What is consciousness?

Question: Does consciousness mean to be aware, to think, to feel, to will, and to be intentional?

Answer: Strictly speaking, no. The definition of consciousness given by Śrī Jīva Goswami, is jaḍa-pratiyogi. That means, consciousness is that which does not co-exist in the same substratum as matter. In other words, consciousness is the absence of matter.

Question: But how will we know who is conscious?

Answer: One generally infers that someone else is conscious by observing that they can think, they can feel, and they can make decisions. However, imagine that you are talking to a robot who looks exactly like a human being, and you are not aware that this human being is actually a robot. Perhaps you have watched the movie Terminator, in which Arnold Schwarzenegger portrays a very human-like robot. If you talk to such a human-robot, you will think that the human-robot is conscious in the same way as an ātmā is conscious, but you would be wrong. The robot might even exhibit symptoms of feeling- it is easy to program a robot to respond to specific stimuli in specific ways- such as flinching when something hot is touched and so on.

Thus, the definition that consciousness means to think, to feel, to will has the defect of ati-vyāpti- it will also apply to well-programmed robots. Even in our bodies, thinking, feeling and willing occurs in the mind, not in the ātmā.

Question: How about ‘being aware’? Is that consciousness?

Answer: Depends on what you mean by being aware. In the body, awareness is a function of the buddhi which is external to the ātmā.

Question: So does the ātmā have any role in the mind’s feeling, thinking etc?

Answer: The ātmā is the source of “I-ness”. Identification of the ātmā with the mind-body complex enables the senses and the mind do their job. Unless we study scripture, there is no conclusive way of ascertaining the ātmā’s presence in the body, because all knowing, doing and experience remains external to the ātmā. These things take place in the mind-body complex.

Question: So what is the symptom of the ātmā?

Answer: The symptom is the I-ness that we each feel individually. This I-ness cannot be denied. This I-ness has been with each of us for as long as we can remember.

Question: Can a robot be programmed to have I-ness?

Answer: Of course, but that is material programming. The robot cannot have the I-ness that we possess; that is the difference between the ātmā and the robot. Our I-ness is not a program; it is intrinsic to us, although it is expressed in a sentence through identification with the I-program in the mind/body complex.

Question: So why should I accept that our I-ness is any different from that of a robot?

Answer: The only pramāṇa is śāstra for this and your own experience of your own self. This is not something that can be tested in others- you cannot say that the robot, or really anyone external to you, has or does not have I-ness. All you can vouch for is what you feel.

Question: So our I-ness may also be a program?

Answer: You can say you have I-ness, but you cannot conclusively say that this I-ness is from the ātmā. For that, you have to accept śāstra’s teachings.

Question: What do you think of the scientific proofs of the ātmā, like reincarnation research ?

Answer: Reincarnation research does not conclusively prove the existence of the ātmā. If we accept that the research is valid (there are many methodological problems with this type of research), still, the data can be taken to indicate the existence of a mind that existed in a previous body, according to which one’s present body has developed. It does not conclusively prove the existence of the ātmā.

Question: How about out-of-body experiences? Do they prove the ātmā?

Answer: No. If they are taken to be true (I am skeptical), they can be taken to indicate the existence of a mind outside the body, and not existence of the ātmā. I dont think the ātmā can leave the body while the body is alive. Maybe, the mind can go beyond it.