Q: What do you see as the greatest challenge facing mankind?
A: The greatest challenge is to arrive at a theory of life inclusive of its subjective features. Individual existence is insignificant from science’s objective point of view, but infinitely significant from the subject’s own view point. These two diametrically opposing facts must be reconciled.
Q: That is surprising. Why not nuclear war, global warming, terrorism, pandemics etc…?
A: All these are serious threats but the root cause is our failure to understand life in its totality. Human race is unlikely to survive if we fail to find a convincing answer to the question ‘what exactly is a human person?’
Q: Do you think meta-cognition was a freak accident? Is human species a cancerous growth in the tree of life?
A: Evolution of human species could be interpreted as a mistake, but I don’t think that is the case. Meta-cognitive man is a new creation, entirely different from his ancestors. Nature has given birth to a new species with the arrival of meta-cognitive humans around 200,000 years ago.
Q: You are suggesting meta-cognitive man, though biologically similar, is an entirely different form of life compared to the bipedal species that evolved from apes?
A: Yes. Emergence of meta-cognition was a watershed event in the history of life. Ability to view nature as separate from the subject, and consequences of this unholy division, places the ‘new man’ in a powerful but precarious position.
Q: History of human civilizations is a series of bloody wars and man-made disasters. Is there reason for hope?
A: The process of bringing forth a new life is fraught with dangers. Imagine a human mother giving birth to her child. It is a joyous occasion for the whole family despite risks involved. But a microorganism with one minute life span, thriving in a damp corner of the maternity ward, might interpret childbirth as a story of endless bloodshed and meaningless suffering.
It all depends on the perspective. History of our species might look hopeless if our own insignificant existence is placed at the center. That would be a mistake. History must be interpreted in the context of cosmic evolution to understand its significance.
Q: Hm… both mother and child may perish if the hapless infant grows into an aggressive monster before the umbilical cord is cut!
A: Indeed, there is the risk of human stupidity inflicting irreparable damage to biosphere but I am hopeful. Power of reason will eventually lead us to realize the true nature of reality.
Q: What is the way forward?
A: Scientific objectivity is the only tool for solving practical problems, but thinking and feeling subjects have no place in a scientific solution. Understanding this basic fact should be the first step.
Q: Where do we go from there?
A: Go beyond ill-defined concepts such as ‘mind’ and investigate the nature of knowledge from an evolutionary perspective.
Q: Mind is a self-evident fact of experience and the source of all explanations. You are suggesting to give up the idea of mind! How can anything be explained if there are no minds?
A: What we call ‘mind’ is the tip of an iceberg. We should go deeper to uncover the truth. Blindly accepting the reality of ‘mind’ limits the depth of our understanding.
Q: You mean questioning mind’s reality will lead us to the true nature of fundamental substance?
A: We do not know what ‘mind’ is in physicalist terms, yet it is accepted as real. This assumption should be questioned. There is a much bigger prize to be claimed by remaining adamant about the criteria for mind’s reality.
Neither matter nor mind is fundamental but partial appearances of the unknowable whole, as perceived by the ‘knower’.
Q: What can be said about the ‘unknowable whole’ that is neither matter nor mind?
A: Silence is the right approach towards the unknowable whole or ‘nature-in-itself’. But it is not practical to remain silent about such an important question, so we should resort to metaphors to speak about the unspeakable. This should lead to a new understanding of life, complementing what we already know from science.
Q: Individual life is very short. How can one live meaningfully amidst this chaos?
A: Life is the meeting point of two conflicting facts. Cosmic insignificance of the individual’s tiny and brief existence and the unfathomable significance of once-in-a-universe conscious experience. Life has always been a mystery for those who explored its meaning and significance, but practical solutions evolved through trial and error over generations.
Q: Practical solutions to live a meaningful life?
A: Yes, to live in harmony with patterns in nature. Life as an individual is limited to 70-odd years but this is my only chance in the eternity of time! There has to be guidelines to maximize individual life experiences under the constraints imposed by space and time.
Q: Who decides such guidelines?
A: Guidelines to meaningful life evolved by trial and error over centuries. For example, ‘the middle way’, avoiding excesses of any kind, taught by eastern traditions. All cultures have some form of rules and practices for meaningful living.
Q: Most of these rules are based on superstitions such as life after death or belief in a supernatural God.
A: That is correct, but there is a very good reason behind such ‘superstitious beliefs’ if we look at the evolutionary history of ‘knower’.
Q: What do you mean?
A: The ‘knower’ attempts to de-mystify everything. This is an impossible task as discussed earlier. De-mystification produces useful representations by leaving out intrinsic qualities. But ‘knower’ is only one of the modes in the spectrum of comprehension evolved over millions of years. Pre-knower modes respond to ‘nature-in-itself’ directly rather than submitting to knower’s sterilized representations. ‘Knower’, in its cleverness, interprets such heretic interactions as superstitious.
Q: Are you suggesting we should give up reason and accept religious superstitions as true?
A: No, rational enquiry should be extended to its logical conclusion without compromise. Nature of reality is comprehensible only through a combination of objective knowing and subjective experience. We are stuck in the objectivity trap because we blindly accept minds somehow evolved from matter. That is the ultimate superstition. A meaningful theory of evolution emerges by questioning such false beliefs.
Q: What is the meaning and purpose of human life? You started by identifying this question as an important piece of the problem of life.
A: To live in harmony with ‘nature-in-itself’. It is not an easy task because man has come to identify himself completely with the ‘knower’, a small part of his totality.
Q: Does that mean ‘knower’ should take a back seat? All religions preach surrendering oneself to God. Isn’t living in harmony with ‘nature-in-itself’ same as giving up selfhood and embracing God?
A: It is not the same. Evolution of ‘knower’ was not a mistake to be undone. Living in harmony means figuring out our true relationship with nature and learning to co-exist with every other form of life.
Q: But isn’t surrendering to God the easiest way to achieve harmony?
A: That is wishful thinking. The ‘knower’ evolved to propel ‘nature-in-itself’ to a new level of creative existence. We have made tremendous progress through science and there is no going back to avoid the final steps. Surrendering to God make sense only with absolute faith. We have crossed that stage in the evolution of knower-nature dynamics. Power of knowledge should thrust us towards a new kind of co-existence with rest of nature, one that recognizes our uniqueness and similarity at the same time.
Q: Do you think mankind will achieve this lofty goal?
A: I believe so. We have to use reason to figure out knower’s origin story. We are locked into this eternal struggle with the ‘other’ by falsely identifying ourselves with a tiny fragment of our true being. We are strangers, but our strangeness is the consequence of nature struggling to fathom its own mysteries. We are blessed with an unprecedented power to know, but we also have a huge responsibility to find meaning through our knowledge. The purpose of human life is to participate in the cosmic dance of creative becoming by harmonizing objective knowledge with subjective experience.
Mind, Evolution and Meaning 
Other living beings also know, communicate and interact with each other and their surroundings according to the laws of nature. They manage to survive, thrive or go extinct. Yes, Humans have evolved to have this special dimension of knowing which if you really see- is simply our ability to “think”, putting what we ‘know’ in words, formulate concepts about it, and communicate to others, what we “know”. We have created great art, music and culture with these special abilities, but also, humans are the only species, that has killed its own kind in such enormous numbers for ridiculous reasons- we exploit, cheat, torture and kill our own kind- also treating all other living beings, as far inferior to us. So in the end, I doubt if the ‘Reality as a whole’ (Nature in itself), would consider the “special’’ status of the human “knower” of as much ultimate value, as we humans tend to believe! I think it will do us good to occasionally wonder whether we really are that special and whether our existence (as a species) has the same value for our total context, as we ourselves place in it.
Even without figuring out the details of the origins of the knower, with a satisfactory evolutionary model which reconciles both the subjective and objective knowledge- we already know enough to understand and appreciate, that we come from a common source, we sustain from the same resources and have a biological basis of life shared with all other species on this planet. I hope that this alone could be sufficient for us to live in harmony and peace with everything and everyone else!
Sadly, I see no hope of this happening unless each human individually and subjectively, understands/realizes the whole truth of his/her existence, appreciating it in its total context in nature, without being so easily misguided and confused, by all of the changing temporary influences.
Thank you. It is true our ‘special status’ means nothing to nature. ‘We are different’ would be a more appropriate expression.
This is not in line with the commonly held belief that man is an integral part of nature. But is man really an is an integral part of nature? Why don’t we behave like an integral part if we are?
I believe that is why the question ‘what exactly is a human person’ is very important. We could understand man-nature relationship differently if we identify ‘knower’ as the dominant part of what constitute a human person. ‘Man-the-knower’ is not an integral part of nature but the ‘whole man’ of which ‘knower’ is only a very recent addition, is one with nature.
This would be difficult, but I think we should acknowledge ‘human person’ with ‘knower’ in the driving seat is different from every other form of life. Perhaps accepting our difference is the first step towards a practical solution to living in harmony with rest of nature.
It would have been easier if “each human, individually and subjectively, understands/realizes the whole truth of his/her existence, appreciating it in its total context in nature” as you state. But what is the possibility of that happening? Ancient sages in India came up with the stunning realization ‘thou art that’ or ‘individual self is one with the ultimate reality’ four thousand years ago. Are people living in the Indian subcontinent today more liberated than the rest of humanity?
Now, is this this ‘knower’ in the driving seat any different from human ‘ego’? If it is that, then humans have already been struggling with it- to shed it or get rid of it- multiple religions and mystics from every possible religion and cultural tradition, have been telling us from ages, to ‘see’ that ego is an illusion, once we can see it, we are free (and then we are as natural part of nature, as anything else).
When people realize their oneness with the Nature/reality/ Nature in itself, it is always happens as an individual, to human at a time. It is a subjective realization, that is why it can only happen to one and not as a collective to a group. Such insights have been happening to humans throughout their history and not just in Indian subcontinent. The problem is, we hear what these ‘sages’ or realized individuals understand and experience, but we do not ‘get’ it because there is no way to ‘get’ it as an objective knowledge, it can only be a realization from within! That is why, a scientific theory neatly defining it or even proving it is likely not going to help, because even a knowledge about the subjective will still remain and be received as objective…it can only have any effect when it is ‘self-realized’ from within!
At least that is my feeling, but I admit, we can only guess about the real direction, purpose or meaning of this whole business of why Nature is pushing human ‘knower’ to evolve 🙂 stranger things could be happening, that are not obvious to us and perhaps we should keep in mind the vastly unknown aspect of reality !
Your comment touches the core problem I tried to address through these posts. I would say ‘ego’ is the shadow of the knower. One of the posts identifies ‘I’ with the knower. The individual self, as commonly understood includes rational mind and its shadow. ‘Knower’ is a specific function of rational mind, responsible for generating objective knowledge.
All these appears to introduce unnecessary complications, but I believe it helps to bring clarity in the end. We need to start from the counter-intuitive position of ‘no mind’ (the sceptic can always ask: ‘show me the mind!’). ‘Knower’ black box is the essential bare minimum because there has to be a mechanism to account for objective knowledge.
I agree mystical insights cannot be packaged into easily digestible ‘objective knowledge’. I also agree ‘self-realization’ is rare, and it is not a viable path for the vast majority. Does that mean no hope for the future of mankind? Surely we seem to be marching forward on the path to self-destruction!
Perhaps it is not so bad. May be we should ask different questions: Is there a reason why mystical insights cannot be translated into objective knowledge? Can we arrive at that ‘reason’ if we begin with the known facts of science? I think we can at least start exploring these questions by keeping our feet firmly on solid ground and asking ‘what does it mean to know (something) objectively?’
Thank you for the link to your other post. I think I see your point. This is my understanding so far (in very simplified way), of what you are saying, I may have very well misunderstood many things, so please forgive me and feel free to correct me 🙂
Knower is in opposition with its source and against a subjective view of reality which includes ‘himself’ as its part- because he has evolved to generate objective knowledge about ‘what is’. Hence recognizing separation (as forms/ objects) and naming them is his whole purpose (the reason the this ‘black box’ has evolved). This belief in his own ’separation’ from the rest, is not an illusion or a mistake, rather it is necessary for him to be able to generate objective knowledge, after his initial/original subjective existence (before metacognition evolved in humans) and this sense of separation is also equivalent to what is now termed as human ‘ego’ by many religious /mystical traditions (not sure you imply this part or not, but I understand it like this).
If this is the reason he is in conflict with everything else, then we should ask:
Would he (the knower) not be able to do all of this (generating objective knowledge/ progressing with his scientific understanding of whatever is/ technological development etc), if somehow (magically or through a spiritual/mystical insight) he becomes free from his ‘ego’/ sense of separation from the rest of the existence.
For the sake of contemplation, we can consider the claims of the wise so called realized humans from various traditions, and consider their version of an ‘ideal’, enlightened human who is free from ‘ego’, so now ‘experientially’ feels himself part of the whole reality/Nature in itself/ totality of existence, with no sense of separation.
Would anything in the current abilities of such a human/ ‘knower’ be compromised?
He would still see, know things as they are…only he will lose the bias of a ‘personal’ perspective which is centered around his uniqueness/special status/ego (true scientific approach is anyway free of such bias, so will not be compromised). He will likely retain the views from the perspective of his individual body-mind (thoughts, feelings etc. which will be natural, but not as highly conditioned and selfish as now), he will still see and know everything as before, only he will lose undue attachment to his own ‘personal’ perspective, in favour of objective facts, truth and reality as observed without bias.
So why such a scenario is not possible at a population level/ why has it not evolved/ why only isolated humans ever know this ‘enlightened’ unified view of reality/ what is the catch here to limit this, to only sporadic few individuals?
I don’t know, and likely whatever we think we may still not easily know if it is true. But, irrespective of whatever the answers might be, you are on to some very interesting ideas here!
I think you have captured the gist of what I was trying to convey in these posts. Thanks for checking out the link. Some of these thoughts are counter-intuitive and interlinked to several other idea streams, and my writing style may not be helping!
You ask if the ‘knower’ could free itself from ego or the sense of separation, yet retain its power of objective knowing. Indeed there are examples of enlightened souls in all traditions, so why can’t it happen at the population level?
I think mystics in all traditions serve as sign posts, pointing to the possibility of a more enlightened way of living. But we should also remember getting too close to ‘nature-in-itself’ could be dangerous, in the sense we may get intoxicated by the beauty of such experience and completely ignore the mundane aspects of life. Mystics, in many cases, are thoroughly ‘impractical’, living childlike, depending on others for physical survival.
We may not be able to get rid of the ego, but we could work out its connection with rest of nature by asking the right questions. Seeing the reality of our fragmented relationship with ‘nature-in-itself’ could act as a cure, leading to harmonious coexistence. Most importantly, I believe this journey should start from known facts of science so that the path become widely acceptable.
I agree with your inference here 🙂
Really interesting read 📚 👌
Love it 😀 😍 ❤
“our strangeness is the consequence of nature struggling to fathom its own mysteries”…maybe it is equivalent to entropy in physics…things always naturally flow to a more disorderly state.
Knower’s special power of knowing, follows this natural diffusion into more scattered, unorganized, haphazard flow of all his energy and efforts, leading to all the chaos, violence and troubles we see, as part of the highly ‘intelligent’ human life!
How can this be contained? Perhaps you are right, the reason and a balance between objective and subjective thinking can help tame this mess eventually….we can only hope!
“The purpose of human life is to participate in the cosmic dance of creative becoming….”
I love that line. The universe itself seeking to find its own future through a cosmic process of creative becoming. That to me is what defines the fundamental mystery at the core of human existence and the existence of the universe.
That appears to be the inevitable conclusion even when we start from the hard facts of science and keep asking questions!