By Dr. T. D. Singh (Bhaktisvarüpa Dämodara Swami) and Sadäpüta däsa

Now the question arises: “What determines the particular biological form and type of consciousness that a living being acquires?” To answer this question, let us first investigate the transformations of form and consciousness that occur within one lifetime.

As mentioned earlier, consciousness and biological form are interrelated, due to the influence of the modes of nature. Thus a child’s body and its conscious development are different from those of its youthful stage, and so on. In principle, then, as the body changes from boyhood to old age, the living being, or ātmā, actually passes through many bodies of various ages and varieties of conscious development. Thus the body changes, but the eternal living being within the body-the self-remains the same. Biological science confirms this. In his book The Human Brain, John Pfeiffer points out, “Your body does not contain a single one of the molecules that it contained seven years ago.” The movement of the living entity through numerous bodies within one lifetime-something we can all verify by a little introspection-can be termed internal (or continuous) reincarnation or transmigration.

But what about the living being’s passage to a new body at the time of death? To the author’s knowledge, reports in the literature on the study of reincarnation are based primarily on some scattered data regarding some children’s memories of previous lives. This information comes mainly from northern India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, and some areas of western Asia.4 Although this information certainly supports the theory of reincarnation, it does not provide us with a scientific foundation from which to study it, because the vast majority of people cannot remember their past lives. Therefore we must consult a source of information more reliable than haphazard memory. That information is available in the Vedas.

In the Bhagavad-gītā Lord Kṛṣṇa very clearly explains reincarnation to His friend and devotee Arjuna. The Lord says, “Just as a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, similarly the individual living entity accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones.” (Bg. 2.22) ”Just as the embodied living entity passes, in one body, from boyhood to youth to old age, so the living entity similarly passes into another body at death.” (Bg. 2.13) Lord Kṛṣṇa further explains that the mind is the mechanism underlying all these transmigrations: “Whatever state of being one remembers when he quits his body, that state he will attain without fail in his next life.” (Bg. 8.6) So, the living entity in a man’s body could go into the body of an animal, a bird, an insect, a plant, another human, and so on. This journey of the self, or living entity, into different bodies can be referred to as external (or discontinuous) reincarnation or transmigration.

To illustrate how external reincarnation works, we will briefly relate the story of King Bharata, one of the great personalities in Vedic history, from the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the foremost of the eighteen Purāṇas.
One day, after King Bharata had taken his bath as usual in the River Gaṇḍakī, he was chanting his mantra when he saw a pregnant deer come to the riverbank to drink water. Suddenly the thundering roar of a lion resounded throughout the forest. The deer was so frightened that it immediately gave birth to its calf. It crossed the river, but then died immediately thereafter. Bharata took compassion on the motherless calf, rescued it from the water, took it to his āśrama, and cared for it affectionately. He gradually became attached to the young deer, and he always thought of it lovingly.

As it grew up, the deer became Bharata’s constant companion, and he always took care of it. Gradually he became so absorbed in thinking of this deer that his mind became agitated, he reduced his meditative disciplines, and he fell away from his mystic yoga practice. Once, when the deer was absent, Bharata was so disturbed that he began to search for it. While searching and lamenting the deer’s absence, Bharata fell down and died. Because his mind was fully absorbed in thinking of the deer, he naturally took his next birth in the womb of a deer. (Bhāg. 5.8)
As has been mentioned earlier, there is a subtle body, made up of mind, intelligence, and apparent self. In either kind of reincarnation, internal or external, the living being is carried by the subtle body under the laws of karma.

The word karma is a Sanskrit term that can be defined as “the function and activity of the living entity within the framework of his free will and under the influence of the three modes of material nature over a span of time.” For every action that an individual living being performs, he must undergo an appropriate reaction. For example, if someone is very charitable toward educational institutions, in his next life he may be very wealthy and receive an excellent education. On the other hand, if one performs or has an abortion, he or she will suffer the same fate in the next life. Thus we arrive at a definition of reincarnation, or transmigration, according to the Vedic information: “the continuous journey of the living entity, from one body to another, either internally or externally, under the stringent laws of his individual karma.”

By Dr. T. D. Singh (Bhaktisvarüpa Dämodara Swami) and Sadäpüta däsa

According to the information given in the Vedas, the varieties of life forms are products of the combinations and permutations of the three modes of material nature (goodness, passion, and ignorance). The life forms are just like temporary houses or apartments of various sizes, shapes, and colors, in which the eternal self, or living being, resides temporarily. The biological forms, governed by the three modes, put a constraint on the qualities and activities of the living beings’ consciousness.

Thus the individual being in a tiger’s body will roar loudly and kill animals for food, while the living being in a swan’s body will fly gracefully and swim on the surface of lakes. Even in the same family we see differences caused by the activities of the three modes of nature. Although all animals are in the mode of ignorance, they are influenced by the modes of goodness and passion in varying degrees. Cows, for example, are very simple, and their behavior is very mild; they are influenced by the mode of goodness to some extent. The ferocious nature of lions and tigers, on the other hand, reveals their passionate consciousness, while camels are almost completely in the mode of ignorance.

In a similar manner, in the family of birds the swans are very noble and gracious, showing symptoms of goodness; hawks, eagles, and peacocks are predominantly in the mode of passion; and vultures and crows are predominantly in the mode of ignorance. Although the biological forms in the same family are similar in nature, the consciousness and behavior of these birds and animals are different. Thus there are millions of forms where the eternal self, or living being, temporarily resides, displaying its behavior according to how the three modes of material nature affect its consciousness.

By Dr. T. D. Singh (Bhaktisvarüpa Dämodara Swami) and Sadäpüta däsa

There are innumerable ātmās (living entities), each being a quantum of consciousness. Each ātmā resides temporarily in an ephemeral biological form, according to the ātmā’s consciousness. This consciousness is due to the ātmā alone, but the content of the ātmā’s consciousness is due to its interactions with the particular body it occupies. The material body can be divided into two categories: the gross and the subtle. The subtle body is made up of mind, intelligence, and the apparent self (or the false identification of one’s self with the material body). The gross body is made up of the five gross elements-solid matter, liquids, radiant energy, gases, and ethereal substances.

The interaction of the individual ātmā with the gross and subtle bodies produces inconceivably complex reactions, which cannot be explained by simple chemistry and physics in the living cell. That is why chemistry and physics cannot explain why there is so much difference between a living body and a dead one. Simply put, when the individual living being leaves the body, the live body becomes dead matter-although all the chemicals necessary for the functioning of the living organism are still present.

By Dr. T. D. Singh (Bhaktisvarüpa Dämodara Swami) and Sadäpüta däsa

If life were accepted as a totally temporary, material phenomenon, then the idea of a previous or future life of a living being would be eliminated, and with it the question of reincarnation. Of course, as we have seen, there is every reason to believe that life is transcendental to matter and thus independent of the physico-chemical laws that govern matter. What we need now, to study reincarnation scientifically, is a new scientific paradigm that will explain the origin of life, its characteristics, and how it behaves in the world of matter.

Before discussing this new scientific paradigm, we will find it useful to briefly discuss the nature of the Absolute Truth. As mentioned earlier, according to modern science the Absolute Truth (defined as “the ultimate cause of all phenomena”) seems to be vaguely incorporated into the physical laws called the laws of nature. In other words, modern science posits the Absolute Truth as blind, impersonal, and wholly within the framework of the push-pull mechanisms of atoms and molecules. Now, if nature were simply an array of particles moving according to mathematical equations, it would be possible to predict events such as birth, death, accidents, and wars with the help of these equations. Indeed, it should be possible to understand all the intricacies of life-past, present, and future-in terms of mathematical equations. However, all careful thinkers, especially the scientists, know that this is impossible-that a purely mathematical approach to the understanding of life is too restrictive and very unsatisfying. Therefore we need a new paradigm for the origin and nature of life.

The new scientific paradigm we are proposing, which accounts for both the subtle complexities of life and the apparently nonphysical character of the Absolute Truth, comes basically from the scientific and theological background of the Vedas. According to the ancient wisdom outlined in the Bhagavad-gītā (a basic Vedic text), the Absolute Truth is the supreme person, possessing supreme consciousness and supreme intelligence. In other words, the Absolute Truth is a supremely sentient being. The Absolute Truth emanates two energies: the inferior energy, called prakṛti in Sanskrit and characterized by inanimate matter; and the superior energy, which is composed of ātmās, living entities. The ātmās are called the superior energy because they possess consciousness, which is the main feature that distinguishes life from matter.

The behavior of inanimate matter can be described to some extent in terms of the push-pull mechanisms operating on molecular, atomic, and subatomic levels, and these push-pull mechanisms can in turn be described by using simple mathematical equations. As we have already pointed out, however, there are no mathematical laws that can describe the phenomena of life and its variegated activities. Therefore, life is clearly transcendental to material laws and can be defined, according to the Vedas, as “the nonphysical, fundamental particle called the ātmā, which is characterized by consciousness.”

Since life is nonphysical and nonchemical, the mathematical laws that govern the activities of inert matter do not apply to life. However, it is reasonable to suppose that there must be some laws that govern life. According to the Bhagavad-gītā, these are higher-order natural laws incorporating free will. (As we shall see, free will plays a very important role in reincarnation.) It is clear that the existing scientific models and tools cannot grasp these higher-order natural laws, but it is conceivable that the parapsychological experiments now underway in many quarters may provide at least some clue as to the nature of these laws. Thus there is a vast area for further research in the fields of parapsychology and psychology that may help us understand the science of life and its variegated activities.

By Dr. T. D. Singh (Bhaktisvarüpa Dämodara Swami) and Sadäpüta däsa

Basing itself on a mountain of laboratory data, the currently predominant scientific theory holds that life is a coordinated chemical reaction. This theory involves the basic assumption that the various life forms we see today originated by chance in an ancient chemical environment, the “primordial soup,” and that they have developed by the influence of chance and blind mechanical laws acting over a long time period.

In the words of Jacques Monod, “Chance alone is at the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, is at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution: this central concept of modern biology is no longer one among other possible or even conceivable hypotheses. It is today the sole conceivable hypothesis, the only one that squares with observed and tested fact.”1 This is the neo-Darwinian concept. According to this idea, as time passed, the action of various forms of energy (ultraviolet rays from the sun, lightning, ionizing radiation, and heat) caused the small and simple molecules to combine together to form the biomonomers (amino acids, for example), and these biomonomers in turn gave rise to biopolymers (such as proteins and nucleic acids).

It has been assumed that by the proper interactions, the self-organization of these molecules took place, and life eventually arose.Unfortunately, this theory, however attractive it may be, will remain only a theoretical model until its propounders can actually produce some form of life in the laboratory by chemical reactions. But just how likely is this? Assuming that the primitive atmosphere was of a reducing kind, Stanley Miller passed an electric discharge through a gaseous mixture of ammonia, water vapor, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen.2 The reaction product was found to contain aldehydes, carboxylic acid, and some amino acids. Since amino acids are the basic building blocks of protein molecules, which in turn are the fundamental components of living cells, Miller’s experiment has been regarded as a landmark in the case for chemicals’ being the origin of life.

Subsequent experiments in the study of the origin of life involved some changes in the components of the reactants. When the simple molecules of hydrogen cyanide (HCN) were subjected to ultraviolet radiation, the basic building blocks of nucleic acids (the purines adenine and guanine) were synthesized. In experiments simulating the earth’s presumed primitive atmosphere, the simple molecules of formaldehyde (CH2O) were generated, and these simple formaldehyde molecules in turn underwent various base-catalyzed condensation reactions to produce innumerable sugars. These are regarded as the progenitors of biological sugars. The action of ultraviolet light and ionizing radiation on solutions of formaldehyde produced the sugar molecules ribose and deoxyribose, which are the components of nucleic acids.

Practically speaking, then, at this stage of scientific knowledge most of the important chemicals found in the living cell (including the gene) can be synthesized in the chemical laboratory. And those in the forefront of microbiology and biochemistry have made a vigorous effort to put all the necessary chemicals together and prepare the first synthetic life in the test tube. Unfortunately, there are no life symptoms visible when all these chemicals are combined. Even without taking so much trouble to synthesize all these chemicals, scientists can actually isolate the necessary chemicals from an already living body and then recombine them. If life were a chemical combination, scientists could actually make life in the test tube by assembling all these important chemicals. They cannot do this, however. Thus there are abundant reasons for doubting that life is a chemical process.

Undoubtedly, in the last few decades great advancements have been made in the fields of cell biology, molecular biology, and biochemistry. Indeed, the discovery of the genetic code and many metabolic pathways of the living systems are products of brilliant and dedicated researchers. Because of the great successes of science and technology in many areas of human endeavor (medicine, agriculture, space science, and so on), inquisitive and enthusiastic scientific minds are tempted to believe that the brilliant ambition to synthesize life in the test tube will one day be fulfilled. Scientific and popular journals have thus reported many claims that certain molecular arrangements might give rise to life. They present, for example, the coacervate droplets of Oparin and the protenoid microspheres of Fox as forerunners of a living cell.

But a close look at these entities reveals them to be purely physico-chemical phenomena. Coacervate droplets are wholly explicable in the realm of micellar chemistry, and Fox’s microspheres are explicable in terms of the chemistry of peptides and polypeptides.

Therefore, despite great scientific discoveries and achievements, the bright hope and enthusiasm for understanding life in molecular terms seem to be losing ground, and many prominent scientists in various fields are beginning to doubt the validity of this concept. In a book called Biology Today, Nobel-prize-winning chemist Albert Szent-Gyorgyi remarked, “In my search for the secret of life, I ended up with atoms and electrons, which have no life at all. Somewhere along the line, life ran out through my fingers. So, in my old age, I am now retracing my steps….”3
Not only do molecules, atoms, and electrons lack life symptoms, but also the chemical view of life fails to correspond with life’s observed subtleties-human beings’ unique feeling, willing, and thinking capacities, for example.

If life were an interplay of molecules, we should be able to explain these subtle aspects of life in terms of molecules only. What will be the genetic component or molecule that induces the friendly feeling of love and respect among people? Which molecule or genetic code will be responsible for the subtle artistic nuances in Hamlet or Bach’s Mass in B Minor? Can a mechanistic view of life account for life’s value- and goal-oriented nature, especially among human beings? That there are no plausible molecular mechanisms to explain these subtle aspects of life makes it reasonable to propose that life transcends physics and chemistry.

By Dr. T. D. Singh (Bhaktisvarüpa Dämodara Swami) and Sadäpüta däsa

Modern science deals primarily with the objective aspects of nature. Relying on an experimental approach based on limited sensory data, it has pursued the goal of unfolding the hidden laws of nature, and ultimately of finding the original cause of the world we perceive. Most modern scientists now believe that blind physical laws and the laws of chance govern the cosmos. They say there is no designer, no creator, no God-no intelligence behind the whole cosmic phenomenon. Following this hypothesis, they attempt to reduce everything, including life, to the interactions of atoms and molecules, the familiar objects of study of physics and chemistry.

By Dr. T. D. Singh (Bhaktisvarüpa Dämodara Swami) and Sadäpüta däsa

Any theory intended to explain a phenomenon must make use of a variety of descriptive terms. We may define some of these terms by combining other terms of the theory, but there must inevitably be some terms, called primitive or fundamental, that we cannot so define. In a mechanistic theory, all the primitive terms correspond to numbers or arrangements of numbers, and scientists at present generally try to cast all their theories into this form. But a theory does not have to be mechanistic to qualify as scientific. It is perfectly valid to adopt the view that a theoretical explanation is scientific if it is logically consistent and if it enables us to deal practically with the phenomenon in question and enlarge our knowledge of it through direct experience. Such a scientific explanation may contain primitive terms that cannot be made to correspond to arrangements of numbers.

In our remaining space, we shall outline an alternative approach to the understanding of consciousness-an approach that is scientific in the sense we have described, but that is not mechanistic. Known as sanätana-dharma, this approach is expounded in India’s ancient Vedic literatures, such as Bhagavad-gétä and Çrémad-Bhägavatam. We shall give a short description of sanätana-dharma and show how it satisfactorily accounts for the connection between consciousness and mechanism. This account is, in fact, based on the kind of entities described in statements (1) and (2), and sanätana-dharma very clearly and precisely describes the nature of these entities. Finally, we shall briefly indicate how this system of thought can enlarge our understanding of consciousness by opening up new realms of practical experience.

By accepting conscious personality as the irreducible basis of reality, sanätana-dharma departs radically from the mechanistic viewpoint. For those who subscribe to this viewpoint, all descriptions of reality ultimately boil down to combinations of simple, numerically representable entities, such as the particles and fields of physics. Sanätana-dharma, on the other hand, teaches that the ultimate foundation of reality is an Absolute Personality, who can be referred to by many personal names, such as Kåñëa and Govinda. This primordial person fully possesses consciousness, senses, intelligence, will, and all other personal faculties. According to sanätana-dharma, all of these attributes are absolute, and it is not possible to reduce them to patterns of transformation of some impersonal substrate. Rather, all phenomena, both personal and impersonal, are manifestations of the energy of the Supreme Person, and we cannot fully understand these phenomena without referring to this original source.
The Supreme Person has two basic energies, the internal energy and the external energy. The external energy includes what is commonly known as matter and energy. It is the basis for all the forms and phenomena we perceive through our bodily senses, but it is insentient.

The internal energy, on the other hand, includes innumerable sentient beings called ätmäs. Each ätmä is conscious and possesses all the attributes of a person, including senses, mind, and intelligence. These attributes are inherent features of the ätmä, and they are of the same irreducible nature as the corresponding attributes of the Supreme Person. The ätmäs are atomic, individual personalities who cannot lose their identities, either through amalgamation into a larger whole or by division into parts.

Sanätana-dharma teaches that a living organism consists of an ätmä in association with a physical body composed of the external energy. Bhagavad-gétä describes the physical body as a machine, or yantra, and the ätmä as a passenger riding in this machine. When the ätmä is embodied, his natural senses are linked up with the physical information-processing system of the body, and thus he perceives the world through the bodily senses. The ätmä is the actual conscious self of the living being, and the body is simply an insentient vehiclelike mechanism.
If we refer back to our arguments involving machine consciousness, we can see that in the body the ätmä plays the role specified by statements (1) and (2). The ätmä is inherently conscious, and he possesses the sensory faculties and intelligence needed to interpret abstract properties of complex brain states. In fact, if we examine statements (1) and (2) we can see that they are not merely satisfied by the ätmä; they actually call for some similar kind of sentient, intelligent entity.

We can better understand the position of the ätmä as the conscious perceiver of the body by considering what happens when a person reads a book. When a person reads, he becomes aware of various thoughts and ideas corresponding to higher-order abstract properties of the arrangement of ink on the pages. Yet none of these abstract properties actually exists in the book itself, nor would we imagine that the book is conscious of what it records. As Figure 5* shows, to establish a correlation between the book on the one hand and conscious awareness of its contents on the other, there must be a conscious person with intelligence and senses who can read the book. Similarly, for conscious awareness to be associated with the abstract properties of states of a machine, there must be some sentient entity to read these states.

*[Figure 5 has the following caption:

Conscious awareness of the plot and imagery of the story

Plot
Themes and character descriptions
Basic ideas
Sentences
Words
Letters (ink on paper)

Fig. 5. The relation between consciousness and the physical structures of a book. When a person reads a book, he becomes aware of higher-order abstract properties of the patterns of ink on paper that are not directly present in these physical structures. One can similarly understand the correlation between consciousness and abstract properties of structures in Figure 4 if we posit the existence of a nonphysical agency with the sensory and cognitive faculties of a conscious person.

At this point one might object that if we try to explain a conscious person by positing the existence of another conscious person within his body, then we have actually explained nothing at all. One can then ask how the consciousness of this person is to be explained, and this leads to an infinite regress.
In response, we point out that this objection presupposes that an explanation of consciousness must be mechanistic. But our arguments about machine consciousness actually boil down to the observation that conscious personality cannot be explained mechanistically. An infinite regress of this kind is in fact unavoidable unless we either give up the effort to understand consciousness or posit the existence of a sentient entity that cannot be reduced to a combination of insentient parts. Sanätana-dharma regards conscious personality as fundamental and irreducible, and thus the “infinite regress” stops with the ätmä.

The real value of the concept of the ätmä as an explanation of consciousness is that it leads directly to further avenues of study and exploration. The very idea that the conscious self possesses its own inherent senses suggests that these senses should be able to function independently of the physical apparatus of the body. In fact, according to sanätana-dharma the natural senses of the ätmä are indeed not limited to interpreting the physical states of the material brain. The ätmä can attain much higher levels of perception, and sanätana-dharma primarily deals with effective means whereby a person can realize these capacities in practice.

Since neither the Supreme Person nor the individual ätmäs are combinations of material elements, it is not possible to scrutinize them directly through the material sensory apparatus. On the basis of material sensory information, we can only infer their existence by indirect arguments, such as the ones presented in this article. According to sanätana-dharma, however, we can directly observe and understand both the Supreme Person and the ätmäs by taking advantage of the natural sensory faculties of the ätmä. Thus sanätana-dharma provides the basis for a true science of consciousness.

Since this science deals with the full potentialities of the ätmä, it necessarily ranges far beyond the realm of mechanistic thinking. When the ätmä is restricted to the physically embodied state, it can participate in personal activities only through the medium of machines, such as the brain, that generate behavior by the concatenation of impersonal operations. In this stultifying situation, the ätmä cannot manifest his full potential.

But the ätmä can achieve a higher state of activity, in which it participates directly in a relation of loving reciprocation with the Supreme Person, Kåñëa. Since both the ätmä and Kåñëa are by nature sentient and personal, this relationship involves the full use of all the faculties of perception, thought, feeling, and action. In fact, the direct reciprocal exchange between the ätmä and Kåñëa defines the ultimate function and meaning of conscious personality, just as the interaction of an electron with an electric field might be said to define the ultimate meaning of electric charge. Sanätana-dharma teaches that the actual nature of consciousness can be understood by the ätmä only on this level of conscious activity.

Thus, sanätana-dharma provides us with an account of the nature of the conscious being that takes us far beyond the conceptions of the mechanistic world view. While supporting the idea that the body is a machine, this account maintains that the essence of conscious personality is to be found in an entity that interacts with this machine but is wholly distinct from it. Furthermore, one can know the true nature of this entity only in an absolute context completely transcending the domain of machines.

We have argued that the strictly mechanistic approach to life cannot satisfactorily explain consciousness. If we are to progress in this area, we clearly need some radically different approach, and we have briefly indicated how sanätana-dharma provides such an alternative. Sanätana-dharma explains the relationship between consciousness and machines by boldly positing that conscious personality is irreducible. It then goes on to elucidate the fundamental meaning of personal existence by opening up a higher realm of conscious activity-a realm that can be explored by direct experience. In contrast, the mechanistic world view can at best provide us with the sterile, behavioristic caricature of conscious personality epitomized by the computerized Mr. Jones.

By Dr. T. D. Singh (Bhaktisvarüpa Dämodara Swami) and Sadäpüta däsa

Modern scientists regard the brain as the seat of consciousness. They understand the brain to consist of many different kinds of cells, each a molecular machine. Of these, the nerve cells, or neurons, are known to exhibit electrochemical activities roughly analogous to those of the logical switching elements used in computer circuitry. Although scientists at present understand the brain’s operation only vaguely, they generally conjecture that these neurons form an information-processing network equivalent to a computer’s

This conjecture naturally leads to the picture of the brain shown in Figure 4. Here thoughts, sensations, and feelings must correspond to higher levels of brain activity, which resemble the higher organizational levels of a complex computer program. Just as the higher levels of such a program are abstract, these higher levels of brain activity must also be abstract. They can have no actual existence, for all that actually happens in the brain is that certain physical processes take place, such as the pumping of sodium ions through neural cell walls. If we try to account for the existence of human consciousness in the context of this picture of the brain, we must conclude (by the same reasoning as before) that some entity described by statements (1) and (2) must exist to account for the connection between consciousness and abstract properties of brain states.

Furthermore, if we closely examine the current scientific world view, we can see that its conception of the brain as a computer does not depend merely on some superficial details of our understanding of the brain. Rather, on a deeper level, the conception follows necessarily from a mechanistic view of the world. Mechanistic explanations of phenomena are, by definition, based on systems of calculation. By Church’s thesis, all systems of calculation can in principle be represented in terms of computer operations. In effect, all explanations of phenomena in the current scientific world view can be expressed in terms of either computer operations or some equivalent symbolic scheme.

This implies that all attempts to describe human consciousness within the basic framework of modern science must lead to the same problems we have encountered in our analysis of machine consciousness.2 To account for consciousness, we shall inevitably require some entity like the one described in statements (1) and (2). Yet in the present theoretical system of science we find nothing, either in the brain or in a digital computer, that corresponds to this entity. Indeed, the present theoretical system could never provide for such an entity, for any mechanistic addition to the current picture of, say, the brain would simply constitute another part of that mechanistic system, and the need for an entity satisfying (1) and (2) would still arise.

Clearly, then, we must revise the basic theoretical approach of modern science if we are adequately to account for the nature of conscious beings. If we cannot do this in mechanistic terms, then we must adopt some other mode of scientific explanation. This brings us to the question of just what constitutes a scientific explanation.

By Dr. T. D. Singh (Bhaktisvarüpa Dämodara Swami) and Sadäpüta däsa

We are interested, however, not in categorizing patterns of behavior as “conscious” or “unconscious” but rather in understanding the actual subjective experience of conscious awareness. To clearly distinguish this conception of consciousness from the behavioral one, we shall briefly pause here to describe it and establish its status as a subject of serious inquiry. By consciousness we mean the awareness of thoughts and sensations that we directly perceive and know that we perceive.

Since other persons are similar to us, it is natural to suppose that they are similarly conscious. If this is accepted, then it follows that consciousness is an objectively existing feature of reality that tends to be associated with certain material structures, such as the bodies of living human beings.
Now, when a common person hears that a computer can be conscious, he naturally tends to interpret this statement in the sense we have just described. Thus he will imagine that a computer can have subjective, conscious experiences similar to his own. Certainly this is the idea behind such stories as the one with which we began this piece. One imagines the computerized “Mr. Jones,” as he looks about the room through the computer’s TV cameras, actually feeling astonishment at his strange transformation.

If the computerized Mr. Jones could indeed have such a subjective experience, then we would face the situation depicted in Figure 3. On the one hand, the conscious experience of the computer would exist-its subjective experience of colors, sounds, thoughts, and feelings would be an actual reality. On the other hand, the physical structures of the computer would exist. However, we cannot directly correlate consciousness with the actual physical processes of the computer, nor can we relate consciousness to the execution of individual elementary operations, such as those in Figure 1. According to the artificial-intelligence researchers, consciousness should correspond to higher-order abstract properties of the computer’s physical states-properties described by symbols such as thought and feeling, which stand at the top of a lofty pyramid of abstract definitions. Indeed, these abstract properties are the only conceivable features of our sentient computer that could have any direct correlation with the contents of consciousness.

[Here follows Fig.3 with the following explanation:

Conscious awareness of thoughts, feelings, and perceptions

“Ego”
“Thoughts”, “feelings”, and “perceptions”
Elemental sensory constructs
Sophisticated mathematical procedures
Higher operations
Elementary operations

Fig. 3. The relation between consciousness and the physical structures of a hypothetical sentient computer. If we assume that the computer is conscious, then both the contents of the computer’s consciousness and the physical hardware of the computer are real. However, the contents of consciousness can correspond only to higher-order abstract properties of this hardware. These properties are represented within the tinted section by a hierarchy of symbolic descriptions. Such properties exist only in an abstract sense-they are not actually present in the physical hardware of the computer.]

Since consciousness is real, however, and these abstract properties are not, we can conclude only that something must exist in nature that can somehow “read” these properties from the computer’s physical states. This entity is represented in Figure 3 by the arrow connecting the real contents of consciousness with higher levels in the hierarchy of abstract symbolic descriptions of the sentient computer. The entity must have the following characteristics.

[Here follows Fig.4 with the following explanation:

Conscious awareness of thoughts, feelings, and perceptions

“Ego”
“Thoughts”, “feelings”, and “perceptions”
Elemental sensory constructs
Sophisticated mathematical procedures
Higher operations
Elementary operations

Fig. 4. The relation between consciousness and the physical structures of the brain. Both the contents of consciousness and the physical structures are real, but the contents of consciousness can correspond only to higher-order abstract properties of these structures. As in Figure 3. these properties are represented by the hierarchy of symbolic descriptions enclosed within the tinted section.]

(1) It must possess sufficient powers of discrimination to recognize certain highly abstract patterns of organization in arrangements of matter.

(2) It must be able to establish a link between consciousness and such arrangements of matter. In particular, it must modify the contents of conscious experience in accordance with the changes these abstract properties undergo as time passes and the arrangements of matter are transformed.
There is clearly no place for an entity of this kind in our current picture of what is going on in a computer. Indeed, we can conclude only that this entity must correspond to a feature of nature completely unknown to modern science.

This, then, is the conclusion forced upon us if we assume that a computer can be conscious. Of course, we can easily avoid this conclusion by supposing that no computer will ever be conscious, and this may indeed be the case. Aside from computers, however, what can we say about the relation between consciousness and the physical body in a human being? On one hand we know human beings possess consciousness, and on the other modern science teaches us that the human body is an extremely complex machine composed of molecular components. Can we arrive at an understanding of human consciousness that does not require the introduction of an entity of the kind described by statements (1) and (2)?

Ironically, if we try to base our understanding on modern scientific theory, then the answer is no. The reason is that all modern scientific attempts to understand human consciousness depend, directly or indirectly, on an analogy between the human brain and a computer. In fact, the scientific model for human consciousness is machine consciousness!

By Dr. T. D. Singh (Bhaktisvarüpa Dämodara Swami) and Sadäpüta däsa

Although the square-root program of Figure 1 may appear to be a formless list of instructions, it actually possesses a definite structure, which is outlined in Figure 2. This structure consists of four levels of organization. On the highest level, the function of the program is described in a single sentence that uses the symbol square root. On the next level, the meaning of this symbol is defined by a description of the method the program uses to find square roots.

This description makes use of the symbol squared, which is similarly defined on the next lower level in terms of another symbol, sum. Finally, the symbol sum is defined on the lowest level in terms of the combination of elementary operations actually used to compute sums in the program. Although for the sake of clarity we have used English sentences in Figure 2, the description on each level would normally use only symbols for elementary operations, or higher-order symbols defined on the next level down

Figure 2:

1. Find the square root of X.
2. The square root of X is one less than the first number Y with Y squared greater than X.
3. Y squared is the sum of Y copies of Y.
4. The sum of Y and another number is the result of incrementing that number Y times.
   Fig. 2. Levels of organization of the program in Figure 1. The program in Figure 1 can be analyzed in terms of a hierarchy of abstract levels. The level of elementary operations is at the bottom, and each higher level makes use of symbols (such as squared) that are defined on the level beneath it.
5. 
   These graded symbolic descriptions actually define the program, in the sense that if we begin with level 1 and expand each higher-order symbol in terms of its definition on a lower level, we will wind up writing the list of elementary operations in Figure 1. The descriptions are useful in that they provide an intelligible account of what happens in the program. Thus on one level we can say that numbers are being squared, on another level that they are being added, and on yet another that they are being incremented and decremented. But the levels of organization of the program are only abstract properties of the list of operations given in Figure 1. When a computer executes this program, these levels do not exist in any real sense, for the computer actually performs only the elementary operations in the list.
6. 
   In fact, we can go further and point out that even this last statement is not strictly true, because what we call “the elementary operations” are themselves symbols, such as Increment (3), that refer to abstract properties of the computer’s underlying machinery. When a computer operates, all that really happens is that matter and energy undergo certain transformations according to a pattern determined by the computer’s physical structure.
7. 
   In general, any computer program that performs some complex task can be resolved into a hierarchy of levels of description similar to the one given above. Researchers in artificial intelligence generally visualize their projected “intelligent” or “sentient” programs in terms of a hierarchy such as the following: On the bottom level they propose to describe the program in terms of elementary operations. Then come several successive levels involving mathematical procedures of greater and greater intricacy and sophistication. After this comes a level in which they hope to define symbols that refer to basic constituents of thoughts, feelings, and sensory perceptions. Next comes a series of levels involving more and more sophisticated mental features, culminating in the level of the ego, or self.
8. 
   Here, then, is how artificial-intelligence researchers understand the relation between computer operations and consciousness: Consciousness is associated with a “sentient” program’s higher levels of operation-levels on which symbolic transformations take place that directly correspond to higher sensory processes and the transformations of thoughts. On the other hand, the lower levels are not associated with consciousness. Their structure can be changed without affecting the consciousness of the computer, as long as the higher-level symbols are still given equivalent definitions. Referring again to our square-root program, we see that this idea is confirmed by the fact that the process of finding a square root given on level 2 in Figure 2 will remain essentially the same even if we define the operation of squaring on level 3 in some different but equivalent way.
9. 
   If we were to adopt a strictly behavioristic use of the word consciousness, then this understanding of computerized consciousness might be satisfactory-granting, of course, that someone could indeed create a program with the required higher-order organization. Using such a criterion, we would designate certain patterns of behavior as “conscious” and others as not.
11. Generally, a sequence of behavioral events would have to be quite long to qualify as “conscious.” For example, a long speech may exhibit certain complex features that identify it as “conscious,” but none of the words or short phrases that make it up would be long enough to display such features. Using such a criterion, one might want to designate a certain sequence of computer operations as “conscious” because it possesses certain abstract higher-order properties. Then one might analyze the overall behavior of the computer as “conscious” in terms of these properties, whereas any single elementary operation would be too short to qualify.