Startling
as it may seem, this case is nothing new to the medical
world. “Scores of similar accounts litter the
medical literature, and they go back a long way,”
observes Patrick Wall, professor of anatomy at University
College, London, “but the important thing about
Lorber is that he’s done a long series of systematic
scannings, rather than just dealing with anecdotes.
“The spina bifida unit at the Children’s
Hospital here in Sheffield, is one of the largest
in the world,” says Lobar. “The great
majority of patients with spina bifida also suffer
from hydrocephalus. Since the introduction of the
safe, non-invasive brain scanning technique just a
few years ago we have done more than 600 scans on
patients with hydrocephalus.” And the results:
even the severely affected patients with ventricle
expansion filling 95 percent of the cranium, while
being severely physically disabled, often have IQ’s
greater than 100.
What
is happening here? No one is quite sure. We roughly
use 5% of our brain’s capacity is one of the
popular theories that has emerged from these bizarre
findings. Another emerging theory is of ‘plasticity’
or the brain’s prodigious capacity to take over
the functions of damaged parts. This is the current
favourite, and based on this theory, modern neuro-surgeons
happily remove up to half the brain of patients suffering
from un-controllable seizures.
There
are others who feel perhaps the function of the mantle
has been misjudged and are willing to go with the
theory that the real thinking, feeling, loving part
of the brain is deeper down, perhaps in the brain
stem. The mantle, the cauliflower like portion, probably
functions in a lesser (heat-sink perhaps?) and clearly
expendable capacity.
While this debate is raging on largely behind closed
doors (wouldn’t do to let people know these
things), let’s take a look at what the shastras
have to offer on this subject.
According to the Bhagavad-Gita, the body is like a
machine “Yantra rudhani mayaya” in which
the soul takes a ride. We are more or less aware of
this fact, which is why upon death, we very sensibly
dispose of the body of even loved ones with commendable
haste. The part we are fusty about is this: Apart
from the gross, machine like body, the soul is in
fact swathed in a subtle body. This second body is
made up of three subtle energies namely: the mind,
intelligence, and false ego. Clearly therefore, according
to the Bhagavad-Gita, intelligence or mental ability,
or remembrance for that matter, are not the functions
of the brain. All that talk about synapses and neuron
endings chattering away generating thought, feelings,
etc., is a lot of hot air. Ask Dr. Ben Carson; he
regularly lopes off half the brain, after which his
patients get right back to their unfinished chess
game!
Proponents
of artificial intelligence too are bound to agree.
In their race to duplicate the mind’s awesome
power of memory, they discovered a formidable roadblock.
They had more or less duplicated the memory storing
mechanism, but were foxed by the mind’s almost
mystical information retrieval system. The mind could
retrieve a specific memory – the recollection
of a face – in a flash. To do the same computers
would have to physically search the entire database.
This difference in fact highlights the fundamental
difference between living intelligence and artificial
intelligence. Living intelligence is intuitive, while
the so-called artificial intelligence will always
be mechanical, plodding, and dependent on processing
speed. And, how does this subtle matter behave? The
Bhagavad-Gita gives a clue. Here Sri Krishna says,
“I am seated in everyone’s heart; from
me comes remembrance.” This would indicate that
intelligence, memory, etc., are external energies
made available by Krishna. The living entity apparently
is capable of no activity whatsoever. It just sits
there as if plugged in with these various feeds, and
gets all excited, sweaty and steamed up. It all somewhat
startlingly similar to the home PCs linked to the
Internet for everything exactly like what our very
own Internet gurus went blue in the face trying to
convince us before that bubble burst.
As is everything else in the universe, the living
being, is a clever blend of gross material, subtle
material and spiritual energy. The gross material
parts which is the body, functions in a predictable
mechanistic Newtonian manner. The subtle matter, including
the mind and intelligence, operate in a ‘dialup
or high speed Internet connectivity’ manner.
But it is when you hit the spiritual strata that all
mechanistic reasoning evaporates.
How
does this spiritual substance behave? A simple experiment
will give you a fairly good idea. Put a wee bit of
it a human body, and watch the incredible transformation.
If this is an impractical proposition, observe the
transformation in reverse order. Watch what happens
when it leaves the body at death. From a dynamic living,
growing, thinking, loving being, the body is transformed
to a lump of lifeless matter, when that incredible
spark vacates.
Don’t throw away your brain yet. Even if it
isn’t going to help you with your algebra, it
might still serve a function. In all likelihood, it
is the control centre for the machine-like body. The
intelligence, memory, mental ability, etc., all the
headier stuff that is, is all made available by dialling
up to a ‘cosmic Internet’ controlled by
the Supreme Mystic, Sri Krishna.
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