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A SOURCE-BOOK IN JAINA PHILOSOPHY
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thing to say that the function of the brain cells is to get consciousness. The consciousness and the cerebrum belongs to two different realms, qualitatively different. When we think of consciousness, we do not normally think of cerebrum, though we may associate the two. Different organs of the body have by themselves no active or creative function. Intestines do not digest the food, lungs do not breathe, but we digest and we breathe through the intestines and lungs. Similarly, it is the self that thinks and that is conscious, although the function may be operated through the cerebrum. Consciousness cannot be produced out of the un-conscious matter. The organs of the body are lifeless and without conscious energy, it is the self that gives consciousness. Without the self the body has no life, it is a dead-matter. The bodily organs by themselves do not function, Father Butler wrote “that the brain is formed of the dead hydrogen atoms, oxygen atoms, nitrogen atoms and phosphorous atoms. Imagine them separate and senseless. Observe them running together and forming all imaginable combinations. This is purely a mechanical process which can be seen by the mind. But can you see or dream or in any way imagine how out of that mechanical act and from these individually dead atoms, sensation, thought and emotion are to arise? We cannot create Homer out of the rattling of dice or differential calculus' out of the clash of billiard ball... You cannot satisfy the human understanding in its demand for logical continuity between molecular process and the phenomena of consciousness.”
It would be futile to compare the functions of digestion and respiration with the consciousness, because, the functions of digestion and respiration are unconscious It is indebatable fact that conscious, ness and psychic energy are an independent force not produced out of the bodily functions. Those who consider consciousness as the effect of the bodily functions have to face a different question : 'Am I acting on my self-will or am I influenced by the bodily functions ?
Psycho-physical parallelism is another theory which has been propounded to explain the relation between body and mind or in a sense the soul. Psychical and physical forces run parallel to each other without ever affecting each other. A physical state is correlated to a mental state, point by point, without affecting the other. Parallel occurance is the point common to both the states.
The third theory of the relation between the body and mind
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