The Tamil Hermeneutics and Metaphysics - Part 27 - C

 Arunandi's Disconstruction of Materialism -3

Lokayata's view that intelligence is NOT primordial and categorically different but rather a byproduct of the biophysical processes is disconstructed by pointing out that there is INTENTIONALITY and Temporality as a fabric of human ( also animal) consciousness and as such it cannot be just a byproduct of the physical but organic processes in the body. 

Intelligence is something not only ABOVE but also more primordial. The body is what a soul assumes, something like clothes people wear - we can discard the old and assume a new one. Of course the primary intention of the Lokayata is to DENY the reality of Karma first, karma understood here as the action-deposits lodged in the deep recesses of the mind some of which persist even when the body is dissolved and regulates the acquisition of a new body and other cognitive mechanisms during rebirth or regeneration (prapta karma).

But now another argument is put forward to circumvent the admission of Karma in the Deep Structure of the world processes underlying the reproductive mechanisms of the creature regeneration. Intelligence is seen as Gestaltic, something that emerges like the melodies of an orchestral performance, something that emerges when the body functions COLLECTIVELY and TOGETHER and hence at the disruption of which it is no more. This may be a Lokayata adaptation of the Camudaya Vada who were also positivists of a kind.

Arunandi brings to bear upon this, the EVOLUTIONARY differences among the creatures, an understanding that has been with the Tamils at least from the days of Tolkaapiyam and which has been well accommodated within Saivite thinking as seen in Manikkavasagar's CivapuraNam. This evolutionary notions may also be hidden in the VaishaNava notions of Tasavataaram, the ten fold Avatars that BEING-as-VISHNU assumes but all cloaked in mythological garb.

The point Arunandi at pains to make is that, the evolutionary differences among creatures which is an observable fact requires noting the presence of Karma in the deep structure as that which regulates creature evolution and hence the differences.

43.

aRivudaR kuNamennil aanaiyatu

aati antam eRumpataa

uRum udaR peritaanavaRril

utittidum peritaakavee

ciRuvudaR ceRi njaanamum ciRitaa

aayidum pariNaamamum

peRum udaR ciRitaavatu en peritu

aavatu en cila peecidee!

Meaning:

Now because of the incapacity (of the materialistic notions to explain the phenomenon of death at which point consciousness is totally absent and that of deep sleep or swoon in which, while there is breathing there is no self-consciousness) you Lokayata may say that Consciousness arises only because of the ORGANIZATION feature of the physical body of the creatures. Now this would mean that the creatures with large bodies like elephants and those with small bodies like the ants would have higher and lower kind of intelligence. The SIZE of the physical body must correlate with intelligence being more or less evolved but this NOT the case in the world. Furthermore the fact

that creatures have bodies of different sizes is also something that needs to be explained. Can you explain this (without recourse to the notion of Karma?)

NOTES:

The Hermeneutic perspective within which Arunandi operates enables him to disconstruct another view of the Lokayatas with respect to explaining the presence of intelligence in living creatures. The view that consciousness is a product of biophysical structure of the body was disconstructed by presenting the fact that at the point of death, something happens whereby there is NO MORE intelligence and hence consciousness while the biophysical organs may remain intact, at least in most cases of death. This led to noting intelligence as something arising because of psychophysical processes that are ultimately related to the breathing processes. But against this it was pointed out that while during deep sleep ( or in the state of swoon and so forth), the psychophysical processes particularly breathing while active there is nevertheless no consciousness.

Now emerges another candidate for the Lokayata, the materialists: the body as a whole that remains intact, while at the point of death there is disintegration as the WIND is no more while during deep sleep there is intelligence as the body as WHOLE is there.

Now Arunandi notes that this view creates problems with respect to the intelligence being higher and lower and this is NOT correlating well with size of the physical body. If intelligence is purely a matter of the WHOLENESS of the body and DIFFERENCES in intelligence is a matter purely related to the SIZE of the body, the materialists can get away with their view. However an examination of the intelligence of the creatures and body size show that this NOT always the case. In modern terms we may agree that the single-celled creatures may be very low in intelligence but when it comes to the mammals this is certainly not true. The human beings are capable of LANGUAGE and as such disclose a very high level of intelligence but their body in no way the largest among the mammals.

Now a modern lokayata may shift the body size to the size of the cranium or the brain and claim that intelligence is a matter of the size of the brain ( and its complicated internal structure) However in anticipation of such views Arunandi points that even if it is the case it DEMANDS an explanation, WHY the brain sizes differ and so forth.

Of course what is implied by this rhetorical thrust is that there is something like Karma, something

imperceptible but certainly active in the genesis of the physical body itself.

Written by,

ULLAGANAR.

( editing and re-paragraphing by his student )

The Tamil Hermeneutics and Metaphysics - Part 27 - B

 Arunandi's Disconstruction of Materialism - 2

One of the central principles of the materialists then as of now is the denial of the categorical distinction between the psychical and physical, the mental and the brutal. They practice a kind of REDUCTIONISM , that of reducing the mental to the physical and thereby denying also the truth of metaphysical experiences that constitutes the essence of religious life.

What can overcome this reductionism is the practice of science as Hermeneutic Science, the kind of sciences practised extensively in the Tamil country and perhaps also all over India within the Agamic or Tantric traditions. It may also be possible that it is the development of the Hermeneutic Sciences that is quite distinctive of Indian Civilization as a whole.

In the following verse AruNandi provides his disconstruction of the physicalistic view of the mental and reductionism that accompanies it by showing there is INTENTIONALITY and that because of that the anma is TEMPORAL , its understanding of historical with the attendant three ekstases of time (as noted by Heidegger), the past, present and future. 

Of particular importance here is the notion of KuRippuk Kaalam of Tolkaappiyar, the consciousness of TIME that comes along with INTENTIONALITY, also called the psychological time and so forth. Human understanding reaches OUTSIDE itself only because of this inherent intentionality and it is only because of this, there is the-tic consciousness, consciousness of things in terms of 'this' and 'that' thatr Meykandar calls cudduNarvu. This phenomena also shows that the anma is distinct and NOT to be confused with the product of the material processes.

The existence of the mental phenomena is a fact of life and the Lokayata's reduction amounts to explaining it away rather than explaining the phenomena, so contends AruNandi

42.

aRivu puutamatu ennil veeRu

puRattu aRintamai kaNdilam

ceRivu taan udalattu enil cava

maana pootu udal teerumoo

kuRikoLaatu udal vaayuvaanatu

kuudidaamaiyin ennin nii

piRitaraatu niRka njaanam

uRakkam en piRavaatatee?

Meaning:

Lokayata! You say that intelligence is just another one of physical products generated by the combination of the basic physical elements. Then how do you explain that living creatures are INTENTIONAL and in that they perceive something as a " that" and which is external to themselves? Now if you deny this externality and say that such mental processes are internal (biophysiological) and happen within the body , then how to you explain that at the point of death while the body is still intact there is no intelligence as such? Now if you say such consciousness related processes become unavailable because of the departure of the WIND, then how do you explain the fact that during deep sleep while there is still breathing but there is NO consciousness?

NOTES

This constitutes one of the fundamental objections of Arunandi to the materialism of the Lokayatas which is essentially REDUCTIONISTIC, the denying of the categorical and ontological difference between intelligence and non-intelligence, a distinction that is accommodated with the hermeneutical way of looking at things. The hermeneuts would see the living things as TEXTS in which the psychological would be seen as the Deep Structure and the biophysiological as the Surface Structure. While it is true that INTELLIGENCE as such cannot be understood as they are independent of the physical embodiments, categorically they are NOT the same. For the living creatures are characterized by INTENTIONALITY and they do not simply sense objects in the world but SEE them, a process that requires grasping as it is something outside themselves.

Of course such phenomena have biophysiological correlates -- brain processes of various kinds in which the information that reaches the brain through the five senses are processed and an object is recognized as such and such. But all such perceptions emerge as 'a tree over there', 'a pain in my foot " etc. A close examination of such processes indicate that perceiving is NOT simply translating the sensorial input into object identities. There is a SELECTION mechanism at work and unless such selections are operative there , the singling out and synthesizing a mass of sensory input into that as pertaining to a particular object will NOT take place. 

And when we look at the SELECTIVE mechanisms we can see that it is psychical, there is actually a psyche, a non-material spiritual thing which does all these. The INTENTIONALITY is that which makes the psychic entities go beyond the internal psychobiological processes and grasp an object in the world and as in the world and hence outside the internal cognitive processes that disclose its presence. That seeing as such is psychical and NOT merely psychobiological is shown by pointing out that when a person is dead, the body is there intact but seeing is no more and hence also perceiving. The dead person does not perceive despite the presence of all the biophysiological mechanisms.

 

Now Lokayata in admitting the presence of INTENTIONALITY, tries to explain it away by saying that it is simply the function of the WIND that which is the cause of the breathing processes, the inhaling and exhaling, the fundamental biophysiological processes that maintain LIFE as such. As against this, Arunandi notes that while during deep sleep while breathing goes on as usual , there is ABSENCE of conscious prehension, the functioning of INTENTIONALITY even as dreams. We have here a situation where there is breathing for the person is NOT dead but nevertheless is NOT conscious and hence experiencing anything INTENTIONAL including the dreaming which may indirectly be related to intentionality. This shows that the proposed correlation between breathing and consciousness does not hold.

written by, 

ULLAGANAR

( editing and re-paragraphing by his student )

( Image from wikipedia, with thanks )