Life and consciousness - The Vedāntic view

Art Value Creation and Destruction

I present a theory of creative and destructive value state referring to abstract art. Value is a probabilistic state held as a mixture of its expectation and information forces that coexist in a give-and-take relationship. Expectations are driven by the disclosure of novel information about the value state of various events of desire. Each bit of accumulated information contributes to the improvement of perception up to a threshold level, beyond which begin conscious states. The desire to disclose a value state triggers a triadic system of evaluation which uses concepts, observables and approaches. While the triadic valuation mechanisms can be used to assess various commodities, the scope of this work is limited to the case of artworks, in particular abstract paintings. I assume that art value is basically mediated by the interplay between these value state mechanisms of creation and destruction. Expectations in artwork develop attraction by challenging its contemplator to evaluate (predict) its meaning. Once the relevant information, corresponding to its creative expectations, is acquired (and conditioned), emotional states of indifference, disinterest and desensitization develop.

Biological evolution as defense of 'self'

Although the origin of self-referential consciousness is unknown, it can be argued that the instantiation of self-reference was the commencement of the living state as phenomenal experientiality. As self-referential cognition is demonstrated by all living organisms, life can be equated with the sustenance of cellular homeostasis in the continuous defense of 'self'. It is proposed that the epicenter of 'self' is perpetually embodied within the basic cellular form in which it was instantiated. Cognition-Based Evolution argues that all of biological and evolutionary development represents the perpetual autopoietic defense of self-referential basal cellular states of homeostatic preference. The means by which these states are attained and maintained is through self-referential measurement of information and its communication. The multicellular forms, either as biofilms or holobionts, represent the cellular attempt to achieve maximum states of informational distinction and energy efficiency through individual and collective means. In this frame, consciousness, self-consciousness and intelligence can be identified as forms of collective cellular phenotype directed towards the defense of fundamental cellular self-reference.

Change in Sense of Nondual Awareness and Spiritual Awakening in Response to a Multidimensional Well-Being Program

OBJECTIVE

This study examined the effects of a comprehensive mind-body program on sense of nondual awareness and spiritual awakening.

DESIGN AND INTERVENTION

The study compared the effects of participation in an intensive 6-day Ayurveda-based mind-body program that addressed physical, emotional, and spiritual domains as compared with a control condition.

SETTING

Resort setting.

SUBJECTS

Participants were 69 healthy women and men (mean age 53.9 years; range 32-86).

OUTCOME MEASURE

The primary outcome was the Nondual Embodiment Thematic Inventory (NETI).

RESULTS

A significant group by time interaction (p = 0.029) indicated that after the intervention, participants in the mind-body program showed a significant increase in NETI scores (p < 0.03), which was sustained 1 month later (p < 0.01).

CONCLUSION

Findings suggest that an intensive program providing holistic instruction and experience in mind-body practices can lead to a significant and sustained shift in perception of self-awareness, one that is likely favorable to well-being.

The evolution of "Life": A Metadarwinian integrative approach

It is undeniably very logical to first formulate an unambiguous definition of “Life” before engaging in defining the parameters instrumental to Life's evolution. Because nearly everybody assumes, erroneously in my opinion, that catching Life's essence in a single sentence is impossible, this way of thinking remained largely unexplored in evolutionary theory. Upon analyzing what exactly happens at the transition from “still alive” to “just dead,” the following definition emerged. What we call “Life” (L) is an activity. It is nothing other than the total sum (∑) of all communication acts (C) executed, at moment t, by entities organized as sender-receiver compartments: L = ∑C Such “living” entities are self-electrifying and talking ( = communicating) aggregates of fossil stardust operating in an environment heavily polluted by toxic calcium. Communication is a multifaceted, complex process that is seldom well explained in introductory textbooks of biology. Communication is instrumental to adaptation because, at the cellular level, any act of communication is in fact a problem-solving act. It can be logically deduced that not Natural Selection itself but communication/problem-solving activity preceding selection is the universal driving force of evolution. This is against what textbooks usually claim, although doubt on the status of Natural Selection as driving force has been around for long. Finally, adopting the sender-receiver with its 2 memory systems (genetic and cognitive, both with their own rules) and 2 types of progeny (”physical children” and “pupils”) as the universal unit of architecture and function of all living entities, also enables the seamless integration of cultural and organic evolution, another long-standing tough problem in evolutionary theory. Paraphrasing Theodosius Dobzhansky, the very essence of biology is: “Nothing in biology and evolutionary theory makes sense except in the light of the ability of living matter to communicate, and by doing so, to solve problems.”

Vendantic view on life and consciousness: BN Shanta is correct

The explanation for Vedanta offered by Bhakti Niskama Santa (BNS)¹ is valid from both scientific and philosophical grounds. It seems that the published critique of Gustavo Caetano-Anollés (GCA)² to Shanta's paper is purely emotional and does not have any valid scientific or philosophical justification. In his rebuttal to Caetano-Anollés's critique, Shanta³ highlighted how the concept of ‘Organic Whole’ in Vedanta is completely different than that of Creationist Movement and Intelligent Design. Thus Caetano-Anollé's attempt to equate Vedanta with Creationist Movement and Intelligent Design is merely superfluous. This article highlights the validity of the argument made by Bhakti Niskama Shanta¹ and thus also intends to clarify why the Caetano-Anollés critique is groundless.

Discourse on order vs. disorder

The second law of thermodynamics is on one hand understood to account for irrevocable flow of energy from the top down, on the other hand it is seen to imply irreversible increase of disorder. This tension between the 2 stances is resolved in favor of the free energy consumption when entropy is derived from the statistical mechanics of open systems. The change in entropy is shown to map directly to the decrease in free energy without any connotation attached to disorder. Increase of disorder, just as order, is found to be merely a consequence of free energy consumption. The erroneous association of disorder with entropy stems from an unwarranted assumption that a system could undergo changes of state without concomitant dissipation, i.e., a change in energy.

The cell's self-generated "electrome": The biophysical essence of the immaterial dimension of Life?

In the classical “mind-body” wording, “body” is usually associated with the “mass aspect” of living entities and “mind” with the “immaterial” one. Thoughts, consciousness and soul are classified as immaterial. A most challenging question emerges: Can something that is truly immaterial, thus that in the wording of physics has no mass, exist at all? Many will answer: “No, impossible.” My answer is that it is very well possible, that no esoteric mechanisms need to be invoked, but that this possibility is inherent to 2 well established but undervalued physiological mechanisms. The first one is electrical in nature. In analogy with “genome,” “proteome” etc. “electrome” (a novel term) stands for the totality of all ionic currents of any living entity, from the cellular to the organismal level. Cellular electricity is truly vital. Death of any cell ensues at the very moment that it irreversibly (excluding regeneration) loses its ability to realize its electrical dimension. The second mechanism involves communication activity that is invariably executed by sender-receiver entities that incessantly handle information. Information itself is immaterial (= no mass). Both mechanisms are instrumental to the functioning of all cells, in particular to their still enigmatic cognitive memory system. Ionic/electrical currents associated with the cytoskeleton likely play a key role but have been largely overlooked. This paper aims at initiating a discussion platform from which students with different backgrounds but all interested in the immaterial dimension of life could engage in elaborating an integrating vocabulary and in initiating experimental approaches.

Vedāntic view of life: Reply to Gustavo Caetano-Anollés

The author would like to thank Professor Gustavo Caetano-Anollés from Department of Crop Sciences, University of Illinois for his interest in his work. We may sometimes observe that there is a noticeable difference between the anecdote people narrate about the implications of a scientific paper and the real conclusion of the paper. Prof. Gustavo Caetano-Anollés's response¹ is an ideal example of the same, where he has tried to make great hay about the implications of the article “Life and consciousness – The Vedāntic view.”² The Vedāntic view subscribes neither to the views of ‘Creationist Movement’/‘Intelligent Design’, nor it supports some splendid anti-science proposal. Vedāntic view refutes the dominant reductionistic view of life in modern biology by proposing a viable alternative concept of ‘Organic Whole’ and thus serves a scientific critique to the nescience (avidyā) that is practiced on the name of science.

Creationism and intelligent design are incompatible with scientific progress: A response to Shanta and Vêdanta

In a recent opinion paper, B.K. Shanta claims science leaves no room for the subjective aspect of consciousness, and in doing so, attacks both origin of life and evolutionary research. He claims Vêdanta, one of the 6 orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy, offers an explanation: "the origin of everything material and nonmaterial is sentient and absolute." Here I discuss how the pseudoscience of these creationist views, which are aligned with Intelligent Design, are incompatible with scientific progress and should not be published in scientific journals.