795 WORDS / 6 MIN READ / ORIGINALLY POSTED SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 (EDITED)
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND the PBS series The Brain with David Eagleman, especially to those who find themselves asking the eternal questions in face of the fast-approaching inevitable. If you missed the series, you can order the book and/or DVD from www.shoppbs.org, or stream the episodes there, before their expiration dates.
Most of what’s in EPISODE 1 (“What is Reality?”) we already learned way back in UP (University of the Philippines). In fact, we had to learn it real fast when our Thomist worldview had to withstand the blistering onslaught of Empiricism, Positivism, Existentialism, Modern Physics/Biology/Psychology/Economics, and Eastern/Asian Thought in our “godless” university. But this episode makes for a nice review.
EPISODE 2 (“What Makes Me?”) surprised me with two facts:
(i) The part of our brain where the past is stored is the same part where the future is created— whoa! Could this lead to an operational definition of enlightenment, namely: It’s the state when you’ve attained conscious control of this part and can shut it down (as verified by brain scan) so that only the present exists? You can tweak this definition, depending on how much you accept that the subject presented in this episode (a Mr. Henry M.) is “enlightened,” but it’s an intriguing avenue for future interdisciplinary research.
(ii) Even more astounding is the conclusion that you disappear (the technical term is “you go offline”) when all your brainwaves synchronize, as in all delta waves— whoa again! So the Buddha was right after all! We’re not substance, but process; not particle, but wave; not data, but algorithm! But if the skandhas unravel at death, who/what then reincarnates, or goes through the bardo? (The Buddha steadfastly refused to talk about the afterlife.) More ideas for further research.
And if you hate metaphysics, there are some practical ramifications too, e.g. it used to be that {death ≡ [no breath, no pulse]}; then the bar was moved and today, breath/pulse may be present, but {[flatline] ≡ death}. Does EPISODE 2 move the bar again so that death is redefined as [nothing but EEG = delta for, say, two consecutive weeks]? And if a fetus spends 100 percent of its time in delta, is it a living human being? How about during the weeks before its brain has formed? (No brain ⇒ zero brainwaves.) These are less interesting but perhaps more important questions from a practical standpoint.
EPISODE 3 (“Who’s in Control?”) asks, “Do we have free will?” and repeats an argument that we physicists have heard before: Given a gas, each of its molecules follows a trajectory completely defined by the conservation laws of momentum and energy— no free will there. But since we can’t keep track of each molecule individually, we deal with them statistically, as a group, by defining some useful macro state variables such as pressure and temperature. The mistake is thinking that pressure and temperature are as real as the molecules, when in fact they are human inventions. In the same way, free will may be a human invention, a statistical result from underlying biological processes impossible for us to follow individually.
More interesting, this episode seems to provide a neurobiological basis for what the swamis teach about karma. Widely misunderstood in the West as “You reap what you sow,” karma is more than simple causality; it involves predisposition (nature or genes), sensation (nurture or conditioning), and action (will or intent). The basic yogic observation is the infinite plasticity of the brain, which is constantly reconfiguring itself. Thinking rewires the brain, feeling rewires it, acting rewires it. Even now, reading this blog is causing your brain to rewire itself. And it’s the state of your brain as wired NOW that determines what your FUTURE is, which rewires your brain— voilà your karma! And so on and on and on…
The only time this “law of karma” ceases to operate is when you stop rewiring your brain, which, the swamis say, happens when you rest in the space between thoughts; so, Grasshopper, to unchain yourself from this law of karma, abide therein where the last thought has left, but the next thought has yet to begin.
EPISODE 4 (“How Do I Decide?”) seems to backtrack from EPISODE 3 and assumes that we do have free will, and here the focus is on how we free-willingly arrive at our choices or decisions. More stuff on the mechanics of karma, but lots of other stuff that will be useful to “Persuaders,” those purveyors of advertising and propaganda.
EPISODES 5 (“Why Do I Need You?”) and 6 (“Who Will We Be?”) don’t touch as much on the “deep” stuff of EPISODES 2 and 3 but will be interesting nevertheless to some. EPISODE 5 has ramifications for public policy, and EPISODE 6 will fascinate gearheads. But why not watch all six? I guarantee you won’t be bored!