Vedanta and Science 2

While Science acknowledges nature and natural laws, it classifies nature as devoid of intelligence. However it fails to recognize that one that is devoid of intelligence cannot frame or evolve laws. Laws can only be set by an intelligent entity, in other words, one having consciousness. Science does not accept consciousness as it is not perceptible through senses. One for instance cannot see or hear consciousness. However, the faculty of seeing or hearing is a by product of consciousness and therefore by definition cannot know it. An object of knowledge cannot know the one which is studying it. It is always the other way round, i.e. it is consciousness that knows what is the object of hearing and what is the object of seeing. It is the one which is controlling the senses, not the other way round. Vedanta, very scientifically explains that neither eyes by themselves see, nor ears by themselves hear. They are only instruments. The perception carried by them are interpreted in nerve centres in brains, which it refers to as mind. The mind itself does not determine, it merely generates options. It is the intelligence that determines. However at the back of everything, including intelligence, is pure consciousness or spirit, the Self, which is a witness and yet the controller of all these faculties. Brain, according to Vedanta, is another instrument or sense organ for the sensory perceptions.

Science on the other hand does not go beyond the nerve centres. Brain, according to it is the seat of both mind and intelligence and therefore is the determining force behind this consciousness. It postulates that human beings are most intelligent because their brains are most developed, whereas other animals depend on something called instinct - a rather loosely defined term. Instinct is defined to be a set of biologically inherited traits found in all living beings. It is the instinct that drives an animal to behave in the way it is intended to behave, like a tiger to become a beast of prey and a deer to become a prey, a cow to become a herbivorous and so on.

Vedanta supports this, however it defines instinct in a way which is much more scientific and logical. It believes that instinct is nothing but accumulated impressions or samskaras which are carried forward from birth to birth through reincarnation. Samskaras are products of Karma as well as impetus for new karma. These accumulated samskaras are gathered over many life times and it is illogical to question as to when they started, since the lifetimes are infinite, there is no end to progression unless one gets Mukti or liberation from the bondage of the world of Maya. Science on the other hand accepts samskaras as something inculcated during the lifetime of the individual or inherited from the parents. More recent scientific studies say that the habits are there in the genes which through a combination of switching on and off particular gene combinations are manifested. But science is silent as to how these are switched on and off or how can the children of the same parents or same family differ drastically w.r.t samskaras. Vedanta comes to rescue here. That the habits reside in genes there is no doubt. But genes are as much instruments for samskaras as brain for intelligence and consciousness. It is the samskaras that control the genes, not the opposite. The predominance of a particular samskara decides the individual traits by switching on or off a particular gene, just as consciousness controls the sensory inputs.