Glimpses of the Subject

Glimpses of the Subject

                                                          By Prof. Srinath Srinivasa, Dean (R&D), IIIT Bangalore

 “We do not belong to this material world that science constructs for us. We are not in it; we are outside. We are only spectators. The reason why we believe that we are in it, that we belong to the picture, is that our bodies are in the picture. Our bodies belong to it.” --Erwin Schrodinger

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In the way, Science is practiced today, and in Analytic Philosophy that underlies most scientific inquiry, the process of inquiry is predominantly objective. Much of scientific studies and Western philosophy (as practiced today) inquires about stuff that are "out there". Indeed, a study is considered scientific, only when the observer is separated from the system being observed, and the process of observation does not interfere with the functioning of the system. 

Recently, I was watching a lecture on Analytic Philosophy, in which the professor defined philosophical inquiry as comprising of three major dimensions-- "what is out there?", "how do I know?", and "what do I do?" The first dimension comprises of different hermeneutic schools and different conceptual models of reality. The second dimension addresses issues of knowledge, cognition, epistemology, and so on. The third dimension addresses issues like imperatives, norms, morality, ethics, rational choice, etc. 

In contrast to the above, one of the predominant questions addressed by Indian philosophical schools is "who am I?" Unlike Western thought that has predominantly focused on the object of inquiry , the focus in Indian schools has been predominantly on the subject or the inquirer. 

It is not that the inquirer does not feature in Western thought. But the depths to which the inquirer has been inquired, is much more in Indian thought. 

Most scientific models today require us to remove the inquirer from theories of reality. The inquirer needs to be a disinterested observer who does not interfere with the system being observed, and should not feature in the models of reality that is the outcome of the inquiry. 

Such a requirement was found to be inadequate when scientific inquiry was focused on the very small and the very large-- quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity, respectively-- where it was seen that we cannot discount the observer in our models of reality. Similarly, in social sciences, there is often an argument that a dispassionate observer cannot understand underlying latent worldview and thoughts that drive observable patterns of behaviour of a population being observed, and a real sociological inquiry comes from a lived experience. It is only when we experience the pains, the joys, the insecurities, etc. of the population being observed, can we really understand why they act the way they do. 

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Why is an inquiry into the inquirer important? 

One of the biggest dreams of scientists, mathematicians and philosophers alike, has been to develop some form of "Grand Unified Theories" of reality. In Western thought, Albert Einstein, David Hilbert, and several others have attempted this immense feat, and have ultimately failed. 

But once we realise that the inquirer is part of reality too, we see that we can never have any form of objective grand unified theory of reality-- without a theory of the inquirer itself!

The inquirer is so fundamental to our experience when we are inquiring about the world out there, that we often completely forget that it exists, and that its existence itself is a mystery! For example, other than on planet Earth, we do not have any evidence of an inquirer or an inquiry happening in any other planet in our solar system or in the known universe! (Of course, notable exceptions are the various satellites, rovers and other gadgets in different parts of the universe that are "inquiring" on our behalf). 

Given that the inquirer is so unique an entity in the universe, it is but an imperative that any unified models of reality should necessarily also address and accommodate the inquirer into such models! 

Once we start inquiring into the inquirer, we see that the usual physical models of reality are inadequate to model the inquirer. The inquirer or the subject, is not only involved in observation of reality, but is also an active, autonomous agent of change! Constructs involving intention, free will, knowledge, belief, reason, morality, ethics, purpose, etc. are all attributed to the inquirer and not the inquired. We cannot meaningfully talk about the "intention" of planet Saturn for sporting rings, nor the "morality" of Jupiter wanting to be the biggest planet in our solar system. But such statements are meaningful when we are talking about subjects. 

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Indian philosophy has predominantly focused on characterising the inquirer rather than the inquired. There are several schools of thought and models about the inquirer-- each, a fascinating journey in itself. 

One of the major questions that is addressed by Indian thought is to "locate" the locus of of the inquirer. When we say that "I am the inquirer" the question then asks, "Who am I?" or where is the locus of this "I" or self? Does the "I" refer to our body? Our mind? Our "ego" (whatever it means)? Our genetic signature? Or is it somewhere else? 

The quest for the locus of "I" has been so elusive, that there are indeed several schools of thought (most notably, Buddhism) that assert that there is no entity called the self or "I" at all! But then, the concept of "I" is so centrally used in our conversations that it is hard to also accept that the core driver of our inquiry is just a void. 

There is a story about a scientist arguing with Sri Ramakrishna-- a well known 19th century Advaita philosopher-- saying that he has conducted several experiments involving both body and mind, and is convinced that there is no entity called "self" or "I" anywhere. To this, Sri Ramakrishna replied, "Who is convinced that there is no entity called self?" 

The 15th century Advaita philosopher Sage Vidyaranya wrote several books proposing different heuristics, to help the reader understand the problem of self. His treatise called the drg-drisyha viveka (or, the theory of the "seer" and the "seen") is based on the postulate that the subject cannot observe its own locus. Or, whatever that the subject can directly observe, cannot be the locus of the subject, since there is a locus that is doing the observing. For instance, our eyes can see everything else but itself. It can only see an image of itself in the mirror or in a photograph. But it cannot directly observe itself. Similarly, a finger cannot touch itself. 

While the eyes cannot "see" themselves, we can become "aware" of our eyes in our inquiry, and question about its state. For instance, we can become aware that our eyes are irritating, relaxed, dry, etc. In this case, the eyes become the observed, and the locus of our inquiry shifts somewhere deeper within us. Hence, if the eye can be the object of inquiry, it cannot be the locus of our subject. Thus, we can now ask, who is inquiring about the eye? If we say that it is our mind that inquires and it is because of our mind that we exist (according to Descartes who said "Cogito. Ergo, sum"), we can see that the mind itself can become an object of our inquiry! The popular field of "mindfulness" is all about observing our mind and our thoughts as they come and go. So if the mind is not the fundamental inquirer, then who is it that is observing the mind? 

The argument proceeds like that to reach a singularity. We can see that no matter what we think is our locus of inquiry that is part of our physical experience-- can easily become an object of our experience! We can observe our thoughts, our emotions, even our "ego" (we can inquire and understand ourselves as a person and our personality), we can inquire about our innate nature-- thus showing that none of this is the locus of our subject! 

The Samkhya school of philosophy which is more than 4000 years old, posits a "simpliciter" entity (a fundamental entity that exists on its own, and not derived from something else), called the "Purusha" that is termed the fundamental inquirer. Physical reality comprising of all objects that can be inquired about, is called Prakriti. One of the axioms of Purusha is that the Purusha cannot observe itself-- it can only "realise" itself, but never observe itself directly. It is the Purusha that is the source of all subjective constructs like free-will, intention, norms, etc. According to Samkhya, the universe is said to be made up of infinite numbers of Purusha objects and an infinite number of Prakriti objects. 

The infinite cardinality of Purusha objects are disputed by other philosophical schools, which point at certain contradictions that such a formulation creates. For instance, we discover "objective" mathematical truths independently, despite that mathematical processing is completely happening within our minds. Also, despite the large diversity in our population on earth, several linguists have noted remarkable similarities in which language is constructed across the world. This has given rise to theories like the "language instinct" that argues that our ability for language is not something that is imbibed-- but something that is innate! 

This brings us to one of the predominant models of Indian philosophy-- called as the Vedantic school-- which argues that there is only one Purusha or subject in the universe! It is this one same subject that is inquiring through a multitude of channels, which appear as different inquirers in physical reality. The locus of all our inquiry is the same, universal consciousness. The world is not just one family-- we are all the same person!

There is another story of Sri Ramakrishna in this regard. Once, someone asked Sri Ramakrishna on what is the basis of ethics on which we can build a theory of how to treat others. Conventionally, we use several bases like reflection (treat others like how you would like to be treated), virtue (uphold certain virtues in the way you treat others, etc.) But, Sri Ramakrishna had a very different answer. He said, "remember that there are no others"!

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Even in the Vedantic approach to understanding the subject, there are several sub-schools of thought-- primarily based on whether the core inquirer and the channel used for inquiry (our physical beings) are different or the same. I have written about this debate in other articles, and will not dwell upon this argument here.