Any material explanation of consciousness, as an emergent property of neurons or as a quantum mechanical effect connected with microtubules in neurons, must confront the changeability of these brain components. The brain contains about 10 billion neurons. Each of these has about ten thousand connections with other neurons. Each day, a human loses an average of one thousand neurons in the brain (Radin 1997, p.
259). That consciousness and its mental contents can maintain their integrity in the face of such massive random disruptions in the brain circuitry that supposedly creates consciousness requires quite a leap of faith. It is more reasonable to suppose that the unitary consciousness of a living entity is an irreducible feature of reality and that it simply uses the brain as an instrument.
The interactions of matter, mind, and consciousness appear to sometimes violate the kind of bottom-up causation now generally favored by reductionist science. According to reductionist science, we start with molecules, and from molecules come mind and consciousness. Radin (1997, p. 260) and other researchers propose that living systems participate in a system with both upward and downward causation, in which states of matter can influence the states of mind and consciousness and vice versa. Radin (1997, p. 261) proposes that a comprehensive model of this causal system “might place quantum or subquantum physics at the bottom and a ‘spirit’ or ‘superspirit’ at the top.” This echos the vedic model, which does indeed place a “superspirit” at the top of the model (i.e. the paramatma, or Supersoul).
Radin gives this characterization of an adequate physical theory of living systems: “The theory will have to explain how information can be obtained at great distances unbound by the usual limitations of space or time . . . Such a theory must also explain not only how one can get information from a distance in space or time, but also how one can get particular information . . . The theory must account for why we are not overwhelmed with information all the time . . . The theory must also explain how random processes can be tweaked by mental intention . . . The theory of psi should explain phenomena associated with evidence suggesting that something may survive bodily death. These phenomena include apparitions, hauntings, out-of-body experiences (OBE), and near-death experiences (ndE) . . . The theory may need to account for poltergeist phenomena, which provide the primary evidence for large-scale mindmatter interaction effects” (Radin 1997, pp. 278–280).
A theory based on the vedic model of the cosmos could account for all of the above. Matter, mind, and individual spirits emanate from God. God enters into each atom and accompanies each individual spirit as the Supersoul, or Paramatma. The Supersoul, by definition, is present in all phases of time and space, and is simultaneously beyond time and space. The Supersoul is also all knowing. Therefore, through the medium of the Supersoul, knowledge can be transmitted from one spirit to another beyond the usual limits of time and space. There are many examples of this in the vedic literature. The Bhagavad Gita (15.15) says that it is from the Supersoul that each individual souls gets memory, knowledge, and forgetfulness. The Supersoul can therefore control the kind and amount of information that comes to each individual soul, whether through normal or paranormal means. Since the Supersoul is present in each atom of matter and is at the same time aware of conscious intentions, it is possible for the Supersoul to produce the effects associated with random number generators. Responding to the desires of experimenters and the intentions of subjects, the Supersoul could cause more ones or zeros to come up in the course of the experiments. The vedic model, which posits the existence of an eternal conscious self (atma), would explain evidence for survival of bodily death. According to the vedic model, the eternal conscious self, if it does not return to the spiritual level of reality, remains in the material world covered by a subtle mental body. This mental body is composed of a subtle material element (mind) that can, by the agency of Supersoul, affect ordinary matter. This would explain poltergeist effects and apparitions. The mental body also includes a subtle sensory apparatus, capable of operating without the assistance of the ordinary bodily sense organs. This would explain the visual perceptions that subjects report during out-of-body experiences. The vedic model has considerable explanatory power.
This model overcomes the classic objection to the cartesian duality of mind and matter. descartes’s terminology identifies mind with consciousness. A popular, but incorrect view, is that descartes thought that the pineal gland in the brain mediated an interaction between mind (consciousness) and matter. This organ was, according to this account, sensitive to both mind and matter and could link them. Modern philosophers now believe that descartes simply suggested that the pineal gland was the place where an interaction between mind and matter took place. As to how the interaction actually took place, descartes could not say (Griffin 1997, p. 105). nicolas Malebranche and Arnold Geulincx, two of the principal followers of cartesian philosophy, accepted descartes’s formulation that mind and matter were distinct entities and concluded that they could not interact. They proposed to explain, however, their apparent interaction through the philosophical doctrine of occasionalism. Griffin (1997, p. 105) explains: “According to this doctrine, on the occasion of my hand’s being on a hot stove, God causes my mind to feel pain, which leads me to decide to move my hand. My mind, unfortunately, cannot cause my body to move any more than my body could cause my mind to feel pain. On the occasion of my deciding to move my hand, accordingly, God obliges, moving it for me. All apparent interaction between mind and body is said to require this constant supernatural intervention.”
The vedic model of the relationships between matter, mind, and consciousness resembles occasionalism. In the vedic model, mind (a subtle kind of matter) is placed along with ordinary matter on one side of the cartesian divide. The soul, a unit of pure consciousness, is placed on the other side. The question still arises, how can any connection between the soul (consciousness) and matter in its two forms (ordinary matter and the subtle material mind) be established? The key is the Supersoul. The Supersoul is the ultimate source of the souls of living beings as well as the mind element and ordinary matter. The Supersoul monitors the desires and intentions of the souls of living beings and causes mind and matter to transform in response to those desires. The vedic model also incorporates the property dualism of Spinoza, who proposed that there is actually only one substance, spirit, that is perceived differently according to its application, just as electricity can be used to heat or cool. The Supersoul possesses a spiritual potency which it can deploy in different ways. The spiritual potency when deployed to cover the original spiritual consciousness of the individual soul is known as matter. But the same potency can be changed back to its original spiritual form by the Supersoul.