Also see:
Understanding Our MIND by neutral_onliner.
Another article: Buddhism, The only real
science
Some evangelical scientists would do well to reflect on the
(amended) old saying "Scientists rush in where angels fear to
tread" and stop pontificating about the nature of the mind,
happiness and even Nirvana. Neurologists are especially prone to
such neuroses (Neurosis: an undue adherence to unrealistic ideas of
things). They are claiming that the mind, awareness and will, is
now adequately explained by activity in the brain. This theory was
disproved over 20 years ago by Prof. Lorber's discovery of the
student at Sheffield University with and IQ of 126, a First Class
degree in mathematics, but with virtually no brain (Science, Vol.
210, 12 Dec 1980)! More recently, it was disproved by Prof. Pim Van
Lommel, who demonstrated the existence of consciousness activity
after clinical death, i.e. when all brain activity has ceased
(Lancet, Vol. 358, 15 December 2001, p 2039).
Although there may be correlation between a measurable activity in
part of the brain and a mental impression, such co-occurrence
doesn't always imply that one is the cause of the other. For
instance, some years ago, research showed a clear correlation
between cigarette smoking and the non-occurrence of Alzheimer's
disease. It was not that smoking cigarettes somehow caused immunity
from Alzheimer's, as much as the tobacco companies might have
wished, it was only that many smokers did not live long enough to
get Alzheimer's disease! Thus a co-incidence of two phenomena, even
when repeated, does not mean that one phenomenon is the cause of
the other. To claim that activity in the brain causes awareness, or
mind, is plainly unscientific.
----
Anyway, how can anyone measure the measurer, the mind? At a
recent seminar on Science and Religion, at which I was a speaker, a
Catholic in the audience bravely announced that whenever she looks
through a telescope at the stars, she feels uncomfortable because
her religion is threatened. I commented that whenever a scientist
looks the other way round through a telescope, to observe the one
who is watching, then they feel uncomfortable because their science
is threatened by what is doing the seeing! So what is doing the
seeing, what is this mind that eludes modern science?
A Grade-One teacher once asked her class "What is the biggest thing
in the world?" One little girl answered "My daddy". A little boy
said "An elephant", since he'd recently been to the zoo. Another
girl suggested "A mountain". The six-year-old daughter of a close
friend of mine replied, "My eye is the biggest thing in the world"!
The class stopped. Even the teacher didn't understand her answer.
So the little philosopher explained "Well, my eye can see her
daddy, an elephant, and a mountain too. It can also see so much
else. If all of that can fit into my eye, then my eye must be the
biggest thing in the world"! Brilliant.
However, she was not quite right. The mind can see everything that
one's eye can see, and it can also imagine so much more. It can
also hear, smell, taste and touch, as well as think. In fact,
everything that can be known can fit into the mind. Therefore, the
mind must be the biggest thing in the world. Science's mistake is
obvious now. The mind is not in the brain, nor in the body. The
brain, the body and the rest of the world, are in the mind!
Mind is the sixth sense in Buddhism, it is that which encompasses
the five senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch, and
transcends them with its own domain. It corresponds loosely to
Aristotle's "common sense" that is distinct from the five senses.
Indeed, ancient Greek philosophy, from where science is said to
have its origins, taught six senses just like Buddhism. Somewhere
along the historical journey of European thinking, they lost their
mind! Or, as Aristotle would put it, they somehow discarded their
"common sense"! And thus we got science. We got materialism without
any heart. One can accurately say that Buddhism is science that has
kept its heart, and which hasn't lost its mind!
