Science Fiction Story Part III

Paradise Hotel Continued

Swami Bhaktivedanta, San Francisco, 1960s

It wasn’t so easy finding a flower. Haight Asbury in 1967 wasn’t exactly Norman Rockwell’s America. During the Summer of Love in San Francisco, the Radha Krishna Temple of the Hare Krishna movement was at 518 Frederick Street. It was close to the Pandhandle, the Haight Ashbury free clinic and the I-Thou coffee shop, next door to a place run by the Digger's, "Free Frame," and around the corner from the house where the Grateful Dead were staying.

Exploring sidewalks and storefronts near the temple, Hawk found himself lost in the summer of love. But where to find a flower? As the sun started dipping below the hills and the misty evening fog crept in, Hawk almost didn’t notice the park. He had walked only a few blocks, but through an alley where a drunken hippy lay clutching a bottle of Mendocino, Hawk stumbled on a trail leading to Buena Vista Park, an oasis of greenery in the midst of the city.

A light rain began to fall. The trail wound through live oaks where woodpeckers tapped out a beat. A falcon soared overhead. Through tall eucalyptus Hawk saw the city of San Francisco shining through the mist. A gopher popped up from below a root, and raced back into his hole. Squirrels chased each other up the oak trees. Hawk found wild roses growing in the shelter of a ponderosa pine and carefully picked a few. As he wound back up the path, he found fresh wildflowers.

As the rain continued, the park took on a mystic quality. Time was lost here. Returning with his roses, Hawk found the steps outside the main hall crowded with cast off shoes and sandals. As he entered he saw the main hall of the Radha Krishna temple packed with saffron-clad devotees, their shaved heads shining. Long-haired hippies and street people filled the room. Sweating bodies were rocking out to the Hare Krishna mantra, their musty aroma mixed with the heavy smell of the incense.

The strange music, Hawk later learned was called kirtan; the Krishna people played a kind of earthen hand drum, Indian style. With the patter of rain on the roof and the roaring kirtan inside, Hawk felt absorbed into the sound:

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare

Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare

Bells chimed. A conch blew. The mantra penetrated his being. Hawk looked at the magical figures on the colorful altar. He knew the central forms were of Radha, the Divine Feminine and Krishna, the playful flute-playing God of the Dance. Had he really traveled through time? But how? Was he losing his mind?

And what was he doing here?

The conch blew again and again. The curtains closed. What was next?

All at once, the Swami appeared from a side door and took his throne. He beamed a great smile at the Krishna people. Everyone stepped back in respect and bowed down. Was this some kind of strange cult?

Guests took their seats in the lotus position. The Swami spoke:

“My dear boys and girls,” he said, looking at the young people of San Francisco: “This Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is not a religious type; it is a great culture for spiritual emancipation. Try to understand that in this world we find a combination of matter and spirit. Just like your body, this body is matter; but within this body, you, the spirit soul, is encaged or embodied. There are so many species of life; every species, every individual living entity is combination of spirit and matter. When the spirit is out of this body, then the body is matter only. Just like in your Bible also it is said, "Dust thou art, dust thou be-est." That dust is this body but not this spirit soul.”

As the Swami spoke on, he described the spiritual truths of the Vedas and asked everyone to go on chanting the mantra. Lulled by the his words, Hawk found himself in a trance. Nothing about him made any sense: Tokyo, 1970s San Francisco, time travel and quantum physics; but somehow the Swami’s words made perfect sense. He felt he was almost in a dream. As he came to, he looked up and the Swami had gone. A Krishna person was solemnly announcing something. Some people were leaving. Others formed rows, sitting in the lotus posture on the floor. All at once he was hungry. Hawk had never been so hungry in his life. He had time traveled nearly 50 years into the past. How long had it been since he had eaten? And in this strange environment, how would he eat?

The man droned on:
“O Lord, this material body is a lump of ignorance, and the senses are a network of paths to death.”

Hawk thought, “Death! Am I dead?” Hunger had overtaken him. He could barely concentrate on the man’s words. He sat in the lotus position as did the rest of the people there, wondering what would happen next. Would the Krishna people involve themselves in some strange ritual? Where would he find food? But, he could smell spices and hot soup. He listened as the Krishna man in saffron cloth spoke. The man said:

“Somehow, we have fallen into this ocean of material sense enjoyment, and of all the senses the tongue is most voracious and uncontrollable; it is very difficult to conquer the tongue in this world...”

As Hawk watched, servants appeared carrying large pots and began going down the rows with ladles. A paper plate was placed before him. As he looked around he noticed the tall girl and her blond friend, the hippy girls who had told him to bring the flower. He remembered he had offered the bouquet of wild roses at the Swami’s feet for good luck as he was told.

The man said, “But You, dear Krishna, are very kind to us and have given us such nice prasadam, just to control the tongue. Now we take thisprasadam to our full satisfaction and glorify Their Lordships Sri Sri Radha-Krishna, and in love call for the help of Lord Chaitanya and Lord Nityananda.”

A boy dressed in a saffron robe with a shaved head ladled orange rice onto his plate. The girl in the granny dress smiled. Hawk could feel his belly rumble. His hunger was explosive. Another Krishna person appeared and ladled soup into a paper cup. It was fragrant with curry from Bengal.

As Hawk watched, his plate filled up. There were pakoras, a kind of spicy tempura, samosas, like piroshkis or empanadas, flaky pastries fried in ghee, spiced and stuffed with curried peas and caulifower with a tamarind sauce. There were hot chappatis, Indian flat-bread, eggplant subji, and puris, hot puffy bread so light it floated in the air. There were sweet balls made of butter and sugar, called “simply wonderfuls” and tamarind tea and sweet rice with cardamon. There was a milk fudge called “burfee.” The food was sublime, it had a special perfume to it.

The whole temple smelled of Sandalwood incense mixed with jasmine incense mixed with strawberry incense. As Hawk looked around, he could see everyone savoring a special kind of deep spiritual satisfaction. Those who were not laughing and smiling outwardly were dancing in their hearts and smiling internally.

This was not some satanic cult: The Krishna people were joyful. They were mostly young people, but old souls. He felt perfectly safe. These people were kind truth-seekers with friendly, shining faces. While they had a philosophy, they weren't trying to jam a message down his throat.

Hawk felt permeated with transcendental spirituality. A sublime sense of divine wonder was in the fragrant air of the incense, the music of the kirtan, the rice, dahl and chipatties made by hand and prepared with love.

Hawk asked the Krishna person sitting next to him, “What is this?” and held up a paper cup of something sweet.

The boy smiled, “Oh, that’s preparation #39: Gentle--Honey in Saffron and Cream." Pointing to another, he said, that’s “Brahmananda's Midnight Dream.”

The light rain otuside had turned into a downpour. Most guests had finished eating and had left before the storm hit. There were only a few people left behind cleaning their plates. The devotees had stopped serving. Two women in saris began mopping the back of the hall.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Can Machines Think?

The basis for the hit movie BladeRunner was a story by science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" He explored the possibility of robotic consciousness and android emotions. Now that the age of robots is upon us, we can examine what is the purport of "artificial intelligence?" If machines can think, where does that leave consciousness? Are machines really thoughtful? Or as Ray Kurzweil put it, “Are we spiritual machines?” The idea of artificial intelligence is often used to promote the idea that consciousness is merely an epiphenomenon of the brain. If we can create something like an artificial brain that can demonstrate a similar kind of epiphenomenon, then the idea of consciousness is merely a useful fiction. In other words, if a computer can “think” and display “emotions” then minds can be created artificially and the mind-body philosophical problem disappears.

There is no need for a “soul” or “consciousness” if we can simulate the epiphenomenon of thinking with machines. Of course this is an impoverished definition of “thinking,” or “consciousness.” But the purpose of the argument is to undermine and do away with metaphysics. For this reason “Artificial Intelligence” or AI is a kind of holy grail in a number of academic disciplines. There is a kind of confluence of cognitive science and neural psychology, where the attempt is being made to use cognitive theory to boost artificial intelligence.

Once again, the idea is that if we can understand how thinking goes on in humans, we may be able to imitate that behavior in machines. If we understand human learning, then we can adapt that knowledge in machine learning and create true artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, this kind of thinking follows the function of consciousness without understanding what consciousness is. And by focusing on the mechanics of thought without driving at its substance, philosophers, linguists, psychologists, cognitive scientists and IT specialists renounce meaning for pragmatics. Since practical applications in AI bring the money, why should anyone be concerned with meaning?

The language used by these specialists, however, trivialize the reality of consciousness. And so, thinkers like Ray Kurzweil encourage us to flirt with the idea that we are nothing more than sophisticated machines. I find it ironic that biologists who study life conclude that life is mechanical, while technologists conclude that machines have emotions. These are merely empty conceits, but as they become fixed as memes in popular culture, these notions eat away at our collective spiritual life. By buying into all these anti-spiritual views, we become easier prey for the propaganda that promotes consumerism.

If life is empty and meaningless, if metaphysical and spiritual ideas are a waste of time, then all that is left is to enjoy the moment, live for sensual and aesthetic pleasure and embrace life’s absurdity.

Camus felt that life was absurd

Atheists think themselves clever for dispensing with conscious reality, but having set out to murder God, they end by destroying their own spiritual lives. What bothers me is the idea that meaningless is the purport of all this pragmatism. By saying that machines think and can write poetry, we degrade thinking and poetry. By claiming that consciousness is no more than a chemical reaction in the brain, we exalt the meaninglessness of chemical reactions. And by claiming to create “intelligence” through circuitry, we denigrate wisdom. What good can come of stripping wisdom and spiritual life from human society?

The Singularity

The Age of Spiritual Machines

Is consciousness an algorithm? Computers are not as smart as we think. Yesterday I tried to print photos from a memory. The machine at the pharmacy told me that my memory was blank. I knew I had at least 2,000 photos on the memory, but c’est la vie. I asked the young person for help and she treated me like a senile delinquent. Obviously I had no idea how to use the photo machine. She showed me how to insert my memory in the machine and push a button. The message told me that my memory was blank. An electronic caprice denied me access to my photos of elephants in Thailand. So it goes.

A bit later on the same day, I had to reserve a medical appointment on the internet. The system was down. I called the 800 number. The secretary on the telephone put me on hold. 20 minutes later she told me the system was down.

A new ransomware attack is infecting airlines, banks, and utilities across Europe. The cyber attack that apparently began in Ukraine has specialists puzzled. The most severe damage is being reported by Ukrainian businesses, with systems compromised at Ukraine’s central bank, state telecom business, municipal metro and and Kiev’s Boryspil Airport. Systems were also compromised at Ukraine’s Ukrenego electricity supplier, although at present the power supply was unaffected by the attack.

That things sometimes don’t work and go bump in the night is nothing new. I don’t expect the technology to work all the time. Different cultures respond differently to such failures.

In 1984, I was buying some pencils at an art supply store in San Jose, California when the lights went out in the store. It was a crisis. The girls running the store called everyone to the front of the store and asked everyone to leave quietly. Without electricity there was no way to do business. A week later I was in a market place in India when the lights went out. No one blinked. Prices were tallied and sales were registered with pencil and paper. But that was long ago.

Today we place so much importance on electronic communication that it has become obligatory. Many more aspects of our lives depend on the caprices of electronics. From shopping, electronic checkins, online hotel reservations, buying things on Amazon.com, even keeping up with friends on social media, we are slaves of the machine, prisoners of the internet.

In 1984 I interviewed Hubert Dreyfuss at Berkeley on the subject of Artificial Intelligence. He felt that no computer would achieve the level of artificial intelligence needed to defeat a human chess champion in the 20th century. He was almost right. In 1997 an IBM supercomputer called Deep Blue defeated chess champion Garry Kasparov in a series of schess matches. Dreyfuss argued that computer intelligence is “rule-based,” and can reach competence, but not expertise. True human expertise, he felt is intuitive and situational, based on thousands of experiences. No computer could ever match human expertise, he felt.

The idea in those days, mostly advanced by Marvin Minsky and computer scientists at MIT, was to create what he called “neural networks.” Enough microprocessors linked together might be able to imitate the thinking capacity of the human brain.

Writing in the 1990s in “Are We Spiritual Machines,” eccentric inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil argued that computers will reach and surpass human intelligence. The engineering notion called “Moore’s Law” has correctly predicted that both machine memory and speed in IT technology doubles ever 2 years. Given exponential technological change, advances in “Artificial Intelligence” will be much more dramatic than previously felt.

For Kurzweil, change does not occur at a fixed rate, but is exponential, contrary to the common-sense “intuitive linear” view. So we won’t experience 100 years of change in the 21st century at a fixed rate: Change will occur exponentially; systems will be affected dramatically in what will be more like thousands of years of transformation in a short amount of time. We will witness exponential change in population growth, climate change, and especially Information Technology:

“Within a few decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, allowing nonbiological intelligence to combine the subtleties of human intelligence with the speed and knowledge sharing ability of machines.”

This is certainly the stuff of science fiction: at least it was back in the 1990s. But Kurzweil was right about exponential growth, especially in an unforseen area: the internet and “cloud” computing. If Minsky’s idea of somehow linking a bunch of computers together to create a “neural network” was naive and immaturely conceived, the latest work in machine intelligence may be the realization of his dream. It is no longer necessary to physically link experimental super-computers in a fanciful network for the exclusive use of scientists: we have GOOGLE.

In a new book, Machine, Platform Crowd, Machine Over Mind In A New Economy, a new generation at MIT give us a glimpse of the future of technology. MIT’s Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson examine an exponential digital-powered shift. We find ourselves at a crossroads, where we will be forced to rethink the integration of minds and machines, of products and platforms, and of the core and the crowd. The new subtlety in artificial intelligence has massive implications for how we run our companies and live our lives.

Crowd-sourced machine intelligence coupled with the exponential growth in memory and design drive a new generation in artificial intelligence.

Consider Google Translate . Traditionally, language is one of the most complex human phenomenon. A proper translation may be incredibly subtle; that’s why jokes, puns, poems, and even diplomacy is often “lost in translation.”

Google Translate is not merely a dictionary translation. It uses subtle algorithms to reach its goals. While primitive in its inception, over the years, Google Translate has gotten significantly better at giving its users (relatively) legible translations for most commonly used languages. Still far from perfect, in 2014 Google announced a new initiative that aims to get more input from its users to improve its translations.

The Google Translate Community, open for everyone, has been giving users the option to offer their own translations and validate current translations. The millions of Google users constantly offer human input into the subtlety of the translations made through algorithms. As the human translation experts influence the patterns, the deep neural nets become more capable of offering correct translation.

The innovation is in the way computer models are influenced by human input multiplied millions of times through crowd-sourcing and wikis. Language translation is far from perfect, but it is now serviceable enough to replace human translation services.

A new Google application called Crowdsource has quietly appeared on Google Play, asking users to perform brief tasks that will help improve the quality of Google services like Maps, translation, image transcription, and more.  As millions participate, machine intelligence learns to perfect tasks once only available to humans.

Perhaps game-playing is more revealing of the exponential advances in artificial intelligence. Human chess champions were defeated by machine intelligence 20 years ago; the latest human thinkers to be crushed by computers are players of the board game “Go.”

“Go” is interesting because it is a far more subtle game than chess. There are millions and millions of potential moves impossible to analyze through mere brute force and data bases. But with the help of thousands of Go masters giving input on which positions are more “favorable” than others, algorithms are developed which couple grandmaster intuition with brute number-crunching.

Here’s Scientific American on the differences between the DEEP BLUE machine that busted Gary Kasparov and the new AlphaGo system of AI that defeated the world’s greatest Go-master Lee Se-dol:

Deep Blue represented a triumph of machine brawn over a single human brain. Its success was almost completely predicated on very fast processors, built for this purpose. Although its victory over Kasparov was a historic event, the triumph did not lead to any practical application or to any spin-off. Indeed, IBM retired the machine soon thereafter.

The same situation is not likely to occur for AlphaGo. The program runs on off-the-shelf processors. Giving it access to more computational power (by distributing it over a network of 1,200 CPUs and GPUs) only improved its performance marginally. The feature that makes the difference is AlphaGo’s ability to split itself into two, playing against itself and continuously improving its overall performance. At this point it is not clear whether there is any limitation to the improvement AlphaGo is capable of. (If only the same could be said of our old-fashioned brains.) It may be that this constitutes the beating heart of any intelligent system, the Holy Grail that researchers are pursuing—general artificial intelligence, rivaling human intelligence in its power and flexibility.

After losing the second match to Deep Mind, Lee Se-dol said he was "speechless" adding that the AlphaGo machine played a "nearly perfect game".

The two experts who provided commentary for the YouTube stream of for the third game said that it had been a complicated match to follow.

They said that Lee Se-dol had brought his "top game" but that AlphaGo had won "in great style".

The BBC reported: “The AlphaGo system was developed by British computer company DeepMind which was bought by Google in 2014.

It has built up its expertise by studying older games and teasing out patterns of play. And, according to DeepMind chief executive Demis Hassabis, it has also spent a lot of time just playing the game.

"It played itself, different versions of itself, millions and millions of times and each time got incrementally slightly better - it learns from its mistakes," he told the BBC before the matches started.” (http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35785875)
Game-playing computers, of course, are a fun curiosity. But what are the implications of more and more advanced “machine intelligence?”

In hospital emergency rooms, health workers are encouraged to follow “checklists,” that enable patients to be channelled through the system properly according to their symptoms. In a flu epidemic it is vital to sort potential carriers of the virus from ordinary cold sufferers. Chest pain checklists help doctors understand whether a patient suffers from heart burn or a heart attack. Some of this work can be automated. As more and more symptoms are handed over to computers, doctors have more time to spend on healing.

But there’s always a certain amount of “mission creep.” Here in Mexico, appointments were always made personally with the local doctor. The health system was recently computerized, making it possible to make appointments online. What worked fine when there were a limited number of people in the system, however, hasn’t worked well after it was made mandatory. There’s a tendency to try out a system to see if it works and when it does to offer it online. Once it’s really up and running, it’s made obligatory.

Online checkin for airlines was once a luxury; now its mandatory. As humans and machine work together to get a faster throughput in a more efficient society, more and more tasks are turned over to machines. A simple problem of developing a photo becomes entangled in technology when the chip-reader at the pharmacy finds my memory is blank. Things don’t always work as well as they are supposed to. That doesn’t seem much, but as we hand the work of intelligent humans over to intelligent machines, it gets stickier.

People everywhere were once flexible in their responses to everyday situations. Like the folks in India who went on selling cloth in their shops even when the lights went out, we were able to work things out with pencils on paper. But a relatively large number of young people today seem to have lost the flexibility to deal with quotidian situations. Wherever we go, whatever we do, shopping, going to the movies, at the hotel, in the restaurant, at the doctor’s office there’s a computer controlling the transaction. We are all accustomed to this; life seems easier because of all the technology.

But what happens when the computers that control our transactions are themselves controlled by accounting software? What happens when the policies driving transactions are controlled by algorithms? The other day in Mexico City I was dropped from the hospital data bank. The doctor explained that since my heart condition was no longer an emergency, the computer algorithm determined that I should no longer be in the system and was red-flagged and removed. Happy as I was to learn that I was no longer an emergency, I was surprised to learn that the algorithms driving policy ran the computer.

Many policy-making decisions are now determined by computer models which determine how to make things more efficient. As the technology itself configures the technology, we find machines designing machines, clouds and crowds determining the algorithms that drive the system, reducing the role of humans.

Young people are trained to perform computation without comprehension. They merely operate the system at the end-user point of sale. It seems that as machines become more artificially “intelligent” the culture itself becomes less mindful.

MIT School of Management researchers McAfee and Brynjolfsson point out in their new book, Machine, Platform, Crowd, that the world of artificial intelligence is transforming the economy. The disruption is plain to see. Our ways of shopping and doing business are changing fast in the online economy. Where shopping malls were once the pride of America, in the last decade, more than 20 percent have closed. Where people once met in the marketplace, they are finding it cheaper to stay home and shop on line, feeding giants like Amazon.com.

I often feel frustrated that given all the telephones and communication platforms, it seems impossible to actually have a conversation with someone. We have Skype, WhatsApp, FaceBook, Instant Messenger, E-mail, cellphones and landlines. But every time I try to call someone I get a busy signal or a voice-mail message. People feel less connected. Perhaps this is because of the fact that almost two-thirds of millennials don’t have landline phones.

The tourist and transportation business is also under transformation. Thanks to the new “gig economy” innovations like Airbnb and Uber, people are avoiding hotels and taxis.

Instead of malls, traditional stores, hotels, and taxis, now we have “platforms”—organizations without inventory and sometimes without much of an organization.

These platforms are technologically driven “brands” and are gradually becoming more competitive than brick-and-mortar companies as technology and artificial intelligence becomes more dominant.

Artificial Intelligence sounds great and futuristic as long as we’re talking about chess-playing machines. But what happens when machines replace experts? What happens when humans are unable to question systems created by computer models controlled by algorithms?

It sounds like a dystopian nightmare. But are we really so far away from the kind of future described by Isaac Asimov? Among the facets of our brave new world are the algorithmically driven “automatic decisions,” by which Amazon cross-recommends products to shoppers. You’ve probably seen ads driven by these algorithms on your facebook page. I find myself bombarded with ads that push cheap airfare prices that correspond to my Google searches; instead of bright young madison avenue admen, algorithms study my web activity and offer me proposals and projects based on my psychological profile.

Besides virtual reality, the self-learning algorithms of artificial intelligence have taken over manufacturing and agricultural sectors as well. Manufacturing jobs that haven’t gone to China are done by robots. In this video, fully automated car factories produce BMWs with little human input. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpwkT2zV9H0 But car manufacturing is not the only area where robots are used. History teachers in California make sure that young people know the story of Cesar Chavez who used Gandhian nonviolent resistance to organize the farm-workers who harvested lettuce in the 1970s. Now, robots harvest lettuce. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i62juq8Euk. There’s no need for the lettuce farm-workers anymore. Cotton-picking is also mechanized as is much of agriculture.

We may assert that unlike machines, we have free will. But our freedom has its limits. McAfee and Brynjolfsson point out that our new information economy will be ruled by the elite one percent who own and control everything. In this world, machine learning, AI, and robotics, will have far more disruptive effects, displacing human labor wherever possible, while the winning firms of the near-term future will leverage these shifts to “bring together minds and machines, products and platforms, and the core and the crowd very differently than most do today.”

According to McAfee and Brynjolfsson, while people may be allowed some input, algorithmically driven “automatic decisions,” will drive the future. The leading companies of the second machine age may look very different from those of the industrial era,” write the authors, “but they will almost all be easily recognizable as companies.”

If machines can think, where does that leave consciousness? Are machines really thoughtful? Or as Ray Kurzweil put it, “Are we spiritual machines?”

The World is in the Mind

Evolution of Consciousness

The analysis of Vedantic philosophers demonstrates how matter and consciousness could be entwined. We have heard that consciousness is an epiphenomenon of matter.  Philosophically, however, we cannot define "matter."  

"Matter" seems to be what is "out there." While consciousness would be what is "in here."  Attempts to separate the two, as for example in the mind-body problem of Descartes have been seen as inadequate. Different aspects of "consciousness" can be attributed to "natural" explanations. Sensation, for example is attributed to the proper functioning of the nervous system.  But the components of the nervous system don't add up to the "whole." Nerves and brain cannot account for consciousness, since in the absence of life, nerves and brain have no sensation. 

What is life? A purely physical explanation is inadequate.  At some point, a meta-physical solution is wanted. Nerves and the brain alone do not explain sensation. If we destroy nerves and brain, sensation ceases, but we cannot reverse engineer consciousness. 

But what if matter is an epiphenomenon of consciousness? If consciousness is an epiphenomenon of matter, then the mind is in the world. But what if the shoe is on the other foot. What if the world is in the mind?

Samuel Johnson famously refuted Berkeley's idealism with a kick. He tried to prove that the sensation of pain in his mind was caused by something real: the stone he kicked. But consciousness is a trickier problem than Johnson's fans would have us believe. 

What if consciousness is real? Philosophically, we have a right to challenge the meaning of the word reality: As Bill Clinton famously said, "It depends on what "is" is." But if personal consciousness is real, if there is some kind of collective universal consciousness, how would that reality interact with the world of space and time?

Gravity waves are notoriously subtle. Physicists are only now beginning to understand how gravity waves work and how they might interact with time and the speed of light.

How subtle is consciousness? We may lack the proper cameras to take photos of consciousness. We may lack the proper instruments by which consciousness may be measured. Language is evidence of consciousness, since through language we can share ideas. We cannot see intelligence, but we think it exists.

There is an old fable about intelligence. One day a tiger lurking in the tall grass overhears a talk between the dog and the cow. "My master  is so intelligent he can do many things," says the dog to the cow.  "Why he has taught me so many things." Later that night, the tiger accosts the master: "Sir! I have heard that you are intelligent. Show me your intelligence. I would see it." The master says, "Certainly. It is in my house. I will bring it and show it to you."

The tiger says, "Good. Bring it now."

But the master hesitates. "How do I know that you won't eat the cow while I'm bringing my intelligence?"

The tiger thinks for a moment and says, "Well, you can tie me to that tree over there. That way I can't eat the cow. "

So the master gets a rope and ties the tiger to the tree. When the tiger is properly bound, he says, "Now, show me your intelligence."

And, seeing the tiger nicely tied to the tree, the master says, "I have already showed you my intelligence."

Intelligence, as the tiger found, may not be seen physically, but it may be felt. Mind and intelligence are aspects of consciousness, but consciousness itself is the innate character of being, unbound by time, space, movement and the laws of physics. 

The Vedantic vision holds that matter is an epiphenomenon of consciousness, of atma. Through a subtle, subjective process of reverse evolution, the divine light of consciousness or atma becomes opaque, filtered through the instrument of ego, intelligence, mind until it gradually congeals into something like matter, according to the evidence of the Upanishads.  Consciousness becomes involved in the time-space continuum, the phenomenl world of misconception, through a transmutation of energy. This transmutation takes place as consciousness becomes gradually more obscure. This de-evolution moves from undifferentiated consciousness to ego, and is expressed through different bodily forms and living species.

Macrocosmic Process described

The macrocosmic process of the subjective evolution of consciousness from “spirit” to “mind” to matter, is described by Sridhara Svami in his commentary to Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, (2.2.28)  The particular form taken by the “filter” between consciousness and unconsciousness is referred to by different nomenclature in the ancient sāstras of India. In the psychological creation of the universe, in the flow between divinity, consciousness, partially hidden consciousness and matter a part of the material nature, after being initiated by the Lord, is known as the mahat-tattva. This is a kind of incipient subtle matter. A fractional portion of this mahat-tattva is called the false ego.

Mahat-tattva, or Pradhāna

On the macro level, the intervening filter between spirit and mind is called mahat-tattva the great category, and there we find the development of false ego taking place. The Mahat-tattva, or “great truth” is the totality of the elements of material creation, where consciousness takes on ego and begins its development towards matter within the cosmic ovum of 24 elements[i].  This   is also called “pradhāna” in the ancient Indian wisdom tradition of analysis called “Sankhkya.”

Covered Consciousness

We shall discuss this at length later in the work, but let’s just posit that consciousness is an energy at work in the universe. Matter develops as consciousness gradually becomes covered. It may  seem like magical thinking, but at this level of analysis no special creation by a supernatural God is being posited. We are trying to describe a metaphysical construct whereby consciousness invades and demonstrates creative energy within the world of time and space. Let’s further posit that as highly developed consciousness at the edge of cosmic reality degrades it becomes filtered, obscured with different levels of coverings, until it is seen as less developed consciousness as manifested within a range of different species within the spectrum of life.

Levels of Covering: Origin of Species

According to this view, different species demonstrate different levels of covered consciousness. Plants are less conscious than fish and reptiles exhibit a higher level of awareness than fish and plants. As we move through the species we discover higher and higher levels of evolution within consciousness. Noble primates demonstrate a high level of conscious evolution and can show tool-making skills, emotions, and some level of reasoning.

Koshas

Without getting too technical, these coverings are called “koshas” in Sanskrit, of which there are five: annamaya, pranamaya, manomaya, vijñāna-maya and anandamāya.  As consciousness degrades through the medium of mind, misguided intelligence and false ego, it becomes ensconced in the “world of misconception” or the world of māya. Of course, just as it is possible to de-evolve towards sensual materiality, it is also possible for us to evolve higher through different levels of consciousness to the stage of enlightenment found in divine bliss, as we shall see further. But the different levels of consciousness as described by ancient wisdom traditions are instructive in helping us to understand the unfolding of the chain of being.

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What is Consciousness?

Some critics have called my ideas "New Age." And yet those who would dismiss the idea of consciousness still have no explanation for the phenomenon. Make no mistake: it is essential for materialists to diminish the idea of consciousness. Any admission that consciousness exists opens the door to metaphysics.

And yet, consciousness dies hard. Scientists and philosophers seem to dislike the idea of consciousness altogether, restricting the discussion to the question of how it works. It is perfectly acceptable to discuss how an organism works, but why it exists at all is considered to be a frivolous question. We are not interested in meaning, but how things work. Once we know how things work, we can harness and exploit our knowledge. Meaning has no exploitable end, hence, meaning itself is "meaningless."

So we can dismiss the question by saying "consciousness" is hardly a "thing," therefore not worth studying as an entity. The only meaningful study consists in knowing how organisms function. But the very animating principle behind biology is strangely outside the purview of study. So it is that biologists are among the most fervent atheists. And yet, among the hard questions for science and philosophy is the big question: "What is consciousness?" How does it act? Where does it come from?
We know that consciousness is an extremely dynamic energy: it appears and disappears from our power of empiric observation almost magically. One moment we are speaking, laughing, joking, making observations about our world, and the next our body lies inert, as Shakespeare put it, “Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” But try as we might to re-animate a dead body, once consciousness ceases to animate an organism it is impossible to revive.
Is the brain the seat of consciousness? Many neurologists believe that the brain is the seat of consciousness, since by destroying certain circuits in the brain, death becomes imminent. But understanding how to destroy something is very different from understanding how it works. And even if we can understand the neural functions of consciousness, its essential components are elusive. Again, if consciousness is merely a series of electrical impulses in the neural networks of the brain, it would seem to be an achievable goal to re-awaken the lost consciousness of a dead brain through some form of electrical stimulation. But no one would seriously suggest such a ghoulish task, since it is beyond "common sense."
Consciousness, then, would seem to exist beyond physical nature, to have a metaphysical character. After all the only way to study consciousness is through consciousness itself, a circular task.
In physics energies become more subtle the more we study them. Light would appear to be a simple energy form, but as Einstein showed, it can be interpreted both as wave and particle. As with other energies does consciousness work as a field or a particle? Is consciousness a wave? How can it be observed? There is no way to objectively research the subjectivity of consciousness itself. This metaphysical aspect of reality is what so tortures researchers.
Assuming that consciousness is a genuine state of reality, it may be more productive to suspend our any prejudice against metaphysics or the existence of the soul. Say for the sake of the argument that consciousness has a metaphysical quality that is impossible to quantify. Western Philosophy cringes at the very idea of metaphysics, but Eastern Philosophy holds a different perspective. While Westerners since Kant have so much trouble arguing over the nature of Being and deciding whether, in fact, “Being” even exists, the ancient wisdom traditions of India have long held that certain metaphysical truths, such as that of consciousness, are self-evident. Before analyzing "matter", they say, is understood that “spirit” or Brahman, or “spiritual being” exists as a prima facie axiomatic truth.
“Mind,” has different defintions, as does consciousness, leading to a fuzzy understanding. According to the Upanishadic version the mental world is a function of consciousness, but not the whole truth. “Mind” is how jivātma or the individual atomic consciousness works in tandem with a particular body-form. When the body-form and its organs are corrupt, the mind can no longer function properly and dissipates. It may be added that there are certain levels of consciousness as expressions of jivātma. Consciousness is a universal energy: life is everywhere. We are literally swimming in biology. Matter is inert, however, and has no independent movement without consciousness. How the two are related should be the proper study of the intellectually honest.

The mind-body problem has hardly been dispensed with. But the problem is with definitions. How is "mind" defined? And what do we mean by the "body" exactly. Where does "body" end and "mind" begin? And what role does consciousness or "spirit" play in the mind-body relation. These are exceedingly difficult and subtle points, but they are not to be dismissed simply on the basis of ignorance.

Some unresolved questions: If consciousness or "spirit" exists, what is the relation of body, mind and spirit? If it is possible to see the consequences of “mind” so clearly, why is it so difficult to conceive of “spirit” as a genuine living energy? Soul defies mathematical formulas and is impossible to quantify, but does that mean it has no existence? If a relative spirit exists, what about God? If a Supreme Spirit exists, and if evolution is evident, how does consciousness influence reality?
Is there some syncretic movement between consciousness and matter that brings existence into being?

The ancient wisdom traditions of India suggest that there is. According to the Upanishads, matter derives from spirit. And where “matter” is the consequence of “spirit,” differernt levels of consciousness such as “mind” act as a kind of filter between the two. The Vedanta holds that mind may be thought of as the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought.

Mind, as instrument, as filter, is called in Sanskrit as cidābhasa. Through a subtle, subjective process of reverse evolution, the divine light of consciousness becomes opaque, filtered through the instrument of ego, intelligence, mind until it gradually congeals into something like matter, according to the evidence of the Upanishads. Consciousness becomes involved in the time-space continuum, the world of misconception, through a transmutation of energy.

Science Fiction Story Part II

“Dr. Hawk?” The sound echoed in his cranium. “You’re going to miss the lecture.” Nancy Harding touched the sleeping research scientist gently but firmly.

“I know you’re tired, Dr., but we can’t keep them waiting.”

He was becoming conscious. Some one was standing over him. She was looking at his wallet.

“Are you Dr. Hawk?”

She said.

“Yes, but you’re not Nancy. Where’s Nancy?”

“Who? My name is Yashoda. Look, sir, I... we’re late for the lecture. You were sleeping.”

Hawk looked around. He was on the floor in some kind of makeshift concert hall.

“The Conference?”

“Yes, the Swami will speak any minute. Get up.”

She handed him back his wallet.

“I’m sorry, but we didn’t know who you were. You followed us home from the Hari-nam. You had some tea and prasadam and passed out. It happens. We covered you with a blanket, but now you have to go. Unless you want to stay for the conference.

“But where’s Nancy?” Looking down, he noticed he was barefoot. “Where’s my shoes?”

“Just a moment.” The young women was exasperated. She caught the eye of a tall man sweeping up in the back. “Ram Das?” Looking back at the disoriented Dr.: “He’ll take care of you. I’ve got to go.”

Ram Das was tall and powerfully built. He leaned the broom against the wall and came over to where Hawk was still slumped in a heap. Grabbing him under the arm he pulled him to a standing position. “Let’s go.”

“Where’s my shoes?”

Hawk was on his feet. He was being led to the door.

“Shoes are outside, son. This is holy ground.”

“Wait a second. Is the Swami going to speak?”

“That’s right.”

“Can I stay for the talk? I think I’d like to hear that.”

“As long as you don’t make any trouble. Are you on drugs?”

“No, of course not. But this is Eastern Philosophy, right?”

“That’s right,” said Ram Das.

“I think I’d like to stay for the conference. How much are the tickets.”

Ram Das smiled, “It’s free. But you can help clean up after the feast.”

“Where are the chairs?”

“We sit on the floor. It’s like yoga.”

“I see. Well, at least let me help you. Have you another broom?”

“Sure. Stay here.”

Ram Das returned with an extra broom and they began sweeping the large hall.

“What is this place?” said Hawk.

“We call it the Radha Krishna Temple,” said Ram Das, proudly. “You take that corner over there,” he said, “indicating where to sweep.

They worked hard, getting up all the dust, until it was time to mop. When they were satisfied with their work, Ram Das told him where to put the brooms and mops.

The room was odd. There was a giant chair off to one side, a kind of throne. And in the front of the room was a kind of stage where pillared arches held huge curtains. Perhaps it was an altar of some sort. Hawk was disoriented. Nothing made any sense to him since the time he had sat in the chair at Daigaku University. Perhaps he had time traveled. But how? He felt woozy. People started coming in for the program. There was a tall black guy with a big afro dressed in a colorful dashiki. He kicked his sandals off at the front door and said, “Hari bol.”

“I’m going to get some air,” Hawk said to no one in particular. He needed to clear his head.

San Francisco, 1969. Hawk hadn’t been dreaming. It was as if he had entered a time machine. Outside the Frederick Street temple there was an endless parade of circus freaks, hippies, and love children with their earth mothers. Hawk heard thunder. He turned and saw a parade of choppers with the dreaded leather jackets of muscular Hells Angels riding double file in the long line of Harley-Davidson motorcycles, accompanied by Gypsy Queen Madonna motorcycle mamas. Across the street,tourists in Hawaiian shirts snapped photos of the hippies. A bearded Jesus figure wearing a long white blanket slapped his Bible and quoted from the book of John chapter 14 verse 6 ""I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.," And as Hawk watched, dazed and amazed, he saw the saffron robed, shaven headed Hare Krishna devotees performing nam-sankitan pounding their drums and chanting in ecstasy. They smiled at him as they entered the temple.

As they entered the temple, he got his bearings. North Beach in San Francisco. He wasn’t far from Chinatown. In the future, Hawk had lived not far from these very streets. But this was different from the 2017 version of San Francisco. On a given friday morning you would see chinese practicing tai chi, and cafe bars where lesbians wearing berets write poetry.

But the neighborhood had a different feel. The 1960s. The summer of love. Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Bookstore, where poets would howl their dope fiend mantras and growl against the coming storm of industrial military madness and macho fascist bullshit.

The Jefferson Airplane lived over on Fulton Street and the Grateful Dead were crashing over on Ashbury Street. Hawk felt a transcendental energy wash over him. There was an amazing energy of exploration of human consciousness, spritual energy, cosmic vibrations.

Hawk was still barefoot. He looked for his shoes in front of the temple. There were dozens of shoes, sandals, and various kinds of footwear deposited there. He thought of going back in. Just as he was about the cross the threshold, he saw a couple of hippie girls in granny dresses. They looked like they might be into yoga.

“Excuse me,” he said, “But, what kind of place is this?”

The older of the two girls said, “What? Oh. You should check it out, it's really fun."

"Yeah, like how?"

The blond chimed in, "Well, it's the Hare Krishna temple and they're all peace and love and free vegetarian food. The food is really good. You have to do some chanting"

“Yeah,” said the older one. “The chanting is kind of corny. But the food is authentic Indian curry. Besides, the Swami’s here today. He’s pretty groovy.”

"Any way,” said the blond, “you have to sing their songs too and listen to their rap, but it's not all boring like the Anchor Mission."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, it's really cool and they have stuff from India like that oriental philosophy, like from Siddhartha or something.”

“Yeah and they have and incense and stuff. Anyway, I’m going in. If you’re coming you should bring a flower.”

Hawk paused. “A flower?”

The older girl said, "OK, well, Krishna says in the Bhagavad-gita you have to bring him a leaf or a fruit or a flower."

"That's it?"

"Yeah seriously they're really mellow about it."

Hawk went down the street to find some flowers.

Jai Jagannatha

Live Stream of Ratha Yatra


http://rathjatra.nic.in/rathjatra_2017.html