What is Consciousness: Neuroscience & Vedantic View, Field of Consciousness & Entanglement of Particles

Abstract

What is Consciousness? What is the nature of reality? How does our subjective experience relate to the physical world? Philosophers and scientists alike have grappled with these questions for centuries. The subject of Consciousness indeed is very intriguing, especially to neuroscientists and physicalists for three main reasons. Firstly, they consider that everything in the universe should be definable in terms of matter and energy. Secondly, they cannot differentiate between Mind and Brain. They consider both to be the same. And thirdly, they think that the Consciousness arises out of the Brain. And that is the difficulty of the physicalists. Unless they modify upon their thoughts on these issues, it may never lead them to the true understanding of the nature of Consciousness. All the three concepts are flawed and misunderstood. But the concept of Consciousness is far easier to understand from the point of view of Adwaita Vedantic philosophy. We will ponder over the reasons for the same while discussing in brief, the theories proposed by neuroscientists and philosophers. We will also try to understand, whether it has something to do with abstract mathematics like the mystery of prime numbers. The Consciousness is a Continuum; it does not take into account the concept of space-time. Some concepts discussed here have been extracted from the spiritual teachings of Swami Tadatmananda, Swami Chinmayananda, Swami Tejomayananda and Swami Sarvapriyananda, based on their vedantic thoughts. Later, we will also be deliberating on the “Field of Consciousness” and the “entanglement of particles”, so closely related to the “Field of Consciousness”.