Ancient Indians "knew" lot of things. And yet, the process by which they knew those things is a mystery. It is not known how exactly they came to know many realities. This is completely in contrast to the modern science where the methods of discovery of knowledge are well established.
The key work of Indian mystics is, really speaking, in areas of understanding ultimate reality. The central theme of most of the old literature (such as Vedas) is about philosophical aspects of nature of reality. And even later works such as Ramayana and Mahabharata have the key philosophy unchanged.
And central to this philosophy is the theme that time and space exist only in mind, and individuality doesn't really exist. (Rather, it exists in a very limited sense.) The process by which the individual 'realizes' the ultimate reality (literally like waking up from sleep), is termed as 'Enlightenment'. Krishna, for e.g., was known to be an enlightened man. And in that state, the reality is simply accessible i.e. the normal limitations of sense don't apply. It is almost like the world depicted in the movie Matrix, except that you have to give up any trace of 'real world'.
To understand this better, take salesman travelling problem. The most optimal route always exists. Just that we wouldn't know what it is. As long as standard von-neuman sequential computing model is used, the solution is bound to be exponential. But other models such as quantum computing models can give better solutions working in parallel. So given a specific problem, a genius will directly access (almost) all possible solutions, and come out with the best option - without really using trial and error. This capability is attributed to deeply connected neurons having many parallel paths. But, it may as well be the case that genius is simply more plugged in into reality and has direct perception of information since the perception mechanism doesn't depend on anything in time and space.
To understand this perception little bit more, consider a music tape. The tape always has the song. But song becomes a reality only when I listen to it i.e. I perceive it. No, my neurons don't listen to it. It is just information transfer till neurons. Without the interpreter of information, no interpretation is possible. Indian philosophy focuses solely on interpreter/observer. While the process of observation involves real entities in real life, the observer can't be mapped to anything in real life. A camera can't be observer, unless some real person uses information from that camera. And a person next to me is not an observer unless I observe that he has observed. So ultimately it all comes to you as observer: If you don't get access to information, there is no way for you to know whether something really happened.
So much so that, in the quantum mechanisms the observer is the one who decides reality.
Seen from another angle, observer projects the world in time and space (when birth 'happens', or when you get up in the morning). And out of that projection comes explanation for the individual existence. Can you see that this is a circular definition? Standard scientific model is that reality always existed (since big-bang), and you only enter and leave (at birth and death). But this explanation is just a subset of model, and doesn't address the observer problem. Scientists don't have to focus on the problem: they will only focus on information that will come through the senses directly or indirectly.
An enlightened person simply knows the truth. There can't be 'how' or 'why'. In such a 'mode' the best of the paths are simply taken by choice. The truths are known by simply focusing your mind on that part. But all such truths are eventually meaningless for an enlightened person, because everything is 'just a Matrix'...
To end this short essay, here is a small story: Once a scientist asked the Pope: "Now that people have found that there are fossils that date back much much before the start of world mentioned in Bible, what do you have to say?". Pope replied: "Yes, when God created this world, he also created the fossils to be that much older!".
-Vinod
The key work of Indian mystics is, really speaking, in areas of understanding ultimate reality. The central theme of most of the old literature (such as Vedas) is about philosophical aspects of nature of reality. And even later works such as Ramayana and Mahabharata have the key philosophy unchanged.
And central to this philosophy is the theme that time and space exist only in mind, and individuality doesn't really exist. (Rather, it exists in a very limited sense.) The process by which the individual 'realizes' the ultimate reality (literally like waking up from sleep), is termed as 'Enlightenment'. Krishna, for e.g., was known to be an enlightened man. And in that state, the reality is simply accessible i.e. the normal limitations of sense don't apply. It is almost like the world depicted in the movie Matrix, except that you have to give up any trace of 'real world'.
To understand this better, take salesman travelling problem. The most optimal route always exists. Just that we wouldn't know what it is. As long as standard von-neuman sequential computing model is used, the solution is bound to be exponential. But other models such as quantum computing models can give better solutions working in parallel. So given a specific problem, a genius will directly access (almost) all possible solutions, and come out with the best option - without really using trial and error. This capability is attributed to deeply connected neurons having many parallel paths. But, it may as well be the case that genius is simply more plugged in into reality and has direct perception of information since the perception mechanism doesn't depend on anything in time and space.
To understand this perception little bit more, consider a music tape. The tape always has the song. But song becomes a reality only when I listen to it i.e. I perceive it. No, my neurons don't listen to it. It is just information transfer till neurons. Without the interpreter of information, no interpretation is possible. Indian philosophy focuses solely on interpreter/observer. While the process of observation involves real entities in real life, the observer can't be mapped to anything in real life. A camera can't be observer, unless some real person uses information from that camera. And a person next to me is not an observer unless I observe that he has observed. So ultimately it all comes to you as observer: If you don't get access to information, there is no way for you to know whether something really happened.
So much so that, in the quantum mechanisms the observer is the one who decides reality.
Seen from another angle, observer projects the world in time and space (when birth 'happens', or when you get up in the morning). And out of that projection comes explanation for the individual existence. Can you see that this is a circular definition? Standard scientific model is that reality always existed (since big-bang), and you only enter and leave (at birth and death). But this explanation is just a subset of model, and doesn't address the observer problem. Scientists don't have to focus on the problem: they will only focus on information that will come through the senses directly or indirectly.
An enlightened person simply knows the truth. There can't be 'how' or 'why'. In such a 'mode' the best of the paths are simply taken by choice. The truths are known by simply focusing your mind on that part. But all such truths are eventually meaningless for an enlightened person, because everything is 'just a Matrix'...
To end this short essay, here is a small story: Once a scientist asked the Pope: "Now that people have found that there are fossils that date back much much before the start of world mentioned in Bible, what do you have to say?". Pope replied: "Yes, when God created this world, he also created the fossils to be that much older!".
-Vinod
posted by Vinod Kulkarni at 12:11 AM
