IT is recently observed that thought has created thinker. Thought thinks itself. Each thought carries out with it the potential for self-consciousness. Thought is also treated as the source of nature and modern physics has a tendency to undermine the principle of causation. In another study it is stated that higher order thoughts (HOTs) are, themselves, conscious. This seems to prevent it from being able to explain our sense of unity of consciousness. As against these observations, the following observations of the present study, Thinker, Thought and Knowledge, are quite different:
i. Thought cannot create thinker. This is mainly because thought happens to be the object of self-consciousness which is embodied in human being. It may be noted here that only human beings can become thinker, because they have both mind and consciousness.
ii. Those who believe that thought creates thinker, they have taken into consideration only thinker and thought. This leads to duality under which it is difficult to know whether thinker has created thought or thought has created thinker. If one takes the triplicity of thinker, thought and thinking, in that individual experience takes place. This is mainly because in thinking, thinker and thought both are involved.
iii. Thinker, thinking and thought are not different but they are fundamentally one in self-consciousness. In reality, I, the thinker, am consciousness which thinks, thinking is that consciousness myself operating; thought is also myself, a form or movement of the same consciousness. This shows that consciousness itself is unity. In this context, it is all the more important to quote Searle's observation that "consciousness is by its very essence qualitative, subjective and unified" (Searle 2004: 95). If consciousness itself is unity, how the atomic character of thought may prevent it from being able to explain our sense of the unity of consciousness.
iv. Thought as source of nature does seem to appropriate in the sense that it becomes the object of self-consciousness, which is embodied in human being. An inference may, therefore, be drawn that it is the self-consciousness rather than thought which becomes the source of nature. Self-consciousness, while knowing the objective world, it knows itself. There is no other entity which knows itself.
v. In the context of undermining the causation in the quantum physics, it may be stated that since the observer (i.e. human being) is involved how can he undermine the causation? The cause resides in the observer having causal body according to the Vedanta of Indian philosophy. The observer influences the properties of the quantum theory. In fact, it is the work of human consciousness which broke the tangible chunk of matter into ordinarily invisible atoms and the latter into absolutely invisible particles.
As regards the knowledge aspect of the study, it may be stated that perceptual knowledge concerning the relative existence and knowledge dealing with the Absolute Reality is discussed on the basis of Advaita Vedanta, and the Yogacara Vijnanavada of Buddhist philosophy. Kant's theory of knowledge is also discussed.
According to Kant, there are two main sources of knowledge.
THIS study attempts to examine thinker, thought and knowledge in East-West perspective with a view to provide substantial response in the sense that it is thinker who creates thought. Whereas in the following observations it is observed that thoughts creates thinker.
i. It is thought that has created the thinker; thoughts themselves are the thinkers.
ii. Each thought carries with it the potential for self-awareness.
iii. The idea of a thinker is itself produced by thought and therefore cannot be separated from the process of thinking. Thought thinks itself.
iv. Thought is treated as the source of nature.5
v. Modern physics has a tendency to undermine the principle of causation.
The above first three observations can be justified on the basis of process philosophy, which has been started by the Buddha about 2,500 years ago, under which there is no being,
but only becoming exists. Everything is in process and flux. Now this process philosophy in the West has been revived again by A.N. Whitehead. It is stated that:
Whitehead has said that philosophers who have started with being have given as the metaphysics of "substance" and those who have with "becoming" developed the metaphysics of f Whitehead points out the inseparability of the two.?
In this context, the following observation is worth stating:
With all its organismic leanings, the process philosophy is predominating materialistic and mechanical and hence unmindful of the possibilities of consciousness. Had it become mindful of these possibilities of consciousness, it would not have been required to accord that independence to process as actually it has done. Process, indeed, is a product of consciousness proceeding from its concentricity of self-consciousness to the extensity of objectification.
In the process philosophy, thinker and thought are not treated separately on the ground that are dependently co-arising as mutual causality. Therefore, it may be said that in the process system, there is no scope for storing the impressions in the mind because experiencer and experience cannot be relied separately.
Further, with process philosophy the substance also cannot be separated from the flux as mentioned above.
Thinker and thought, however, become one in self-consciousness (jrvatman) of human being. This is mainly because thought becomes an object of self-consciousness. In other words, thought gets objectified of one's self-consciousness. Yet both thinker and thought may be distinguished. This is the Vedantic interpretation.
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