Roller-Coaster

“You can erase some one from you mind
getting them out of your heart is another story”

(Tag line of Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind)

If given a chance,would we like to erase some parts of our life from our memory?All those bitter,painful episodes of our
life…But arent these episodes which make us the persons we r now…For each experience teaches us something and if we r wise enough, we would probably ensure that this does not happen again…

This movie kinda sparked off more thoughts….
Are emotions just linked to the brain and if that particular section is removed/disabled or if that gene responsible for
emotions is suppressed,will we be reduced to mere machines?

I, for one believe that emotions are’nt just related to some gene or just the brain….There must definitely be something else….

Was talking abt this to Gautam and what followed was an interesting conversation….(We kinda got diverted onto a different track,nonetheless couldn’t resist putting it up)

Rashmi: I wonder though whether emotions r strictly related to the brain..or is it someting else..i mean as they say there is a center in the brain for emotions..what if that is disabled….will we be totally without emotions?
Gautam: hard to say… but i think that’s what a lobotomy does to you
Rashmi: hmm…then as swe says….”its all in the mind..nothing’s related to the heart..”…

Rashmi:I dont really believe that everything that we feel is just due to some genes or some connections in the brain….there’s something more to it…
Rashmi: Otherwise whats the difference btw humans and robots,with the advancement of technology..it wont be difficult to induce emotions….if its true that emotions r linked to some gene…..
Gautam: this would be the classic question of the entire “soul” issue
Rashmi: how is the soul related to this?
Gautam: you asked about the difference between humans and robots…
Rashmi: define soul
Gautam: that’s not really possible.It’s one of those complicated issues
Rashmi: ok let me rephrase it…what according to u is a soul…
Gautam: wow… i spent the last 10 min trying to decide what i thought about it… it left me with several more questions… guess i havn’t thought about it enough
Rashmi: ha ha ha..thought so.Anyways tell me what u were thinking abt
Gautam: a soul could be though of as some entity that has an existance idepandant of your physical body and can be
identified as you…
Rashmi: our conscience? does that have emotions or is it devoid of it?
Rashmi: and if it exists then it supports my theory that emotions r not just something related to the brain..coz the soul definitely does not have one
Gautam: right… but even before we get there .. there are several more questions that trouble me…
Rashmi: like?
Gautam: like what is identity… when does this entity (a pattern of energy or whatever) start to exist? doesit start when you’re a zygote? when you’re born? or did it come about independantly before your physical body was defined ? if so does it continue after your physical body ceases to function?
Gautam: actually the question of identity by itself is an extremely complicated one

Rashmi: hmm.well if we consider for a moment that a soul exists then,we could say that then it exists before we r born,but as to when it all began is like tryin to find whether the egg came first or the hen….
Gautam: ok let us consider that souls exist. why are we certain that they existed before we were born?
Rashmi: we cannot be certain..but if we consider that souls continue to exist after we die,then where do they end up
going?They cannot always end up floating around..either they get “Moksha” or another solution is reincarnation…just a hypothesis…
Gautam: what is moksha?
Rashmi: its what said in the hindu mythology…i think the term salvation is similar…R u familiar with the hindu mythology which talks abt each soul which has to take rebirth until one day it attains salvation….that is why so many sages in the past have tried to attain “Moksha” so as to avoid taking rebirth….
Gautam: i’m familiar with that…. what im saying is lets define the terms.. what happens to the soul when moksha is attained
Rashmi: I am assuming that they go to heaven or hell…(Atleast according to the myth)…But what i think is its lifecycle is over and it returns back to where it came from …….dont ask me where it came from
Gautam: i don’t think hindu philisophy talks of heaven and hell…
Gautam: Moksha (Sanskrit: AAAAA, liberation) or Mukti (Sanskrit: AAAAAA, release) refers, in Indian religions (Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism), to liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth and all the suffering and limitation
entailed in embodied worldly existence. In higher Hindu philosophy, it is seen as a transcendence of phenomenal being, of any sense of consciousness of time, space, and causation (karma). It is not seen as a soteriological goal, in the same sense as in a Christian context, but signifies rather a dissolution of the sense of self as an egoistic personality — the undoing of conditioned mentality-materiality or nama-roopa (lit. name-form). Liberation is achieved by (and accompanied with) the complete stilling of all passions — a state of being known as Nirvana.
Gautam: “a dissolution of the sense of self as an egoistic personality — the undoing of conditioned mentality-materiality or nama-roopa (lit. name-form)”
Gautam: so going by this , the soul ceases to exist as an identifiable enity… it either becomes one with the universe or one with god, depending on weather you belive the dvaitha or advaitha schools or thought
Rashmi: hold on..first..hindu myth does talk abt heaven and hell(Swarga…narka)…
Rashmi: coming to other point
Gautam: i said hindu philosophy not myth
Rashmi: u r talkng abt two things….one is….
Rashmi: “it either becomes one with the universe or one with god”..that is what i meant when i said that it returns back where it came from…..second..
Rashmi: the complete stilling of all passions
Rashmi: arent these two different things?
Gautam: not necessarily…
Rashmi: explain
Gautam: note that they said “undoing of nama-roopa” … it does not have an identity anymore.. it is not distinguishable from the enegy pattern that makes up the universe…. that is to say nirvana leads to moksha
Rashmi: how does nirvana lead to moksha?coz nirvana is detachment fom the materialistic world and also detachment from everything human..no bondage…no emotions…nothing
Gautam: yes… when nirvana is reached you will achieve a dissolution of the sense of self as an egoistic personality… that is you are not attached with an identity.. and hence do not exist anymore
Rashmi: how does something which does not have a physical form cease to exist?
Rashmi: what exactly is dissolution of self?Then does someone whos suffering from amnesia….who does not have a clue abt himself..no sense of identity similar to that?[I know they are different..but just trying to compare....]
Gautam: the way i see it… everything is a pattern of energy… so any recognisable entity is a pattern of energy with
attributes distinct from its surroundings…
Gautam: so if that entity changes such that it’s energy pattern is not longer distinguishable from its surroundings , it can no longer be identified as an independant entity.. and hence ceases to exist
Rashmi: then as we know energy cannot be created nor destroyed..so does that mean we r at all times changing from one state to another?for eg:water when cooled becomes ice and when ice melts becomes water..so consider the sea and iceberg …,its a separate entity….when melted loses its separate identity and becomes one with the sea…..where one drop of water is indistinguishable from the next?is that what we r talking abt….
Rashmi: and is this process also a cycle…..we have a entity..say God or universe..or energy….and this gives rise to an
entity(say a soul) which after its numerous journeys comes back to join its mother entity
Gautam: yep… that’s how i see it
Rashmi: which brings us back to the question of how did this entity exist in the first place????Timeless….
Gautam: you are talking about an individual soul?
Rashmi: no the entity/universe/God?energy..whatever u call it
Gautam: i guess we’ll never know.. we’ll just have to accept that it exists
Rashmi: yeah…..Funny we all have a million questions to which no one has any answer to…
Gautam: hehe.. yeah