just as a committed devotee he surrendered himself to Krishna whom he perceived as the supreme reality. Thus, for him, the end of the human body was not the cessation but only a stage in the journey of the soul to higher realms. Bhishma thus attained refuge in Krishna and became his ‘Sharanaagata’ (the true deserver of Krishna’s love and protection)

Besides, it is worth mentioning that the epic Mahabharata, in the context of Bhishma’s acceptability of death, brings forth the idea of bhakti through the love shared between Bhishma and Krishna. Krishna had vowed not to participate in the Great War as a combatant. But under the compulsion to protect Arjuna, (another great devotee and Sharanaagata) he was constrained to break his vow. However, while breaking his vow, he also ended up fulfilling the vow/wishes of Bhishma who had vowed that he (Bhishma) would make Krishna into a combatant in the battle and take up a weapon to strike the opponent. Thus the opposites, of keeping one’s vow and breaking it for the sake of a devotee are reconciled. Krishna was confronted with the dilemma of keeping either his vow or the vow of his devotee, but he preferred to keep the vow of his devotee Bhishma, as Bhishma was the bhakta-vatsala (the devotee) par excellence, who was attached to the lord as a cow to its calf.

Much later, Pariikshita; the great grandson of Arjuna, and the great grand nephew of Krishna, was confronted by death, but unlike Bhishma, he did not know what to do when the hour of death arrived. The way was shown to him by Shri Shukdev, who expounded the Shrimad-bhagvatam to Pariikshita within the time span of seven days. [3]Within this time, Pariikshita perceived correctly that death is merely a terminator of the body and not of the soul.

Displacement of the Forest Dwellers and the birth of Takshaka

On the denial of the kingdom of Hastinapur, the Pandavas moved to the Khandava region for habitation. For inhabiting the area, the forest was cleared by the use of fire, as was the custom of the times. Following the commands of Krishna, Arjuna accomplished the task. But, the fire consumed the lives of several creatures residing in the forest, along with the family of Takshaka (the serpent), thus provoking vengeance in him as he survived the conflagration. However, despite certain efforts, Takshaka was unsuccessful in seeking his revenge from Arjuna, and so, the karmic consequences of Arjuna were passed to his immediate successor, Pariikshita. Although an astute king, Pariikshita fell prey to the common human fallacy, viz a vie, anger. Thus, overcome by anger for ascetic in meditation, Pariikshita insulted him by throwing a dead serpent round his neck. This insult was avenged by the son of the ascetic who pronounced a curse upon Pariikshita, saying that the deadly serpent Takshaka would kill him after seven days. [4]

Pariikshita’s Quest for Knowledge and Takshaka’s revenge

On knowing that the day of his death was certain, Pariikshita chose to abnegate his material assets than to seek refuge in his imperial comforts. Although not completely conscious of the righteous measures in dealing with the impending danger, Pariikshita meditated on Krishna when his thirst for knowledge was finally quenched by Shri Shukdev, who propounded the text of the Shrimad-bhagvatam to him.

Under the guidance of his guru (teacher), Pariikshita was successful in fearlessly renouncing his body to Takshaka and becoming an example of a saadhak/ seeker, truly detached from the body and worldly affairs. However, at the same time, without condoning the injustice done to Takshaka, we can say that though his revenge was successfully implemented, he became a figure symbolic not only of  victimization but also of the advancement of death which could either result in uncontrollable fear or a search for Truth. In the case of Pariikshita, the curse directed him to search for a meaning beyond death, and in this way, he became a true deserving listener (adhikaari shrotaa ) of the Shrimad-bagvatam.

In our everyday lives, we too are often visited by Takshaka (chances of early or unexpected death). The story of Pariikshita shows us the way of turning this misfortune into a blessing. This is however possible through the attainment of the right kind of knowledge, as achieved by Pariikshita, who expressed his curiosity in knowing the purpose of human life on earth and also wished to know what the right way of living was when the hour of death was near.[5]  Nowhere in the text of Shrimad-bhagvatam, did this great devotee of Krishna berate his fate or the doings of his ancestors. The curse, for Pariikshita, became a door to enlightenment and by following the instructions of Shukdev, Pariikshita freed his mind from the fear of death which had grappled him earlier.

Understanding Death in the Shrimad-bhagvatam

The Shrimad-bhagvatam is a seminal text which records the enlightening dialogues between Pariikshita and Shri Shukdev. This text deals with a universal problem of death and the right way to deal with it.  The first thing that it prescribes is not to be afraid of death, and the successive step recommended is to strive for wisdom. The saadhak should learn to discriminate the seemingly real from the truly real. This discriminatory wisdom alone brings liberation (moksha) from the fear of death and the cycle of rebirth. The several ways to attain ‘moksha’ that have been prescribed by different schools are: karma (action), gyaana (knowledge), and sanyaasa. The Bhagavad however, implies that because decadence and corruption are the defining characteristics of Kaliyuga, and that Man is more inclined towards them, and since, disinterested practices of the yoga, gyana and karma are very difficult to pursue, the easier (sahaja) path is that of Bhakti. Thus, at the nearing hour of death, Bhakti is the quickest means for salvation, as explicated in the case of Pariikshita. [6]

The Shrimad-bhagvatam is imbued with the elements of Bhakti, such as valorization of Krishna; the celebration of his 22 avatars, Krishna as the cosmic creator, and an enchanting human figure who is everybody’s beloved. In contrast, we are explained the temporality of the world which is divided into three gunas, namely, saattvik, raajasik and taamasik. They function within the realms of maaya, and thus often beguile the ignorant of the Truth.  In this state of entrapment and ignorance, people commit several misdeeds which come back to settle their scores just as Takshaka.

In the seven precious days of his life, Pariikshita could choose to indulge in the worldly pleasures and fulfill his personal desires. But, he did not disapprove of his fate and by choosing the practice of Bhakti, he showed no regret in renouncing all material assets. In this way, the text of Shrimad-bhagvatam successfully develops the importance of Bhakti maarga and the necessary benefits one can reap from it.

Modern Man and the position of Takshaka Today

Contrary to the triumph of Pariikshita in conquering the fright of death, the modern Man has remained unaccomplished in achieving the same. Man’s unending desires and the growing narcissism, have denied him a wise perception of life. Advancements in the field of technology and medicine have resulted in the longevity of life, and the advent of cosmetic surgery has also unnaturally prolonged the time span of youth, thereby distancing Man from understanding that death is an unavoidable end. Consequently, Man fears old age and death and perceives it as his enemy, which can devoid him of all his possessions.

Because the inevitable nature of death is difficult to accept, Takshaka, or the agent of death lurks in our sub consciousness, often gripping us in the clutches of fear and darkness by portending human mortality. Likewise, Takshaka is also the Frankenstein like figure, the creation of man who breaks the rules of nature and goes against them. So, under compelling circumstances, Takshaka (as the forest inhabitant or the creature who is dependent upon the Nature for its habitat) is provoked to fight against those who have disturbed his natural environment. Thus, when the fire in the city of Khandava depleted the natural habitat and the tribal communities inhabiting it, the consequences were retaliating and were faced by the later generation of the Pandavas, viz a vie Pariikshita. Similarly, the catastrophic effects of the large scale environmental destructions, carried out by man today, have deleterious effects on our lives, in several ways.

Today, man is usurping forests and acres of land for his selfish motives. This is causing environmental damage and tribal killings/displacements. As a result of this, compared to the earlier social scene, Takshaka has become pervasive and more powerful in his position, and if we do not cease to continue harming our environment, he will attack us in the form of natural calamities and tribal revolts, (one or the other forms of death).The ongoing conflict between Man and Nature must therefore, come to an end for a tranquil life. The Bhagavad also reiterates this point through the story of Janmajaya. Following Pariikshita’s death, his son Janmajaya, outraged over his father’s death, performed a ‘yagya’ to burn Takshaka alive, and in the process, several other serpents were also burnt. Nonetheless, following the instructions of Brahaspati, one of the ascetics present at the time of the ‘yagya’, Janmajaya ended the proceedings, on being warned against the massive killings he had caused, the aftermath of which could be violent and vicious in nature. [7]  However, today, the forceful invasions into the Natural habitats are being carried out impetuously and are marked with massive destructions resulting in killings and Man’s ever growing fear of it.

Under the correct guidance of his teacher, Pariikshita rightfully dealt with death and became the exemplar of the right way of living. Simultaneously, we may also consent to the fact that Shukdev, the narrator of the Bhagvatam, was in accord with Nature and all the living creatures inhabiting it. As a wise Brahmin, he understood the matters of life and death correctly. Conversely, today, the dust of materialism and the itch for industrial civilization has blinded us so much so that we are devoid of the consciousness which Pariikshita was awakened to. For this reason, we no longer seek for ‘Shukdev’ (the light of wisdom), but instead, continuing to dwell in darkness, we spend our lives in ignorance.

The story of Pariikshita and Takshaka tells us that death cannot be avoided. It also explicates that besides being an agent of death, Takshaka is the answer to every wrong deed committed by Man. Finally, with Pariikshita’s liberation and Takshaka’s revenge, both the opposites were reconciled, but despite this reconciliation, Pariikshita gained a much higher pedestal than Takshaka because he freed himself from all earthly confinements, which Takshaka, in the wake of seeking his revenge, could not . It was Pariikshita and not Takshaka who set the examples of human excellence. Thus, instead of causing fear, Takshaka conversely became the catalytic force towards Pariikshita’s liberation (moksha). However, how far is this situation applicable in today’s context? Today, is Takshaka the catalytic force which is leading us towards the pursuit of liberation (‘moksha’), or is he simply pushing us towards death?  In the absence of a wise way of handling death, Man’s quest for wisdom (or the ‘Bhagavad’) has ceased. This vacuum has denied him a prudent discernment of life and death, and as a result, Takshaka has become an agent of horror, seizing Man in the grip of death, rather than becoming a conduit of liberation.

Therefore, in this way, the sacred Hindu lore of Pariikshita and Takshaka, brings many important facts for our serious consideration, and also, in a way, emphasizes the reason for which the Indic religions stress on the need of an oral tradition; the ritual of repetitive recitals brings more awareness and reflective abilities in the listener.

END NOTES:

[1] Kisari Mohan Ganguli : (1883-1896) English trans, The Mahabharat:,‘Vana Parva Part 3, Munshiram    Manoharlal Pub.

[2] Ibid: ‘Bhishma Parva’: Pg. 152: Bhishma headed the army of the Kauravas during the battle. When Krishna sees that Bhishma will defeat Arjuna in the battle, he gets down from the chariot to protect Arjuna from Bhishma. On seeing Krishna, Bhishma says:

“Come, come, O Lord of the Gods…I bow to thee…Thou art the refuge of all creatures in this battle…”

[3] Vishnupriya, (2006),  Hindi Translation,  Shrimadbhagvatam Prime Publishing Company, 2006), Part 2 Chapter   1, Pg. 348

[4] Ibid:  Part 1, Chapter 18, Pg. 328

[5] Ibid : Part 1, Chapter 19, Pg. 338

[6]Ibid:  Part 1, Chapter 11, Pg. 336

[7] Ibid :  Part 5, Chapter 6, Pg. 3947 , Pg. 3949

About the author:

Nupur Behl received her Bachelors and Masters degrees in English literature from the University of Delhi. She has an extensive research experience in the field of Theology with focus on Hinduism and Bhakti . Previously, she worked as a Citizen Journalist and is currently teaching English and pursuing B.Ed from the University of Delhi. Her areas of  research interests include Sufism, European history and Existential literature.

by Salil Bal

But before doing that, we should note down some questions which though they bear on the question of whether it’s OK to eat MED, are not ethical propositions. These are:

1. Do animals feel pain?
2. Is large scale animal husbandry (the current practice of raising livestock for products like MED) distressful for the animals?
3. Is it unhealthy to eat meat? All the time? Sometime?
4. Is large scale animal husbandry bad for the environment?

Perhaps you can think of others.

I think it’s widely accepted that the answer to the first two is yes. Animals do feel pain and cooping them up in small enclosures, keeping them lactating, etc. is distressful for the animals. The third question is also answered in the affirmative. Livestock emit methane which contributes to global warming, the whole practice contributes to deforestation, the lowering of the watertable, etc. The fourth question is more open for debate though not an ethical debate. Meat eaters typically maintain that animal products are necessary for our protein needs. Vegetarians typically adduce alternative sources of protein like nuts, etc. My own belief is that the importance of protein is vastly exaggerated. Generations of my ancestors have been lacto-vegetarians and they got along just fine.

Peter Singer’s book approaches the issue of whether it’s permissible to eat MED from a utilitarian perspective. This means that acts or principles for action have to be justified on the basis of the greatest good for the greatest number which Singer formulates as assigning equal weight to every creature’s interest. Singer seems to take for granted that our answers to the preceding four factual questions are correct. He defends his utilitarian perspective, which he claims to derive from the fact that ethical principles should be universalizable, against several alternatives.

For example he argues that the ethical relativist or the ethical subjectivist can’t account for moral disagreements. If I think it’s alright to eat MED because that’s the practice of my society or simply myself and someone else thinks it’s wrong to eat MED because that’s the practice of her society, the relativist would say there is no disagreement. Both are right. This Singer takes as a reductio. I for one don’t think this is an absurd position. But Singer has another argument. The ethical relativist can’t account for the nonconformist or reformer. If his view differs from that of his society he is necessarily wrong. To the extent that we recognize many reformers as heroes, Singer’s argument works.

Another view Singer considers can be described as the utilitarian version of relativism. It says that everyone’s interests should be taken into account in making an ethical decision but restricts the scope of everyone to everyone sufficiently ‘like’ the decider. Singer argues that just as racism and sexism have been disapproved of in society, so should speciesism be. We shouldn’t just take human interests in deciding whether to eat MED; we should take all creatures capable of feeling pain and pleasure. I don’t think Singer is quite right here. Suppose for example mosquitoes were even more sentient than humans. Singer’s view would make my swatting one morally reprehensible. Speciesism seems to carry some weight, especially if we trace the basis of ethical judgments to theories like natural selection, evolution etc.

Singer also considers a sort of elitism, usually an elitism based on intelligence. According to this view we’re allowed to eat MED, because we’re smarter than cows, pigs and chickens. The latter don’t have to be considered in the scope of everyone when we say everyone’s interests should be taken into account in deciding whether to eat MED. Singer argues that even those who hold this view don’t assign a higher weight to someone in their class who’s more intelligent than them or a lower value to someone in their class who’s less intelligent than them.

The last point Singer makes relevant to this issue is taken up in his last chapter titled, ‘Why Act Morally?’. Singer ultimately concedes that a sociopath who feels no compunction to act morally can’t be reasoned with. But he says that such a person would not experience what may be called the good life.  I should note I haven’t really addressed how Singer takes into account our third and fourth questions, namely is eating MED unhealthy and is it bad for the environment. The latter may be addressed in his chapter 10 titled ‘The Environment’ but I have not read it. On eating MED however some such point may carry weight even for the sociopath.

“He, and he alone, who suffers is a prisoner.” – Kedar Joshi

“A mind enclosed in language is in prison.” – Simone Weil

“Be thine own palace, or the world’s thy jail.” – John Donne

“Man is condemned to be free.” – Jean Paul Sartre

“Man who outthinks man; he’ll rule hell.” – Raam Gokhale

Scene: Could be anywhere but since Ram is styling Kedar and himself as prisoners maybe an imaginary jail scene with prison garb would be appropriate.

Players: Right now it’s just Ram and Kedar but others may join them as the case may be.

Kedar: OK. You have been in prison during one of your bipolar episodes as you’ve said, and I think one day I might be in prison because of the inflammatory articles I’ve written, especially given the fanaticism of Indian politics. That’s prisoners past and future. Where does the ghost of prisoners present come in? Or is that a mere ghost?

Ram: Not a mere ghost, it’s the holy-ghost. Like in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol the ghost of Christmas present—prisoners present in our case—is the one who most enjoy himself, is the most free.

Kedar: I don’t see how any prisoner could be described as free. And who would want to be a prisoner at present—much better to have been imprisoned in the over-and-done-with past or the deferrable future.

Ram: Not ‘prisoner at present’, prisoner of the present, which I take to be the human condition. We’re all prisoners of the present. But being in the present can also mean being fully in the moment, which is what athletes and entertainers strive for, what Zen masters and motivational speakers advocate. In the moment is when you’re most free. When you’re attuned to every one of your constraints is paradoxically when you’re most liberated from them. Man isn’t condemned to be free as Sartre would have it; rather he is privileged to be in prison—if he’s a prisoner of the present who’s fully in the moment.

Kedar: OK. Maybe I see what you mean. But I still don’t want to be a prisoner in any sense of the word. Anyway moving on to other things obscure: Your quote of yourself—again bad form, I must point out—is rather enigmatic. What is it supposed to mean?

Ram: Oh that. That’s from a poem I wrote long ago.

Present has a present

Now has won

O end all things done

Sage of the ages

We’ll make all well

Man who outthinks man

He’ll rule hell.

It’s a bit gimmicky really: the first and last words of each line are anagrams—as if mere rhyming wasn’t enough. Sort of makes me think of the second quote: “A mind enclosed in language is in prison.” I’ve straight-jacketed my poem into a rhyme scheme that keeps me from soaring free as a true poet should. But maybe it became a good poem in spite of myself.

Kedar:  And very topical too since hell is the ultimate prison. Also the ‘present has a present’, ‘now has won’ lines seem to suggest something of the ‘being in the moment’ discussion.

Anyway, your dialogues straight-jacket me enough by themselves to worry about a poem. For example, the research—you got my email didn’t you—that you had me do into India’s prisons seemed a little too cut and dry to interest a philosopher. Don’t you want to sink your teeth into a juicy paradox?

Ram: Well to tell the truth, I was hoping to work into the dialogue…I think it’s called the Prisoner’s Dilemma. I have a solution to it, but I don’t know how to work it into the dialogue. You see, when you sent me the prison material, I thought solving the paradox would seem either forced or callous.

Kedar: Eh, prisoners shouldn’t worry about seeming unseemly. Let’s hear the paradox.

Ram: OK. A condemned prisoner is told by the hangman on Sunday that in the coming Monday through Friday, he’ll be executed, but the day will come as a surprise to him. The prisoner, mulling this over, reasons as follows: I know I can’t be killed Friday because if I haven’t been killed through Thursday, I’ll know that I’ll be killed Friday so it won’t be a surprise—and the hangman has said it would be a surprise. But if I can’t be killed Friday, I can’t be killed Thursday either: Friday is already eliminated, so if I haven’t been killed through Wednesday, I’ll know that I’ll have to be killed Thursday but that won’t be a surprise either so I can’t be killed Thursday… This reasoning backward can be continued throughout the week so the prisoner concludes he’ll not be executed at all. But of course we know that the prisoner can be surprised—so where’s the error in his reasoning?

Kedar: What you’ve described is the Unexpected Hanging Paradox. The Prisoner’s Dilemma, which has two prisoners and a warden and is not a paradox, is something else. I’ve heard the Unexpected Hanging Paradox before and I must confess, I’ve never really gotten it. The moment the prisoner thinks he can’t be executed on any day, he can be executed on any day and be surprised to boot.

Ram: You’re right in a way, though I must point out that you haven’t pinpointed the prisoner’s flaw in reasoning.

Kedar: I gather you have. Go on. Tell me. I know you’re ‘dying’ to. I promise to ‘hang’ on your every word.

Ram: The hangman has made two statements: the prisoner will be executed between Monday and Friday; and whichever day is chosen, the prisoner will be surprised it’s that day. Ruminating on these two statements, the prisoner is right to conclude that he won’t be surprised on Friday but wrong to conclude that he won’t be unsurprisingly killed on Friday or surprised anytime between Monday and Thursday.

The flaw in his backward reasoning is that he’s only ruled out the possibility that both the hangman’s statements are true; he hasn’t ruled out the single statement he will be killed between Monday and Friday. Remembering logic, denying a conjunction only entitles you to deny one of the conjuncts, and you don’t know which one, though both may be false. The prisoner’s conclusion that he won’t be killed Monday through Friday rejects both of the hangman’s statements since if he won’t be killed he won’t be surprised either.

But there is a more charitable interpretation of the hangman’s conjunctive sentence. Only one part is false. What’s false is that whichever day is chosen, the prisoner will be surprised it’s that day. This is false since if Friday is chosen, the prisoner won’t be surprised.  That doesn’t mean he won’t be killed Friday, just that he won’t be surprised.

What this observation does is if the prisoner can be unsurprisingly killed on Friday, Monday through Thursday remain open as surprisable days. The hangman could’ve made this clearer by saying: You’ll be executed Monday through Friday; and you’ll either be surprised on one of Monday through Thursday or it will be Friday and you won’t be surprised. There would not be even the appearance of a paradox if the hangman had put it thusly. This is a more charitable interpretation of what the hangman said—it makes his statements most true: the prisoner will be killed between Monday and Friday and most likely he’ll be surprised. The hangman’s original statement is just a quick and dirty way of expressing this more charitable interpretation.

Kedar: Hmm Christianity does exhort us to be charitable even unto our hangmen… But seriously I wasn’t listening through half of what you were saying. But as long as you’re satisfied…

Speaking of satisfaction, perhaps like most prisoners, I’m beginning to miss the light conversation of women. Where are the others?

(as if on cue, the ladies Sushama Karve, who we’ve met before, Geeta Bhave, a former professor of hers, and Arpita Gokhale, Ram’s new wife appear from the kitchen where they’ve been tending to dinner—Ram and Kedar aren’t really in prison: they’re all really in Ram’s living room where a buffet dinner is about to get under way.)

Sushama: We’ve been listening to your dialogue and we feel we must interrupt this supposed prison scene. I mean how realistic is it that you prison ‘lifers’ will be discussing the hangman’s paradox?

Kedar: Philosophy is the luxury of the idle. And prisoners are nothing if not idle. Anyway, if you want the prison scenario to be realistic, I’m afraid you have to be the jailer, Geeta, the warden and Arpita…let’s see, she can be here on a conjugal visit.

Ram: OK being newlyweds I guess we should expect a little ribbing. It’s better than comparing marriage to a prison which would’ve been more predictable of you Kedar.

So warden, a philosophical question that innocent prisoners must ask themselves everyday: why are we here?

Kedar (addressing no one in particular): I saw this on Facebook yesterday. In India you can be in prison for kissing in public whereas pissing in public is allowed—precisely the opposite of civilized countries. Being newlyweds Ram and Arpita may be in prison in India for the former; whereas judging by how often I’ve been told to ‘piss-off’, I must be imprisoned abroad for the latter.

Geeta: Well, let me first say why we are here—that is why we’ve chosen this moment to interrupt you two, other than the fact that the food is ready and we should refrain from discussing certain things. Ram and Sushama were at my lecture at the Vidyapith the other day so they probably have an idea about what I’m going to say and Arpita heard me quibble in the kitchen so I guess I’ll just repeat it for the benefit of Kedar.

Basically your paradox/resolution exchange is too cerebral or detached to be in an ethical dialogue about prison which is a serious topic. Uh, ‘Man who outthinks man; Creates for others too impenetrable a secret(???)’ if I may borrow Ram’s anagram scheme.

That’s OK. Philosophers do tend to get bogged down in logical meta-questions instead of discussing practical issues that most need discussing. In my lecture I mentioned as examples G.E. Moore’s atomism about the good and A. J. Ayer’s emotivism, which consigned ethics to be a subsection of either psychology or sociology. I’m sure you can think of others.

Thankfully that is changing. Practically-minded philosophers like Peter Singer, I would say, have rescued philosophy from its traditional doldrums to address issues like animal rights, our duties toward the environment, abortion, euthanasia etc. Philosophy is much more dynamic now, more engaging. I for one welcome the change.

Sushama: That’s why you two are here—if you want to style yourself in prison. You are in prison (giggle, giggle) for not asking soon enough why you’re in prison.

But seriously, ‘Why are we here?’ in the sense of ‘what functions are prisons meant to serve?’ is a serious philosophical question prisoners may realistically ask themselves.

Kedar: Don’t look at me! With two prisoners and a warden in place, Ram probably wants to discuss the real Prisoner’s Dilemma next. I for one would welcome a discussion of what purpose prisons really serve. Maybe house-arrest would serve the purpose in my case.

Arpita: You know, Ram and I discussed this just the other day. We both agree that the only real purpose of prisons is reformative. Prisons are correctional facilities; they fix or rather ought to fix faulty attitudes and tendencies.

Ram: That’s not quite right Arpita—leave it to a wife to emphasize correction! I also thought a major function is as a quarantine; separating the dangerous elements from the rest of society.

In fact I read a comic-book story once. A prisoner is miserable in his cell. Later another prisoner shows him a tunnel he’s dug. The two use it to escape into the outside world after a thrilling, cathartic adventure with giant reptiles, etc. The next scene in the comic strip has the prisoner still idiotically smiling in his cell but with two workers in labcoats looking at him. One of them says, “Now that he’s completely hypnotized, he will be happy for all his days with us.”

The story is an interesting parable of how prison could serve only the quarantine function.

Kedar: Interesting. But if prisoners through hypnosis can be completely happy where they are, everyone would want to be in prison. Hmm, that’s an interesting variation on Ram’s ‘prisoner of the present’ phrase: the hypnotized prisoner is present in a present that’s not present. Maybe Ram can write a poem about that.

Arpita: You know I read your research Kedar. As overcrowded as prisons are, I can only imagine what would happen if more people were incentivized to be in prison. Did you know, Geeta, in India alone there are about 170,000 prisoners as compared to the official capacity of 120,000 or almost 40% over! I wonder what the ratio is in a developed country like the US…

Kedar: It’s interesting. At 220 per 100,000 of population, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country—almost as if the more advanced the society, the more intolerant it is of deviants. Its occupation/capacity ratio is also one of the highest at 168%. True, India is less at 140%, but Indian so-called capacities are so barbaric that there is no comparison.

Sushama: The comparison may not be so invalid. If conditions in India’s prisons are barbaric so are the conditions of living in Indian free society. And as myriads of prison novels have showed, prisons are a microcosm of the society they serve. There too there are bullies and stooges, saints and sadists, the ‘law’ of the jailer and the ‘order’ of the prisoners’ daily lives.

Arpita: My favorites are novels by Jarasandha several of which have been made into Hindi movies. Very often in them, sinners like murderers are shown to have a saintly side.

Geeta: And let’s not forget Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, which shows how a murderer is in a prison of his own making in so called free society. At the end, he confesses and goes to a real prison where he’s reformed.  Punishment is regarded as a good thing that can liberate your true inner, better self.

Ram: You know something of that came through in the Philosophy Pathways article I reprinted in Pune Journal of Philosophy. Learning that inmates in the U.K. are interested to pursue distant learning, have won PEN awards for their essays made me feel even death-row prisoners may have redeemable features. The Philosophy Pathways article is what prompted me to write a prison dialogue by the way.

Sushama: Before we get carried away, let’s not forget that the outside world may over-romanticize prisons and prisoners leading to unpleasant consequences.

Ram: Sure. There was the case of the writer Norman Mailer who fought for the freedom of a jailed literary type only to have him commit another murder once liberated.

Sushama: Good point. That’s why—as unpopular as it may be with the reformist members of our circle—I’m afraid I’m pretty Kantian about prisons.

Arpita: I’m not much up on Kant. But I’d like to know why you think your view would be unpopular.

Geeta: Kant advocated what is known as the retributive theory of punishment, Arpita.

According to this theory, punishment is given primarily because a crime is committed, not for the effects of the punishment on society as would be the case under a deterrence theory or Ram’s quarantine theory.

The criminal deserves to be punished for his crime and it the duty of others to punish him. Any kind of negligence in this duty will be an injustice.

Arpita: Doesn’t that sanction acts of vengeance?

Geeta: No I think Kant would say an act coming out of a feeling would not be a moral act. To be moral, an act must be done from a sense of duty.

Sushama: Thanks Geeta. I couldn’t have put it better myself. It’s a simple equation: guilt demands a commensurate punishment. And since death is qualitatively unlike anything else, murder requires capital punishment.

Ram: Is it just me or does Kant’s view here seem a bit inconsistent with his own universal maximizing?

Kedar: Kant inkantsistant? Kant be! Oh no, I’m getting as bad as you used to be Ram, while, after marriage, you don’t pun as much.

Arpita: I’m afraid you’ve lost me again.

Geeta: Arpita, Kant’s overall system of ethics is built around a version of the biblical Golden Rule: Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you. Or as he puts it, Do that act which you could by your doing it will to be a universal maxim.

But Ram, I’m curious to hear why you think Kant—or Sushama for that matter—is inconsistent.

Ram: The basic inconsistency is that as Singer points out, universalization involves putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, thereby taking their interests into account. Kant seems a little inconsistent because in deciding whether to vote for the death-penalty, aren’t we obligated to take the criminal’s interests into account?

Sushama: Just now I’m not sure what’s wrong with your argument but it should be pointed out that if correct, it’s an argument against all retributive punishment, not just capital punishment, and maybe that in itself is a reductio.

Geeta: What’s wrong with the argument—why Kant and Sushama can be cleared of the charge of inconsistency—is simply that Kant is not committed to everyone’s interests being harmoniously in sync. Kant has to take everyone’s interests into account but, since interests are bound to conflict, universal maxims are going to cross some people, namely criminals.

Ram: I guess I’m unclear what legitimate interests of honest citizens would conflict with as fundamental an interest as a criminal’s right to continue living. If there’s no conflict in interests great enough to override a criminal’s basic right to life, there would be no universal maxim for approving the death penalty.

Kedar: Perhaps we can follow the example of Ram’s comic book parable. Whether we’re considering deterrence, quarantine, retribution or reform, light can be shed on the problem by assuming the other aspects of prison are an illusion.

Thus when considering whether reform is the one true purpose of prisons, we can imagine that retribution—the indignation that the righteous feel in punishing criminals—is satisfied by an illusion that the criminals, actually in the process of being reformed, are suffering. If this doesn’t seem unjust, retribution is not an essential characteristic of punishment.

Ram: That’s a good point. Why punish by death if everyone’s interests could be satisfied by other means, be they fiction or illusion.

Sushama: I would say that in most cases, reform is the actual illusion. Most criminals are recidivists. Anyway, leaving aside the fact that some retribution theorists believe it is the right of criminals to be punished, I don’t think an illusion or a lie would satisfy the right of good people to know criminals are being punished. This is like the right that the dead have to have their last will and testament be executed. There too we might say, what does it matter if the deceased is deceived, if the deception is undetected. In both cases, the difference that a lie or illusion would make would be that it would be a lie or illusion.

Ram: I look at this way. A man has two sons, one good one bad. Isn’t it more commendable to reform the bad one than simply to punish him because it’s just? If there is a punishment that would be most just but that would harden his son’s heart against all reform oughtn’t he to ‘spare that particular rod’?

Sushama: Your example is misleading. A father has certain duties toward the children he has brought into this world.

Arpita: I think we have similar if not as strong duties toward our fellow citizens. We have a duty not to hurt them unless the hurt is necessary to make them better persons in the long run.

Kedar: In that case you could say our duty to the future good them outweighs our duty not to hurt the bad them. Sushama brought up the rights of the dead; our duty to future good persons may be compared to our duties to the unborn, however you feel about that.

Geeta: What an illusion of suffering would do is promote the utility in the sense of pleasure of some good people; it would not satisfy their right to have criminals punished. Utilitarianism may also play a role where punishment is administered to bring about the better, presumably more utility-promoting self. But Kant and Sushama need not be utilitarian about punishment.

Sushama: That’s right. Kant thought crime just deserves punishment, independent of any utilitarian considerations. In terms of the illusion parable, there would be an injustice if murderers were not actually made to pay for their crime.

Geeta: You know Nietzsche observed that “punishment is overdetermined by utilities of every sort”. The illusion parable is like a philosophic prism that separates each purpose so that it can be evaluated in isolation.

So far we’ve considered the scenario that prisoners’ suffering is an illusion. Maybe we should consider what would be our reaction if their reformation were an illusion.

Ram: That’s an interesting suggestion, Geeta. If reformation were always an illusion, surely there would be no point to attempts to reform. The situation is different where the criminals’ suffering is an illusion. There a legitimate purpose is satisfied: to see criminals punished whether they’re actually suffering or not. To put it another way, merely satisfying the desire to reform without actual reform is more pointless than satisfying the desire to punish without actual suffering.

What this shows is that actual suffering is not necessary or at least not as necessary as reform where reform is possible.

Sushama: All you’ve shown is that the illusion of reform serves no purpose while the illusion of retribution might serve a purpose. You haven’t thereby shown that real reform is more to the purpose than real retribution.

But lest I sound too stubborn, let me just say I believe ideally we should try to reform criminals. But attempts at reform may cost society too much in the way of resources. If retribution is a more achievable purpose of prison—and nothing you’ve said undermines that—then that may be a more cost-effective purpose to try and satisfy.

Arpita: But economics aside, any crime is a bad deed but too severely punishing a person physically or mentally will be adding to the overall bad deeds.

Geeta: I think Sushama would say that your statement is another example of the utilitarian calculus. Sushama, like Kant, is not a utilitarian about prisons, and so wouldn’t accept that punishing a criminal would add to the overall bad deeds.

Kedar: I thought I missed the light conversation of women. But these women are anything but light.

Ram: Indian women are not all light. Even Sushama who’s fair, isn’t fair when it comes to assessing the reformist case. There Kedar. How’s that for punning?

Kedar: Yes, you were overdue. Anyway, I don’t think Sushama and Geeta are going to convince you and Arpita or vice versa. Still we’ve made some progress: we all agree that reform should be attempted where possible. It’s just that you and Arpita favor quarantine, I think, as the next avenue to try when reform is impossible, while Sushama favors retribution. Geeta as the senior philosopher is predictably straddling the fence, interpreting others’ statements rather than proposing her own views. What happened to your practical ethics Geeta?

Geeta: Ram was trying to poke theoretical holes in the retributive theorists’ case, while Sushama was trying to defend it on pragmatic grounds. I happen to think retributivists are on a secure footing theoretically but fail on pragmatic grounds…so I guess I would be beset by both parties.

Sushama: What do you mean Geeta?

Geeta: Well, anticipating the turn that this dialogue would take, before coming I did some research of my own. Amnesty International USA did some comparative statistics between American states that have the death penalty on the books and those that don’t. They found that the projected annual costs of a system sanctioning the death penalty is, at $137 million, more than eleven times the annual costs, at $11.5 million, of a system which imposed a maximum penalty of lifetime incarceration.

And the greatest costs occur before and during the trial, not in post-conviction proceedings. So even if we do away with all post-conviction proceedings, the death penalty would still be more expensive than alternative sentences.

Sort of cuts the rug out from under the pragmatic argument for the death penalty doesn’t it?

Arpita: Whew, not what I’d have expected at all. Did your research uncover the reasons for such surprising statistics?

Geeta: The reason is quite simple. Anytime there’s a death-penalty case, all costs go up substantially because of the severity and finality of the possible sentence.

Arpita: Far be it from me to question statistics that support my position, but are those findings relevant to India where there are no differences by state?

Sushama: That’s a good point Arpita. Maybe the American projected costs of the death penalty are high because it’s not a nationally adopted policy. If the statutes were uniform across the country, maybe the routine-ness of death penalty cases, the lack of alternative venues, would make each trial and pre-trial proceeding less expensive…though I’m not sure an ‘eleven-times’ factor can be overturned. Still I’m sure if you considered differences between countries rather than states within a country like the U.S., the costs of death penalty countries, adjusted of course for differences in the cost of living, would be less than costs of life imprisonment countries.

Kedar: But Sushama, don’t you think the costs should be higher in a death penalty case? The consequences of an improper conviction are so much more serious, so much more necessary to guard against. In fact, improper convictions and improper not-guilty verdicts are probably quite the norm in a caste- dominated country like India where the social standing of the accused plays a big part in determining the conviction and the sentence.

I believe Geeta’s statistics and I believe they are as they should be.

Ram: Having been an actuary in my past life, I know something about statistics. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “There are lies, damned lies and statistics.” Statistics put forward by Amnesty International are going to be different than those put out by the National Rifle Association.

But I too have heard arguments—from one of my philosophy professors—about the greater costs of having the death penalty on the books. So, as intuitive as it may be, perhaps we should simply note that the pragmatic case for the death penalty is controversial to say the least.

Arpita: We haven’t talked too much about deterrence. There too I think I’ve seen some controversial statistics, to the effect that the death penalty doesn’t really deter the sort of crimes it’s supposed to deter.

Ram: Maybe we’re too fixated on the death penalty Arpita. The original question was as I remember, ‘Why are we here?’ in the sense of what purpose are prisons meant to serve. Keeping that in mind, I don’t think there are any statistics against prisons having a deterrent effect.

Kedar: There may be no statistics but I can think of an argument. When considering whether deterrence is the purpose of prisons, we should consider the alternative. IF the choice is between an orderly, mostly fair criminal justice system—at least in western countries—and mob justice, it could be argued that prisons actually enable crime rather than deter it because they are less harsh than the alternatives. The quarantine effect of prisons works both ways: it keeps criminals away from society, but it also keeps society’s vigilantes away from criminals.

Arpita: It’s interesting. We can order the purposes of prison on a spectrum, ranging from liberal to conservative: from reform to quarantine to deterrence to retribution. And like language there are those who read left to right and those who read right to left. It’s a good thing that there’s an odd number of us to see which is the majority.

Kedar: Yes, I’m always the odd man out. For the record I mostly read the spectrum left to right, being in general more liberal.

Sushama: It’s rare that we have a decision in philosophy, even if it’s by as dubious a means as majority rule. Remember Socrates was condemned by majority rule.

Ram: Perhaps that’s the just fate of philosophers: noble death like Socrates or prisoners as me and Kedar were styling ourselves. For example, the deterrence purpose is most easily satisfied by a fiction. Things like the Christian myth of hell or karma if you’re a Hindu, deters most ordinary people from committing crimes, as it has throughout history. So it is philosophers like us who argue against hell who most belong in its lowest, hottest regions.

Kedar: Then I think you have to modify your poem Ram: man who outthinks man doesn’t rule hell; he should be its most damned denizen.

Arpita: Oh my, we definitely need something lighter, even that Prisoner’s Dilemma or hangman’s paradox, whichever Ram didn’t solve.

Ram: Don’t worry wifey—philosophers are sometimes most light when they sound dark, something you’ll get used to in our married life.

Arpita: How very convenient!

The body knows how to be, the mind, where to go. The body can’t bear to be watched. The mind can’t bear to not be watching. Rest comes when the body is being where the mind has directed it. And in that rest you can do any activity without being taxed by the activity. It is like being fully awake in mind and fully asleep in the sense of regenerating in the body at the same time. (Dec 4, 2009, 4:00 am)

I dreamed of service to the world through little random acts of kindness (Dec 12, 2009)

Every true statement in a system has a proof. Under pain of inconsistency, G, the sentence ‘This sentence is not provable’ has a proof. The proof must lie outside the system.

Everything that exists has a cause. Under pain of infinite regress, there must be a self-caused first cause. The first cause, God or the Singularity, must lie outside time.

Life is both long and short. Tomorrow seems separated from us by an unbridgeable gulf and even our distant past is just a wistful memory away. That inconsistency is life’s fundamental riddle, a truth that is at the same time a contradiction. I wonder if that’s what the phrase, ‘That’s the long and short of it’ means? The long of it, the search for tomorrow, is how I’ve lived my life these 48 years but now on April 27, 2010, the short suddenly forces itself on me. In 30 years or so I’ll be dead and 30 years ago I was 18. That doesn’t seem so long ago. And the next 30 years will go faster still. What will I have to show for it?

Knowledge is like true love. We live in a web of relationships, be it of propositions or people. Sometimes we are in a skeptical mood and we grasp for a solid base—a belief that we’re sure of or a friend or lover we can trust completely—but experience seems to admonish us, ‘all are fickle’. Then at other times we’re completely in the moment and the web is worldwide, and we’re secure in its interrelationships. We’re in a web alright—just sometimes we see ourselves as the spider other times as the fly.

Is it possible for a perfect being to change? Once I thought not. But then I remembered an older idea I had. A sphere is perfect but there can be bigger spheres.

I was told that the brain is not entirely a material object. I agreed but didn’t really understand or had only a glimmer of an understanding. But then I remembered a ‘for instance’ I had formulated long ago, of how a symbol in its application can grasp the infinite. The question is will I always and forever know how to continue a sequence and if so how can a finite mind represent an infinite table. My answer was that the question itself presupposes an answer since the very idea of a sequence is an endless array of successive terms. The open question is whether we can really ask the question, whether we do in fact have an idea of a sequence.

Or using religious metaphors, the preceding two thoughts can be encapsulated by the epigram, ‘Man and God approach each other through the Word’. Or more accurately, and in fact more poetically, the finite and the infinite approach each other through the symbol.

Intelligence is rule-following but rules don’t wear their interpretations on their sleeve as a philosophy professor once remarked to me. Consciousness is to be aware of an infinite set of possibilities but our actions select only one actual course. Both are thought to be the essence what it is to be human. To be a human is to be a walking contradiction. Or maybe the two capacities help each other in their deficiencies.

“If God had made me a little less insane, I would have never discovered that He exists.” – Kedar Joshi

“Too much sanity may be madness. And maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be!”—Miguel De Cervantes, Don Quixote

Scene: 7:00am. Ram’s well-appointed house in the hills of Pune, India.

Players: Ram, an older philosopher and Kedar, a troubled younger philosopher (for other philosophical adventures of this duo, go to slumdogphilosopher.blogspot.com and definingknowledge.blogspot.com).

Ram (opening the door for Kedar): Good morning. I don’t know if we’ve ever met this early before. And it’s Thursday—Thursday’s are good for you aren’t they?

Kedar (entering): Yeah, astrologically Thursdays are for me a day of self-discovery.

Ram: Excuse the mess—that’s what happens when a philosopher is on his own for a while. Want some breakfast? I’m just going to boil an egg.

Kedar: Aren’t you a vegetarian?

Ram: Well supermarket eggs are unfertilized so there is nothing living in them. They’re like a chicken’s period…so they’re a good source of protein for a vegetarian.

Kedar: A chicken’s period—I’m glad I don’t eat them. But tell me, how do they know which eggs are fertilized and which ones just the period?

Ram: Well they keep the rooster away when they want eggs for the market rather than chick production.

Kedar: So there’s a grave sin even in unfertilized eggs. To get them they keep the rooster away from the hens. Forced sexual frustration is a form of torture.

Ram: Let’s put a period on all this egg talk. What’s troubling you?

Kedar: Maybe like the rooster, sexual frustration is what’s troubling me, being a 30 year old virgin and all—anyway, you know yesterday, when you said I should see a psychiatrist…

Ram: Yeah, I said that because I found out from your parents you expressed the desire to kill yourself. I didn’t think you were serious but my parents suggested I talk to my psychiatrist about you.

Kedar: I was serious. You might not realize it because I’m so jovial with you but I’ve been very depressed, especially when I’m back at the concentration camp I consider my flat. That’s why when we’re out on the town, I am anxious to prolong the experience as long as possible. But I’m curious—what did your psychiatrist say?

Ram: He said a suicide threat should be taken very seriously. I then suggested bringing you to see him and he agreed. I don’t know if you’ll agree.

Kedar: You know yesterday, when you first said it, I was inclined to dismiss it: you see a psychiatrist so you think everyone should see a psychiatrist. But Thursdays are a day of self-discovery. In the morning I thought what if I am crazy? That would explain a lot…my depression, my irritability with my parents and others, my tendency to obsess about certain things, to get ‘stuck’ in jokes I alone find funny, the fits of laughter, in general not acting like a mature, manly man, almost like your unfertilized egg, devoid of even the initial sperm. It’s almost as if I could benefit from some hormone replacement therapy. Do you think the psychiatrist would prescribe testosterone shots? I would like to be confident enough to sweep women off their feet.

Ram: If psychiatrists prescribed testosterone, a lot more people would see one. But let’s be serious. You have to put yourself in the psychiatrist’s hands. Whatever he prescribes, you have to trust is best for you, even if it’s not testosterone shots.

Kedar: What does he give you, pills? How long have you been taking pills?

Ram: Oh it’s been so long. I was hospitalized for a month in the US after my visit here in ’97, and I’ve been taking pills with occasional lapses ever since. So it’s been over 13 years. But the dosage has been reduced gradually. My psychiatrist even thinks I could be off it entirely one day.

Kedar: Did the pills change you? I mean I think the illness has been good for me. I wouldn’t have made my philosophical discoveries if I had been too normal. And I like my personality. My biggest worry is if I take pills, I will become just another zombie. In fact taking mental pills could itself be a form of suicide, a dying inside. (Chuckling) I see you like the dog extolling the virtues of being tame to the wolf from the Aesop’s fable. It’s scary if you’ve been howling at the moon all your life.

And maybe I don’t need pills. Just on my walk here today I caught myself thinking like an immature child again and the moment I realized what I was doing, I stopped…I became normal. Maybe now that I realize I have a problem, I can catch myself like that, righting myself like when you first learn how to ride a bicycle, until the balancing becomes second nature.

Ram: You need training wheels, my friend. That’s what the drugs have been for me. They’ve stabilized me, making me more productive. Like you I didn’t think I wanted to change but it’s been like rediscovering the real me, the me that got derailed following my divorce. I was depressed. I didn’t even do philosophy because my wife had said it made me too argumentative. The reason I’m almost off the drugs now is partly because of the fellowship I’ve found in India (gestures to Kedar) and partly because I’ve become so used to the mental state that the drugs induce that I can summon it effortlessly, with even a low dosage. To use your phrase, the balancing has become second nature.

Maybe you too can get off the meds one day but first you have to get on them to undepress yourself, which if my experience is any guide, you’ll like. It’s good to rediscover yourself.

Kedar: Hmm…rediscovering the real me. But like when you lose something, I don’t know where the real me stopped. It must’ve been so long ago that this feels like the real me, the me that doesn’t want to go away under the influence of pills.

Ram: C’mon it wasn’t so long ago. Your parents say you changed after coming back from England.

Kedar: No. I was thinking about it on my walk over. My earliest memory of uncontrollable laughter was when I was just a boy. I remember this day my father had undertaken to teach me the multiplication table. Because he had never taken an interest in us, I remember thinking his suddenly teaching me was so funny that I just couldn’t stop laughing.

Ram: Hmm, that’s interesting. You do always find the incongruous side of things, like the oddness of your dad teaching or paradoxes like your God paradox from our Deccan Dugout discussions. Let me see…you’re the youngest of two, right? (Kedar nods) Maybe pointing at the world and showing its incongruous underbelly is characteristic of younger siblings—they have to do that to get explanations from their elders. And the eldest child is conditioned to be the explainer. Hmm, maybe that’s why like in our earlier discussions, I, always the eldest child, seek to resolve the paradox.

Kedar: You’re being the explainer even now with me as the paradox. But there is a problem with your theory. I resolve paradoxes too. My NSTP theory resolves quantum mechanics’ EPR paradox. And in our earlier discussions you stated your own paradox, the paradox of perfection.

Ram: You know it’s interesting you bring up these things. They support my theory rather than disprove it. Your NSTP theory’s idealism is itself a paradox, something far removed from common sense. And my paradox of perfection actually is an extension of common sense, which finds hyperbolism of any sort paradoxical. To point out the paradoxes in a non-commonsensical notion like perfection is not defying commonsense—it’s rallying in support of it.

Kedar You’re always fond of pointing out our differences, I, our similarities. We’re more similar than you realize. (Excessively dramatically) After all, let’s not forget, I solved your paradox of perfection.

Ram: Very funny. You know very well I solved my own paradox…I just put it into your mouth in the dialog for dramatic effect. In fact sharing the credit, being patronizing, may be another elder sibling trait.

Kedar: Yeah I was just teasing you. Your theory might be on to something. You know you could be a psychiatrist. Maybe I could just talk to you.

Ram: I can’t really take credit for the birth order theory. It’s folk psychology, like observations of the differences between men and women—for example, that women don’t like philosophers because they don’t make good ‘nesters’. It’s folk psychology because everyone is exposed to it. It has its merits but, like your astrology, seems to ‘explain’ too much. Nevertheless, as I’ve heard one noted philosopher of science say, psychology has never satisfactorily progressed beyond its roots as say physics or even linguistics …perhaps because there simply is nothing to psychology beyond folk psychology.

Kedar: I get what you mean. But didn’t Wittgenstein compare psychology to mathematics of all things?

Ram: Yeah, but he did it disparagingly. He said both have sound methods—experiment in psychology and proof in mathematics—but both are subject to conceptual confusions.

Kedar: Anyway, you might laugh but I can’t help but think of another sense of folk psychology: it is the ‘psychology’ that your folks practice on you. It’s terrible: my parents, the aunts and uncles, they all lecture me, to get a job, to get married, to live like everyone else; my mother even sees it as ‘counseling’. You understand me better, my philosophical theories—I think you would make a good counselor for me.

Ram: I’m flattered. I do need something to do now that I’ve retired to India and maybe all those years of talking to therapists as a patient have given me insight into how to be a good counselor myself. If only I’d completed my PhD in philosophy…did you know in America a PhD is all you need to hang up a shingle as a psychologist? The PhD could even be in physical education.

Kedar: The standards are probably even more lax here. Maybe you can call yourself a psychologist just on the strength of your MPhil in philosophy.

Ram: But, not having an MD, I can’t prescribe medicines and I’m firmly convinced you need medicines.

Kedar: What do medicines do that simple talk therapy can’t? I mean I think I’m benefiting a lot just by talking to you.

Ram: Well a lifetime’s worth of conditioned behavior is pretty hard to counteract with an hour’s worth of ‘insight’ even if it is self-discovery Thursday. Psychiatry today is much more biology than philosophy, more push-pull the mechanism than convince the mind. I don’t think psychologists in America, counselors if you will, get much business these days, and if they do they’re always subordinate to psychiatrists.

And that’s to the good: nearly all the psychologists I’ve talked to—and there have been several—have indulged my bipolar fantasies, been enablers for them, just like I fear in lending you a sympathetic ear, I’m being an enabler for you.

Lecturing you as your parents do isn’t good because our natural tendency is to rebel against advice we find unpleasant, but if only we could be made to rebel against something we find too pleasant for our own good, like an all too patient listener. Maybe if the therapist seems to the patient crazier than himself, it would jolt the patient back to reality. Yes, a reverse psychology, which again is more folk than Freud. What do you think? Maybe with a counselor like that you wouldn’t need medications?

Kedar: You know there are times when I think you’re crazier than me, like in your paranoia when you thought I was taking advantage of you over a measly rickshaw bill, and that time you got really upset when your sister accidentally served you some chicken with your vegetables. I don’t think we’re similar at such times. But you weren’t consciously doing reverse psychology then. Anyway it would be a tough act to pull off, and the efficacy of it may not be so lasting. Maybe pills are better. Maybe that’s what I really need. Pills and money, or at least a friend with money.

Ram (smiling slightly): So you’re at least open to taking medication. That’s good, though I should mention there may be side-effects.

Kedar: What kind of side-effects?

Ram: There can be some serious ones. For example, I became a diabetic because of one medication I no longer take. There was even a class action suit against the makers and prescribers of zyprexa I was not litigious enough to join. Also I was much heavier in the US when I was on the higher dosage. But we learn by trial and error. The drugs that they use nowadays probably have fewer side-effects. I haven’t noticed any for the one drug I now take.

All the same, I’m weaning myself off the Western allopathic drugs, trying alternative therapies like homeopathic medicine, even hypnotherapy.

Kedar: Hmm…sounds like the thing to do is take allopathic drugs initially to treat the worst of the symptoms and then once you feel you’ve stabilized, switch to milder treatments that have fewer side-effects.

Ram: Whoa. I didn’t mean to mislead you. I’m getting weaned off the allopathic medicines all right but it’s under the care of the allopathic doctor. I’m entirely guided by him. In fact—you ought to appreciate this paradox—one serious side-effect of the drugs is that they make you feel better. The side-effect is you think you’re cured when the disease is merely in remission. You take yourself off the medications before you’re ready and before you know it, you’re back to where you started. I did this several times myself. The lesson I’ve learned is to try other things sure but be guided by a good medical psychiatrist. For example, my psychiatrist knows about these other treatments I try and even thinks they may help.

Kedar: I’ll have to remember that. Still it’s interesting about these alternative therapies. I knew about the homeopathic doctor you see but I’m curious about the hypnotherapist. What does he do exactly?

Ram: It’s a she. The hypnotic trance is apparently one in which she can access the intuitive right brain which for most people is buried under the dominance of the rational left brain. We’re actually two very different people. The hypnotherapist gives you affirmations to say to yourself that reflect the needs of the buried subconscious personality, the frustrations of which are responsible for most diseases. My hypnotherapist says that diseases are really a good thing, the self’s way of demanding a more balanced course than the one we might be following.

Kedar: A lady doctor that puts you in touch with your inner self. Very interesting. Maybe I should see her.

Ram: It’s not like that. Sure, you can see her but you should see the psychiatrist first. When do you want to go?

Kedar: We can go tomorrow. I didn’t mean to be so resistant to going. Deep down I know I need professional help. You were just coming on too strong for the meds. Now that I know your psychiatrist won’t drug me for the rest of my life, I feel OK about going.

Let’s discuss my symptoms. It’ll help me think about what I’m going to say to the psychiatrist.

Ram: Well if you think it’ll help. But remember I’m just a philosopher. The best I can do is remember what you say so that when I accompany you tomorrow I can recall any details you leave out. That and act as an ‘objective’ reporter of your condition just as my father does when he accompanies me on my visits to the doctor.

Kedar: Fair enough, I’ve already mentioned my irritability, my depression both of which you haven’t really seen so you’ll just have to take my word for it. What you must’ve seen is my root problem: my lack of self-control, the kind of control anyone who’s 30 years old should’ve by now been able to exercise.

Ram: I’ve certainly seen that, in your drinking, for example—though I know you don’t drink alone so you’re probably not an alcoholic.

Kedar: The drinking is certainly one manifestation. But the lack of self-control explains everything, all my obsessive tendencies, my overarching love of all things England, or rather how I go on and on about it. And my dwelling on the same joke like yesterday when I went on describing how each of our relatives would be as the Hulk, how funny it would be (laughing), to see Shyam’s arrogance magnified out of all proportion…

Ram (uneasy): You know, we never did Hulkify ourselves, what we’d be like if our natural tendencies were exaggerated to the n-th degree.

Kedar: You would be the monster of paranoia and I would be (laughing) a five-year-old girl—(laughing more) a really strange Hulk, a green, muscular five-year-old girl, (laughing uncontrollably) with green curly hair.

Ram (irritated): Go on—get it out of your system. I think you do these things because you think you’re being interesting and provocative. The discomfort others show when you carry on like this positively reinforces your belief that you’re being provocative. What you’ve got to realize is that these things may be funny to people initially but as you Hulkify them out of all proportion, they simply find them boring, loud and boring.

Kedar (stopping laughing): It’s hard not to lecture isn’t it, even for you. I liked you better as the reverse psychologist.

Ram: I’m sorry. I didn’t know when you were going to stop.

Kedar: I’m sorry. I do like to provoke people. Maybe it’s the younger sibling in me, pulling out all the stops to grab my share of the spotlight. But that’s not the madness part. The madness again is the lack of self-control. I enjoy laughter so much I do anything to prolong it.

Similarly, there is my love of the smell of new books. Even though I know I can’t afford them, I’m always buying them. But like your hypnotherapist said, there is a good side to this aspect of my disease. The books have brought me into contact with great minds. That’s why I like quotes so much. And of course they’ve spurred me on to my own philosophical theories.

The lack of self-control may be beneficial also in intellectual discourse. With you—usually—I enjoy intellectual discourse so much I dance on the high-wire to keep it going as long as possible.

Ram: Well I don’t know about the intellectual discourse, but the drinking, the laughter, maybe even the buying of books when you know you can’t afford them, it’s akrasia. (Incidentally, I can help with the buying the books part, as I intend to help less with the drinking that is help more with the non-drinking.)

Kedar: Thanks, I think. But what was that word you used: a-crazy-a?

Ram: No. A-k-r-a-s-i-a. Akrasia, is the Greek word for weakness of the will. Only people as obsessively rational as the Greeks would think weakness of the will posed a philosophical problem.

Kedar: What is the problem?

Ram: Basically it’s, if you know some course of action is bad for you, why do you still do it? The Greeks did have an irrational side, the Dionysian as well as the Apollonian but it was like Plato’s charioteer metaphor: the soul is a chariot with an unruly black steed as well as a noble white steed, but reason the charioteer holds the reins, making akrasia a bit of a puzzle.

Kedar: I guess the Greeks didn’t realize that the reins also enable the horses to drive the charioteer.

Ram: That’s like the later Plato. Whereas Socrates viewed akrasia as impossible, the later Plato viewed akrasic action as caused by the appetites taking over, the black steed proving stronger than both the white and the charioteer as it were. But Aristotle recognized that not all akrasic actions need be appetitive; some can have a reasoning all their own, as when we rationalize, for example. Aristotle accounted for akrasia by maintaining that the akrasic has a syllogism for the right course of action—so he does know what’s good for him. It’s just that a practical syllogism for the wrong course gets executed in its place.

Kedar: So weakness of the will comprises more than one type of phenomenon. In fact before this philosophical digression, I was going to mention another fundamental problem I have. It may be another form of akrasia. It’s sexual staring—you must’ve noticed it.

Ram: You mean that odd staring you do sometimes? I never realized it was sexual. If I had, I probably wouldn’t have invited you to ‘come over and see me’ as many times as I have.

Kedar: That’s just the thing. I’m not gay but the thought sometimes comes into my mind, ‘What if I stare sexually right now’ and before I can control myself, I’m doing it. I do it with potential students for our English classes, with potential astrology clients of both sexes, with even the 5-year-old girls my mother teaches.

Ram (shifting uncomfortably in his seat): Are you sure that on some level, you don’t find these people sexually attractive?

Kedar: Emphatically no. You know my preference for older women, the auntie types. In fact I do it most with people I don’t find sexually attractive. It’s a real problem man. I scare off potential clients all the time because they think I’m coming on to them. I have the same problem with gas: I sometimes think, ‘What if I break wind now’ and before I can control myself, I’m breaking away.

Ram (suppressing a laugh): Let’s say the lack of self-control causes you to repel people in several ways. But seriously, what you’ve described sounds like obsessive/compulsive disorder, which may be a third kind of akrasia (besides appetitive and rationalizing). But knowing you, I would say, it’s not really o-c, since I think it’s due to your conscious desire to accentuate the incongruous. Tell me, do sexual stares, not to mention farts in mixed company, strike you as (chuckling) a ‘gas’?

Kedar: To you it must seem like a conscious decision, to scandalize. But most times, I just find myself staring sexually involuntarily. Aristotle may say it’s a practical syllogism, based on the premise ‘This would be fun’, executing too quickly before my knowledge that this wouldn’t be fun has a chance to be exercised. But I don’t think it’s any type of reasoning. I just fear I’ll stare sexually and like in a bad dream, the thing I fear inevitably materializes.

I wish I could be cured of this. Do you think the pills will help?

Ram: Pills are effective in treating negative moods like irritability and depression; I don’t think they affect habits, and come to think of it, they don’t affect memory. I for one remember every crazy thing I did, my motivations, everything! It’s not like a soap opera in which fits of madness conveniently are followed by a bout of temporary amnesia. I think that’s why as much as my behavior has changed, I don’t think I’ve changed in the philosophically interesting personal identity sense. Memory has enabled me to say the current me must’ve been there all along potentially—that’s why he’s only been rediscovered.

Kedar: You know I googled personal identity a bit before coming. Don’t know why really. With my depressed, suicidal state when I’m alone I rarely take much interest in philosophy anymore. Maybe deep down I was opening myself to the possibility of taking medications, which was making me wonder whether I would be the same afterward.

It’s really depressing you know—both the illness and the prospect of a long course treating it.

Ram: How much of what you read do you remember? (Seeing Kedar shrug reluctantly) C’mon humor me! I want to make a point.

Kedar: Well, the criterion for personal identity—what makes a person the same over time—seems in the face of counterexamples to retreat ever deeper into more and more mysterious entities: from saying having the same body constitutes the same person, which is challenged by imagining brain transplants which are really body transplants; to character which can change with injury to the brain; to the conscious record of memory which two people can conceivably share down to the last detail; to the soul which is most mysterious.

For me the choice is like being given street directions: you’re told how to get where you want to go but you’re also told by what sign you should recognize you’ve gone too far and turn back. For me the soul is that sign. It’s like throwing up your hands and saying, ‘You are who you are.’ From its simple-mindedness I turn back to the psychological continuity or memory criterion. The problems with it—the hypothetical possibility that two people might have the same memory—just don’t seem real enough to worry me. And when the article I read tried to make it real by mentioning that the two hemispheres of our brain, each containing a complete set of memories, could be transplanted into different bodies, I thought so what? Maybe one person can split into two. The theory that we are a composite is as old as Plato. And what you said about the hypnotherapist certainly supports it.

Sorry for the long summary. You said you wanted to make a point?

Ram: My point is, depressed as you are you can still philosophize. You like quotes right? Remember Milton? “The mind is its own place and can in itself make a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven”? I want you to realize as bad as your ‘concentration camp’ of a home is, you still have philosophy, your mind to “make a heaven of hell”. Being a philosopher is part of your personal identity. I say this because though the pills may alleviate your depression, they won’t give you a purpose. Philosophy has given me a purpose, a purpose I had lost in America. You gave it back to me with your outlandish theories I just had to try to refute. And now I want to give it back to you.

Kedar: It’s hard. With the NSTP and UQV theories, I think I’ve done all the philosophizing I’m ever going to do. I seem to be stuck in solipsism.

Ram: You know who Milton has say ‘The mind’ quote? Satan. I don’t mean to advocate Satanism but you’ve got to rebel against your Philosopher-God that’s saddled you with the dead-end theory of solipsism. Isn’t it something like you and he are the only beings, him asking you about his own nature out of vanity? If you view everyone else as a zombie it must be hard for you to take an active interest in people, to see them as ends in themselves.

Kedar: Well it’s not that hard. You know the saying, ‘There are no atheists in foxholes’? My solipsism is like that—except I guess solipsism is hard to practice out of the foxhole.

Ram: Yeah, I guess so. It’s unlikely philosophy has shaped your behavior from childhood from where you trace your condition…though I think it can play a role in your treatment. More likely the same character-traits that distance you from people, predispose you to solipsism when you’re doing philosophy.

Kedar: Since I think we’re doing philosophy right now—it’s hard to tell: we keep switching between that and psychoanalysis—, what you said would be dismissed as a ad hominem argument. I’m a solipsist on the purely philosophical considerations of morality and inference to the simplest explanation—morality because I think God would have to be too evil to create so many sufferers and simplicity because one man deluded for some greater good of God’s choosing is easier to imagine than the creation of billions of completely distinct individuals for what purpose.

Ram: It’s interesting: your solipsism is not based on epistemological considerations like how do we know there are other minds and the weakness of the argument from analogy, since it relies only on one’s own experience. But solipsism has it’s own problems. For example, an idealist/solipsist like yourself, without any external criterion to identify what kind of thing he is, can’t even say, “I think therefore I am.” He can only say, ‘Thinking therefore thinking’. Even the ‘I’ can’t be established without some criteria for distinguishing the I from the thinking.

Besides I think the argument from analogy has it backwards. Whether we’re doing folk psychology or something more elaborate, we understand our own mind by subsuming it under generalities we make about other minds, the behavior of other eldest and younger siblings for example like we were doing earlier.

Kedar: Well I don’t know about psychological theories but I’m perfectly comfortable with your ‘Thinking therefore thinking’ argument. NSTP theory adopts Hume’s bundle theory of consciousness. There is no self, no I, in which feelings inhere. Our consciousness of feelings is just another feeling. It’s as if there were no canvass to which paints are applied—there are only paints.

By the way, we don’t have to talk about solipsism. It’s a bit pointless really: no one can convince me I’m wrong and I can’t convince anyone I’m right. Maybe it is a dead-end as you say.

Ram: Good. Let’s talk about the bundle theory of consciousness.

Denying that there is a self doesn’t explain why we feel there is a self underlying our experiences. No doubt memory has something to do with this just as it did with questions of personal identity. But memory is not the only thing that gives us a feeling of self. Dogs, for example, have memories too and yet they seem to be a lower sort of self. We have less compunction against treating them like dogs than we would human beings.

Kedar: I can agree. There can be different types of consciousness just as there are different types of color—that still doesn’t commit me to the existence of an underlying canvass.

Ram: But the gradations of consciousness are interesting from a philosophical point of view, from consciousness of pain which might merit a species some lower level of ethical consideration, all the way to consciousness of the future, of the self in the future, which characterizes human beings, entitling them to the highest consideration. I think an underlying ‘canvass’ for all our feelings is a reasonable postulate given this sense of ‘more’ consciousness for some beings. More has got to be more of something.

Kedar: I don’t accept that we’re ‘more conscious’ than dogs—we’re just conscious in a different way like blue is different from red.

Ram: We are conscious in a different way, being a composite of many higher faculties than a dog can have. But consciousness is the staging area we share with lesser animals, the stage on which the results of our admittedly more varied faculties play out. We have access to more paints but the staging area, the canvass if you will, we share with lesser animals. It’s made more in our case by being host to a greater variety of paints.

Kedar: This may be as dead-ended as the solipsism. Anyway, what do you think it is about us that gives rise to the characteristically human form of consciousness?

Ram: I don’t know what it is bio-chemically but conceptually I think it’s self-awareness. Remember back when you first started philosophizing—it was probably in your teens. Like me, you probably began by contemplating the self, a knowing of oneself. But self-awareness goes back much further to when we were babies and could identify ourselves in the mirror. Lesser animals can’t do that you know. Once we have an idea of the self, we are ready to mentally project it into the future and be subject to hopes, apprehensions, the whole gamut of mental states that entitle us to greater rights.

Kedar: But don’t forget: roosters have rights too, rights to hens, rights that preempt our rights to unfertilized eggs. Sorry. You were inspiring but when you recalled how we first started philosophizing as teens, I couldn’t resist recalling the humble way we started philosophizing this morning.

Ram: And having come full-circle, I’m afraid I’m going to let you go. My parents are due to come from their Aurangabad trip in an hour and I’ve got to make the house presentable again.

Kedar: Oh OK. But thanks for the sympathetic ear and stimulating discussion. Maybe you should write all this down…it could be another article, like your ‘Know Thyself’.

Ram: What would we call it? ‘Know thyself’ and Slumdog Philosopher are already taken.

Kedar: I know what would be good…