MYSTERY OF SOUL

Today the scientists who are doing research on human brain can be divided broadly into two groups, firstly, the genetic scientists and secondly, the neuro-scientists. The former group is trying to make genetically altered men who will not suffer from hereditary diseases like diabetes, asthma, arthritis, hypertension and so on. Their ultimate goal is to create tailored made men, by genetic manipulation, who will not be victims of obesity, baldness and similar other undesired features and, on the contrary, will be tall, good looking, adequately intelligent, disciplined and well behaved and these are the fields where they are trying to thrive.

                   Comparatively less radical ideas are being dealt by the latter group, the neuro-scientists. They aspire to alter people by enhancing certain functions of their brain and the nervous system using drugs. They are looking for, at the first step, removing ailments like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, depression, memory failure due to ageing, under maturity of brains of the mentally retarded children and so on. More ambitious neuro-scientists are seeking to apply neuro- technology to produce extraordinary talented people capable of winning a Nobel Prize, or to create a Mozart or a Picasso.

                    Research in today’s neuro-technology can be divided into three main domains. Firstly, to invent an improved scanning technique. Secondly, to ascertain the origin of the faulty trait using that scanning technique. And finally, to guide the pharmaceutical firms to invent wonder drugs to alter that faulty trait. In addition to that, some are trying to peep into the innermost chamber of the human mind. They also believe that one day they will be able to locate the particular spot in the brain where the soul resides.

                This requires to prepare a map of the human brain which accurately portrays which part of the brain controls which kinds of actions, or which area of the brain responds to which kinds of external stimuli. It is needless to say that a highly sensitive and accurate brain scanning technique is essential for the preparation of such a map.  

                Even a decade ago, the only technique available for brain research was electro-encephalography (EEG). But today, more than half a dozen such techniques have been    invented and to name a few are positron emission tomography (PET), single photon emission tomography (SPET), magneto encephalography (MEG), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and so on. But the most modern technology, which is now being widely used by the researchers, is called the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).  It employs powerful magnetic field to monitor the rate of blood flow in the brain and thus helps to identify the part or area of the brain that is becoming active for a particular stimulus. With the help of the technique it has become very easy to locate area of the brain gets involved when someone performs a particular task or thinks along a particular

line.

                Dr. Vinode Menon and his colleagues at the Stanford University are working to prepare such a map using the fMRI technique. They have also found that children, adolescents and adults show progressively different patterns of brain activity. Dr. Greg Siegle  and his coworkers are doing research in the same field with the help of the same fMRI technique. Particularly they are studying depression and could find that a region of the brain called amygdale is involved in the ailment.

Dr.  Siegle believes that their work on fMRI screening would one day become a foolproof method for lie detection.

                It should be mentioned here that giant pharmaceutical firms lavishly fund such neuro-scientific projects with a view to invent new drugs which could fetch biullions. Improved drugs to combat stress, sleepiness, shyness, forgetfulness etc. are already in the pipeline. A new kind of drugs called ‘super-prozacs’ are already in the experimental stage, which are expected to prevent loss of memory due to ageing. Another kind of drugs called ‘AMPA receptors’ are intended to tackle the same problem by amplifying the transmission signals from one nerve cell to another. The neuro-scientists also working to develop a new kind of therapy known as ‘trans-cranial magnetic stimulation’ (TMS) that utilizes a powerful and well focused magnetic field to alter the normal functions of a certain area of the brain and hence to alter the behaviour  pattern of the subject.

                It has been said earlier that, with the progress of neuro-science, a group of scientists are becoming more and more inquisitive to find answers to some more fundamental questions like – What  is ‘free will’? In which area of the brain this ‘free will’ originate? In which area of the brain the supernatural and the most elusive thing, which the philosophers and theologians call soul, resides?

                French philosopher Rene Descartes was convinced that he had succeeded to discover the exact location in the brain where the body and soul meet. His chosen spot was the pineal gland which is a small, usually conical, appendage of the brain that functions primarily as an endocrine gland (an organ that produces some secretions which are ultimately distributed over the entire body by the blood stream). The view has been found to be entirely untenable today as a tumour on the pineal gland does not produce symptoms one would expect find arising out of a possible distortion of the soul. But the scientists are of the opinion that a lot more research is to be done to unveil the mystery of the human soul. “Ultimately science will triumph”, says a neuro-scientist of the Hastings Center, New York. It should be pointed out here that, according to the above notion of the Western scientists, a creature that do not have a brain cannot have a soul.

                It is well known that the concept of soul occupies the most important place in Hindu philosophy as according to Hindu scriptures only a proper understanding of the soul is capable of driving away mundane sufferings and distress and provide peace of mind. Furthermore, only such an understanding of the soul can lead one to Moksha, the highest spiritual attainment in this human life. According to Hindu philosophy, soul is the knower of all knowledge and feeler of all feelings and emotions like joy, fear, sadness, depression etc. are experienced by the soul alone, while our senses, the physiology of the brain, with its electro-chemical reactions, are mere tools with which the soul experiences all such emotions.

                Rishi Kapila, the originator of the Samkhya school of Indian philosophy, says that the soul is, though indefinable, but undeniable. The soul is beyond proof and disproof and one has to admit its existence as it is not possible for him to prove its non-existence.

                He argues that to designate different parts of our body, we use the word ‘my’(the sixth case ending of Sanskrit grammar), such as ‘my hand’, ‘my eyes’, ‘my brain’, ‘my body’ and so on. Even for non-material entities we follow the same procedure and say ‘my intelligence’, ‘my fear’, ’my devotion’ etc. The question naturally arises- Who is that ‘I’?  Rishi Kapila says that that ‘I’ is the soul and the use of the word ‘my’ conclusively proves that it does not constitute a part of our body. And hence it is a non-material entity and super-natural in character. It should be mentioned here that Kant’s analysis of knowledge indirectly admits the existence of the soul and his ‘I’ of  ‘I know’ is essentially Identical with the soul.

                So, according to the Hindu view, the existence of the soul, as it a non-material entity, can never be detected by the scientists with the help of their mundane scientific instruments and it will always remain beyond the scope of detection even with the most improved scanning machine that the scientists might develop. It will remain elusive to them forever.

                   Furthermore, the Hindu concept of soul tells us that the neuro-scientists and the genetic engineers, by way of altering the brain or the nervous system or by altering the functioning of the body as a whole, are altering the tools with which the soul communicates with the external  world. It is not possible for them to alter the soul, as it is not a material entity.