psychoceramics: Vedic Psychophysics

["T.L. Kelly" <room101 @ teleport.com>]

Introduction to Vedic Psychophysics
by Vaidix <v--@a--.com>
http://members.aol.com/vaidix/index.htm

Modern Psychology and Veda

Before we establish the Vedic theory of mind on a firm ground, we need to
discuss its relation to the state of art. Modern psychology is a subject
practiced and taught by tens of thousands of pracitioners and teachers in
all parts of the world. The subject is taught in almost every college,
funded by all universities and legally recognized as a cure. The subject
was developed using scientific method in universities and laboratories over
the last many decades if not centuries. One last word: Modern psychology is
one of the pillars of the modern society. To present a contrast, Vedic
studies, for whatever historical reason, do not have that advantage and our
site which promotes a practical approach to understanding Veda is only born
in July 1997. 

We will now discuss briefly the various branches of Modern Psychology in
relation to the Veda. The intention here is not to borrow any of the
concepts developed by those subjects; Veda is already aware of those
concepts if only on a different plane and expressed in a different
language. The intention is not to attack any other subject, it is only to
choose the approaches into which Vedic concepts can be comfortably
translated to provide a better understanding for Vedic students who are
more familiar with those approaches. We may reject some approaches because
at this time they do not seem to be helpful for expressing Vedic concepts. 

Talk of attack, when a lion attacks an elephant, it does not fight its
trunk or other more powerful organs. It hits the brain. That is precisely
what we will do if and when we come to that. 

Branches of Modern Psychology

The main branches of Psychology are Behavioral, Psychoanalytical,
Cognitive, Neuro-fuzzy, Physiological, Statistical, Psychophysical and
other approaches. 

The Behavioral approach is one of the most practical approaches as it is
oriented towards the end product which is clearly "behavior". Remarkable
progress has been made by behavioral scientists and their contribution to
the field of Management is invaluable. The "occupational hazard" of being
in a business environment is the need for creation of new buzz words every
few years. This affects every field related to business, and Behavioral
Science is no exception. Minus these buzz words, the field is a real
problem solver. Discussion of seven fold sAma is an example of a behavioral
interpretation of Veda. We will use this approach whenever the need arises.


We will drop the Psychoanalytical approach for the time being.
Psychologists told me that using this technique, they can just ask the
client a few questions or get a questionnaire filled, and they can
accurately assess a person"s psyche. Vedic scholars' approach is more
direct in that they directly question a person about his/her knowledge or
use of Vedic symbols such as uthgItha or of Vedic gods such as indra or
different intellectual or psycho-somatic features of yajJA, and assess a
person's psychological make up accurately in just a few moments. A more
common question asked among vedic scholars is "What do you meditate on?" or
"what is the highest knowledge you know?" or even "Do you know such and
such...", or the best of all - "Tell me what you know, I shall teach you
things that are beyond them". 

The mathematical approaches such as statistics are extremely important in
understanding and managing the complex processes of the society, but a
Vedic truth seeker does not look for a probable truth. Statistics, as a
branch of mathematics surely plays an important role in understanding the
collective wisdom of millions of nerve cells, but these approaches had not
been explored until the neuro-fuzzy approaches were developed. 

Cognitive sciences made good progress, and their results are applied in
educational psychology and other fields, but as the readers will find out
for themselves they presently lack the depth of symbolism of Vedic
approaches. Without using the Vedic symbols that encapsulate specific
functions of the thought process, trying to explain the theory of mind in
simple words(as is currently done by Cognitive Sciences) can run into large
volumes of needless detail. 

The neuro fuzzy approaches did not originate from the subject of
psychology. They originated from mathematics (led by Zadeh in 1960s). The
invasion of mathematics is abhorred by scholars of every subject because it
takes the subject away from the respective scholars of those subjects and
ultimately lands it into the hands of programmers! This fear is baseless
because whatever is the perfected portion of a subject can be left to
mathematicians and programmers, and what is not yet perfected or unknown
can be explored by the scholars of the subject(This rule applies to any
subject including Veda). The neuro-fuzzy concepts in vedas will be taken up
at appropriate place. 

Physiological psychology started out with the ambition of understanding the
nature of thought, perception, motor coordination, vision, hearing, touch,
hunger, sleep etc using lab tests on living or dead animals. With
multi-million dollar equipment and invasive tests on living organisms the
subject made good progress in explaining how the nerve tissues work and is
also helping Modern Medicine develop and test new drugs. Physiological
psychology will one day achieve its goal but not without the help of other
subjects(like philosophy) its originators(Morgan and followers) discarded
as worthless; if only because the philosophical approaches quoted by them
were themselves on weaker grounds. We will not take up physiological
Psychology actively, but each of the concepts we express while explaining
Veda must be agreeable to Physiological Psychology, if not the discussion
would not be valid and our interpretations will have to be revised. 

What is Psychophysics?

There is one branch of modern psychology we have not discussed so far,
namely Psychophysics. This subject is traditionally termed as "Mechanical
Approaches to Psychology" (as if it is anything less lively than the other
approaches!) This subject deals with stimulus-response relationships and
tries to develop the field of psychology from that perspective. This
subject is still in its infancy, but I see from the internet that it has
taken roots in a few committed schools. In fact I did not believe myself
this subject has even taken up its(correct) name "Psychophysics" which I
myself was contemplating to coin for that field (too late! but that saves a
coin for me). 

The initial impression you get after looking at a typical article on
stimulus-response mechanism is that it looks more like "Karma Theory"! Once
stimulus leads to a response which leads to another stimulus and so on, but
a close inspection reveals how wonderful this subject can be when such
simple physical relationships can be used to discuss frames of view,
contrast, perception, memory and other higher mental faculties. 

Psychophysics is looked down upon by some of the popular branches (as every
new branch is), but is now gaining its importance. The first article I read
was from Administrative Science Quarterly in 1981/82. I figured out that
the article can be used to present the guNatraya vibhAga yogA of bhagavat
gIta in a more scientific perceptive. I will try to give more details when
I get a copy of it. 

Psychophysics is real science that approaches the subject of psychology
based on principles that emulate physics to the world of thought. (For more
information look for it as a single word on internet.) 

Introduction to Vedic Psychophysics

You may have realized by now, that I am really dying to coin something. So
let us coin the term Vedic Psychophysics based on our new found
understanding that Vedas approached the theory of mind based on a physical
approach, with full understanding of the existence of neuro and fuzzy
approaches. 

Till now the discussion about "Vedic Mathematics" was limited to Pythagorus
theorem, Trigonometry, Pi or some other multiplication techniques. It may
be a fact that Vedic scholars knew some of these techniques before others,
but some of these ideas can be disputed based on the arguments that ancient
India had long standing trade links with other countries for thousands of
years, and some ideas may have flowed the other way round. 

It must be accepted that Veda did not formalize its knowledge of
mathematics in the form of equations, inequalities or relationships as done
by modern mathematicians, but the Vedic seers did know a "different form"
of mathematics, and they surely knew a "different form" of equations and
relationships. The real Vedic Mathematics is yet to begin; it is deposited
in the algorithmic approaches of brAhmanAs, the intricate mix and match of
syllables of the metres(chandas) of Vedic stanzas, the deliberations of
brAhmanAs and araNyakAs regarding the origins of and complex interaction
between Vedic gods, and the real nature of yaJna itself. 

Specialized or Generalized?

Vedic Psychophysics is not a specialized branch of Psychophysics. It is the
generalized version of Psychophysics. Quite a way to take over! 

Vedic Psychophysics is not limited to psychology as the latter is known
today. The confidence of the Vedic Rsis is that they can approach the
highest reality from any(literally any) subject. They held the opinion that
if the highest reality can not be arrived at by following a lead from any
subject, then that subject falls under a different ruler other than
Existence (which is an impossibility)! Taking up that idea as a challenge,
the Vedic Rsis approached the subject with the confidence that all subjects
converge into Existence, and again originate from it. 

That leads to a funny situation somewhat similar to that popular science
illustration (I don't remember who narrated it first) in which a person
living in a three dimentional world appears to possess supernatural power
(by appearing and disappearing) to a person living in a two dimensional
world. Likewise a person living close to Existence can mix and match
subjects at will, at times trying to derive grammar from sociology or
trying to prove a point on human anatomy using ritualistic prayers and so
on. (Sounds like the effect somA drinking had on indrA?) What better
example can be given regarding this, than the following passage from
aitareya brAhmaNA! 

The Silent Praise is the eye of the yajJa. The exclamation being one is
said twice; therefore the eye being one is (manifested) twice.

If only we knew how to decode this, we would know why human beings, and
infact most other living beings have two eyes! This statement of the
brAhmanA is by no means mythology or superstition. The confidence of the
scripture in these matters is an indication of a lost art more than a
canonical religion. To ignore this view is a shame of scholarship. 

The Vaidix school of Modern Vedic Psychophysics

While Vedic Psychophysics is the original subject as seen by the Rsis,
Modern Vedic Psychophysics is our understanding of it as we describe it
here. Vaidix is the brand name of the school that we will use for time
being to distinguish from other schools of thought. Needless to mention,
all brand names have to be dropped before we can arrive at Existence. 

The Veda as we have today is a confluence of a variety of subjects
including philosophy, logic, anatomy, physiology, cosmology, astronomy,
grammar, etymology, music and innumerable other subjects that were known to
the Vedic period. With the advancement of science and mathematics more
subjects have come into being. 

As explained, the convergence of all these subjects into Existence makes
our treatise even more a curious mix of symbolism than less. While I am
very much aware it is ridiculous to write a new scripture while trying to
interpret an existing scripture, I can't help it. This is the subject that
manufactures poets. Try not to get influenced if you can.

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submitted by T.L. Kelly