We’ve been taught to think of consciousness as the product of brain activity. To Descartes, this activity was the final proof of existence. He famously said that ” I think, therefore I am.” He was wrong. It isn’t thought that produces awareness. It is awareness that produces thought.
J. Donald Walters wrote in his book Awaken to Super-consciousness – How to Use Meditation for Inner Peace, Intuitive Guidance, and Greater Awareness, “Descartes’s explanation was the product of an essentially Western bias: that rational thought is the best, if not the only, key to understanding. Since the time of the Greeks, this bias has been firmly entrenched. And because of it, it is not surprising that scientists nowadays view computers, and the similarities between them and the way the brain works, as evidence that consciousness itself is the product of computer-like activity in the brain. They define thought as a pattern of electrons, merely, moving through a circuit of brain cells. “
Walters took the example of having a computer to reproduce, by a random selection of words, some great work of literature, such as the Bible. Conceivably, after a few billion, trillion, or zillion tries it might get all of the words right, and in the right sequence. But the result would have no more literary value than random patterns of clouds in the sky, which may fleetingly resemble mountain ranges, houses, or human faces before moving on to assume other shapes. The only way for this process to become meaningful would be for someone consciously to recognize what the computer had done and to stop the process in time.
In this way, Walters demonstrated Descartes’ view is a fallacy. The truth is Consciousness is not the product of brain activity, rather, it is the fundamental reality without which thinking as a conscious activity could never take place. Scientists have came to the same conclusion as Donald Walters. In fact, there is a striking parallel that exists between Quantum Physics and how human mind functions as revealed in the Eastern philosophies like Buddhism. Heisenberg, one of the key pioneers of Quantum mechanics had this to say, “What we observe as nature is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.” In other words, what we observe as reality is only what our lens of observation has defined. A famous experiment in Quantum Physics called double slip indicated particles’ behavior were dependent on whether or not these particles were being observed. When not observed, supposed particles took up wave-like behavior, demonstrating a state of infinite potential. However when observed, the particles took up well-defined locations, acting as solid matter. This clearly validated the Buddhist teaching that what you see is only a result of what you think, in other words, our perception defines our reality.
The latest computer technology Artificial intelligence (AI) is defined as the ability of a computer or a robot controlled by a computer to do tasks that are usually done by humans because they require human intelligence and discernment. It was founded as an academic discipline in 1956 and has since received mammoth amount of resources for R&D. As the experiments indicated above, Buddhist monks may not be the best scientists, but what we hold today as revolutionary ways of scientific breakthrough is no news to the Buddhas who have studied these things for millennia.