Srini Chandrasekharan

Tag: religion

  • This beautiful thing called empathy

    This beautiful thing called empathy

    Last Sunday, I watched a a fascinating conversation between His Holiness Dalai Lama and a group of scientists, titled “Neuroscience and the emerging mind,”. The dialogue revolved around the questions of “what triggers empathy?” and “can we be trained to be empathetic?”. I spent an hour watching the scientists and the monk in rapt attention. Here’s a gist.

    Empathy is the ability to view the world from another’s perspective. Of all emotions, it’s empathy that makes us human. Some would even say it’s empathy that makes us divine. So how exactly does empathy work from a neurological perspective? Prof. V. Ramachandran at University of California, San Diego explains it nicely. Not a surprise since he’s been researching this topic for over two decades. Here’s my understanding of what he’s found.

    The brain, at its core, is a mushy mass of gooey tissue filled with a massive number of neurons. The cerebral cortex is the largest part of the brain, and contains 10-13 billion neurons. What are neurons? They’re cells that excitable. When they’re excited, they transmit information through electric signals. When you lean forward to pick up a cup, there’s a neuron in your brain that fires and coordinates the motor movement of the arm stretching, fingers clasping the handle and the hand picking it up.

    What made things more intriguing was the discovery of what Prof. Ramachandran calls “mirror neurons”, found in the cortex. Mirror neurons fire when *someone else* performs an action that you’re familiar with. In other words, a mirror neuron fires in my brain when *you* lean forward to pick up a cup. And soon after its firing, my hand signals back to the brain saying “It’s not you picking up the cup. It’s the other person”. All of this happens reflexively in the background. Amazing stuff.

    Mirror neurons are the agents of empathy in the brain. When you see another person being pricked with a pin, you flinch reflexively because of them. Your finger quickly sends a message back saying “safe” and that’s how you realize that it’s not you being pricked. In experiments performed on folks with prosthetic arms, subjects actually experienced pain when watching another person being pricked. That’s because their arms lacked cells to transmit “safe” back to the brain! Suddenly, the question of – can we be “trained” to be empathetic? – doesn’t appear out of bounds!

    All this talk did leave me a tad uncomfortable. It’s as though we’re trespassing noisily into a sanctum where one must tread with respect. The strength of science lies in its irreverence, which keeps it moving forward and from settling in a comfort zone. That just might be its Achilles heel as well. Science seeks to discover so it can manipulate and control. Any quest based on the notion of “how can I control what’s going on”, I believe, will fail ultimately. Action-without-agenda has far higher staying power, resilience and chances of achieving its goals than action-with-agenda. This is what eastern wisdom tells us. And that’s what His Holiness Dalai Lama subtly conveyed to the professors in the room.

    Empathy is a beautiful thing. It holds the key to happiness. Forcing it upon another violates the idea of empathy itself.

    ps: This was a great way to spend an hour on a Sunday morning. Check out the video when you get a chance. cheers.

  • On the Nature of Light

    On the Nature of Light

    Light is at the core of physics. Light, its attributes and energy, define the very parameters of this amazing universe that we find ourselves in. The nature of light, also (less commonly) known by its scientific name – electromagnetic radiation (EMR) – is the most fascinating conundrum we have encountered in nature. Light is the two-faced Janus, connecting our past, present and future, and, for mysterious reasons, can behave as either a ‘wave’ or a ‘particle’. This is no ordinary matter. How light can behave at times like a “particle” – something that has “mass” and confined to “finite amount of space”, and on other occasions, as a “wave” – something that is formless and existing everywhere simultaneously – is one of the most captivating mysteries that science is yet to solve.

    On the Nature of Light

    Long before before great scientists like Aristotle, Galileo and Newton came along, humans had grasped the mystical importance of light, in a philosophical and religious sense.

    Psalms 119:105  (Holy Bible, King James Version):  “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path”

    “Seeing the light” came to be equated with wisdom and enlightenment, and with receiving the ultimate expression of God’s benevolence. A dark universe, devoid of light, was considered a universe devoid of itself – a universe that existed without form or purpose until – as the Holy Bible tells us – “God said, Let there be light”. The Holy Koran says, “Allah, (Praise be to his name) is the light of the heavens and the earth”. The Rig Vedantin prayed “Lead me from darkness to light, from the unreal to the real”. The ancient savants intuitively grasped the quixotic nature of light, a baton which science has only recently taken but carried resolutely over the last hundred years. (more…)

  • How to make it in the after-life

    How to make it in the after-life

    What happens when we die?  What we believe in this regard, interestingly, likely plays a role in the way we live our lives. For the longest time. after-life has been a source of mystery, intrigue and anxiety for humans. Every religion has its hypothesis on what happens after death. The Judaeo-Christian-Islamic versions speak of a “transfer” to a waiting place, about which not much is known other than that you wait there till judgement day. You kind of have to hang around until the picture is clarified for better or worse.

    Hindu/Buddhist versions involve being re-born with net sums of karmic bondage re-calculated after each  cycle. The ancient Greeks spoke of the dead being ferried across the Styx to Hades where they stay until eternity. The blessed and the virtuous went to the Elysian Fields with perpetual spring and shady green groves. The rare few were invited by Zeus to become minor gods on Olympus. And, the really bad apples were meted out bizarre punishment along the lines of rolling stones up hills, eagles gnawing at their livers or watching endless re-runs of Hrithik Roshan movies.

    In most religions, death is not the end. The trail continues either into some limbo waiting for Judgement or towards the start of a new trail through re-birth.

    The only ones who take the categorical position – “Death is The End. Once you die, it is all over. There is nothing more to talk about”  – are the atheists.This scenario is as likely as any other and must be considered. So, how do you stack the odds of making it in the after life? Well, depends.

    1. Theories involving rebirth ie beginning of new trails – are both intriguing and baffling. Even if these were to be somehow conclusively proved to be true, it is not entirely obvious as to what we can or should be doing in this life about the next. For example, it is not clear as to why one cannot keep increasing the karmic balance endlessly, given that the cycles are endless and there is no doomsday or a punitive God awaiting. Why worry about the next life when there is enough cause for worry about this one. If you like ambiguity and flexibility, this one’s for you.

    2. The versions that involve placing the chips on God A or God B and then waiting for Judgement Day are troublesome and tricky. The bets in this life, we are told, are irreversible after death, thus leaving no room to hedge. What if you bet on God A, and it turns out that God B is the one doling out rewards and retributions? Even worse, what if you end up at a un-named, un-marked waiting place and it is not revealed if God A or B is ruling the roost? The suspense till Judgement day would be enough to kill except we would be already dead. If you like order and structure, and an inveterate gambler, consider this your best option. Pick a horse and ride it all the way to the fiery finish!

    3. The atheist scenario of “Death is THE END. Once the lights go out, it is dark forever”” is the easiest one to deal with, as there is nothing to deal with. Provides ultimate flexibility and the world is your playground, and you can run riot all over it. “Are you really sure this is the end? Hmm, ok, I see. Just wanted to make sure, that’s all. Do you have any beer?” is an easy and painless conversation to have.

    Lovely people like Stephen Hawking like this model. The problem is that you are betting against the concept of God itself. In fact, being atheist is the riskiest strategy and defies logic. Basically, an atheist has zero probability of making it to heaven, if there ends up being a God. And, if there ends up being no God, all an atheist wins is the satisfaction of knowing that he was right! The upside is abysmally small, and the downside huge! If you insist on being atheist, you might as well carpe the diem by its tail and enjoying to the fullest while you are alive, because there’s a pretty good chance that things could get ugly once you have embraced the dark arms of Hades. This model highly recommended if logic is not your strength.

    The best strategy might be one of “no affiliation” i.e. no religion, not atheist, no nothing. Sort of a ‘go with the flow, ambiguously agnostic karma yogi’ approach. Don’t place bets, take no positions and stay on the sidelines. Imagine waiting without the agony of suspense in the post-mortem lounge in the here-after. And, when Judgement Day arrives, and they start queuing people towards Heaven and Hell – the after-death queue management personnel will have no idea what to do with you. It is possible that – to avoid controversy – they may just quietly send you to Heaven!