Life as quantum of information packages (excerpt from chapter 2)

​

As we've said The cycle of events during a particular consciousness is analyzed in great detail in Buddhism and in a manner that western psychology has still to learn from it. Again, in many of my previous treatises, I have also dealt with this issue in details, so I will bring here once again only the most important facts for our discussion. In that sense, we should bear in mind that according to Buddhism each Moment of consciousness is accompanied by whether contact and feeling, contact and perception, contact and volition. In the Terms of the Abhidhamma – the higher Buddhist Psychology – this process can be described in the following Way:

 

 

when the eye meets an object that it sees, in the first Nano-second we experience the object as it is, but afterward, at the next Nano-Second, we don’t experience the Object as it is, thus the mental State “Contact” is arising and established. As next, something that happens still in and within the same first second, a perception is poured into this form, which gives the form a name and etc.

 

 

 

When the contact and perception were established, if we want it or not, we are back in the world of form. Thus the entire universe and the society as a part of it is a reciprocal, interdependent, non-dual and interlocking Web of unity, we can’t avoid relating ourselves to others; what we can avoid is ignorance, the thinking that we experience the absolute Truth.  Further, in the same second, there will arise also a volition that will address the firstly perceived object. Those events can be described therefore in the following way to understand the process that consciousness undergoes a bit by bit: "contact is mentioned first because it precedes all other mental states.

 

 

“Touching by contact, consciousness experiences by feeling perceives by perception, wills by volition – (Phassena phusitvá, vedanáya vediyati, saññáya sañjánáti, cetanáya ceteti)”.  According to Paticca-Samuppáda, too, contact conditions feeling. But strictly speaking, there is no reason for the sequence because all these mental states are coexistent.

 

The Atthasálini states – “For of states, arisen in one conscious moment, it is not valid to say that ‘this’ arises first, ‘that’ afterwards. The reason is not that contact is strong support. Contact is just mentioned first in the order of teaching, but it was also permissible to bring it in thus:

 

– There are feeling and contact, perception and contact, volition and contact; there are consciousness and contact, feeling, perception, volition, an initial application of mind -

 

In the order of teaching, however, contact is mentioned first. Nor is the sequence of words among the remaining states of any special significance. (ABBHIDHAMMA online)”.

 

So, now let’s dive even deeper into the explanation of the chain of dependent co-arising. Here are the links of the chain:

1. Dependent on ignorance (through which a phenomenon gains significance/importance), there is a mental impulse-urge-volitional formation (to react towards the object of ignorance). Others formulated, we can say that when there is significance/importance (based or rooted in ignorance), there is a mental impulse-urge- volitional formation to react towards it (here Karma takes it course, whether volition takes expression through body, mind, and speech (here – by the mental impulse-urge-volitional formation – Karma takes place).

 

1. When there is a mental impulse-urge-volitional formation (arisen based on significance/Importance rooted in ignorance), there will be (an ignorance rooted) consciousness to perceive it (for the purpose of giving an answer to the perceived phenomena and mental formation).

 

1. When there is consciousness (perceiving the impulse-urge to react towards the object of significance/ignorance), there mentality-materiality (NAMA RUPA) comes into play to fit it (the object of significance/ignorance).

 

1. 4. When there is materiality – mentality, then as its derivative the six senses base begins to function (as a media between the craving mind and the objects perceived dependent on ignorance and the conditioned mental impulse-urge-volitional formation towards it).

 

1. When the six-sense-base functions, as its derivative there’s contact established with the object

 

1. When the contact with the object has been established by touching (and we perceive it), then feeling experiences the object

 

1. When the object has been experienced by feeling, there arises craving for the object

 

1. When there is craving, it is followed then by clinging

 

1. Dependent on clinging, there is becoming

 

1. Dependent on becoming, there is birth (of existence)

 

1. Dependent on birth, there’s old age and death

 

 

In more simplified words, so that we can understand it better:

 

1. Beginning with the first link, we can say that given a situation in which there is a large number of phenomena presented to the mind-door, based on significance/importance of the object rooted in ignorance, there will be a mental impulse-urge-volitional formation to react towards this certain and specific phenomenon (because otherwise we would not be mindful of it and it would have no significance for us)

 

1. When there is a mental impulse-urge-volitional formation (arisen based on the significance/Importance rooted in ignorance), there will be (an ignorance rooted) consciousness to perceive it (for the purpose of giving an answer to the perceived phenomena and mental formation).

 

1. When there is consciousness (perceiving the impulse-urge to react towards the object of significance/ignorance), there mentality-materiality (NAMA RUPA) comes into play to fit it (the object of significance/ignorance).

 

1. When there is materiality – mentality, then as its derivative the six senses base begins to function (as a media between the craving mind and the objects perceived dependent on ignorance and the conditioned mental impulse-urge-volitional formation towards it).

 

1. When the six-sense-base functions, as its derivative there’s contact established with the object

 

1. When the contact with the object has been established by touching (and we perceive it), then feeling experiences the object

 

1. When the object has been experienced by feeling, there arises craving for the object

 

1. When there is craving, it is followed then by clinging

 

1. Dependent on clinging, there is becoming

 

1. Dependent on becoming, there is birth (of existence)

 

1. Dependent on birth, there’s old age and death

 

Now, when we have understood the meaning of the chain and how it works, let’s see now how and why rebirth is taken place on behalf of the chain and why craving and ignorance are the main facts to generate the SAMSARIC rebirth and thus suffering! To understand it, we have now to jump back first of all to the link of the six-sense-base, whereas it is crucial for understanding the process of rebirth. Either way, we have declared above in those terms that, when there is materiality-mentality (NAMA RUPA), as its derivative the six-sense-base arises and begins to function as a media between the mind and the different objects of its craving.

 

 

Now, at the moment of death, the unenlightened mind remains and keeps actually all of its cravings, not only from the immediately before death perceived object rooted in ignorance and the conditioned mental impulse-urge-volitional formation aimed at coping with it, but the whole array of impressions rooted in the three poisons and in the mental continuum passes to the next rebirth. When this happens, namely at the moment of death, which means of course also the de-function of the six-sense-base as a derivative of RUPA and as the media between the mind and the different objects of its craving, the craving itself does not extinguish, but it’s now looking for a well functioning new six-sense-base as a part of new RUPA (materiality), where it can once again create the body-mind complex of a new NAMA – RUPA to accomplish and to satisfy its cravings and delusions.

 

 

In other words, this means that when the senses as a media between the mind and the object it craves becomes defunct through the death of the body, this makes no barrier for the mind who’s ignorance and craving is so strong that it can easily bridge the gap between the decay and destruction of the body only to choose for itself another materiality and a new six-sense-base as it material basis to continue the greedy and ignorant race for the next pleasant object that it craves. In other words, once a mind finds such a RUPA (materiality) it immediately makes usage of it as its basis to create a new complex of NAMA RUPA (materiality-mentality) moving towards a new rebirth. This SAMSARIC process and its inevitable suffering come to a halt only, when we uproot the three poisons and attain enlightenment, Nirvana!

 

 

 

This cycle of events can be called a unit of consciousness or a QUANTUM consciousness. (QUANTUM = a packet). The cycle of events is the same with all six types of sensory modalities. This is the fundamental unit of LIFE. After one sensory quantum wanes, another sensory quantum comes up like the waves in the seashore. Life is a pulsatile bit by bit interrupted flow of these cycles – sensory quantum. The time duration of one quantum may be about 1/20th of a second (=50 milliseconds). Then per every one second, there is an interrupted flow of about 20 quantum of life, with each and every quantum there arises a new sequence, with new perception, new volition, new feelings and a new body lasting only for about 1/20th of a second and dies off (See and compare with the theory of life and Buddhism by Dr. Senaka Ranasinghe). The fast pulsating bit by bit movement and the solidifying working of mind create a kind of scenario where consciousness experience the events as in a movie that is built a frame by frame and thus the pulsating bit by bit not only do not prevent a male rape and erection to occur but's solidifying the experiences and actually enables it. This is, in fact, the schema nature of our experience that also enables us to function properly. An example can be the way a child learns to do the thing and in some cases even adults. Consider for example someone that learns to type and use the computer. His first moves very often because he's too heavily involved in thinking is very clumsy and not productive. The more he learns to work with it he does not have to think as the schema takes on and everything is solidifying. In a way, it happens without much mindfulness or unconsciously or even pre-consciously. However, nature does not prevent us from doing it but on the contrary, performance is better. The same underlying dynamic happens in female on male rape too. 

 

As next, we will see why also inside this life quantum, there’s no self (as opposed to the theory of Dr. Senaka Ranasinghe), when we will use the modern knowledge of computer science comparing the quantum (package) consciousness with the information packages from computer networking. Here come another important process and energy, namely that of memory. The process of memory can be divided in a general way into two stages. The first stage is the fusion frequency of the human memory in which all the phenomena are “melt” in one piece or picture, in a process that I will describe immediately so that our brain can perceive and understand it – a process that we will also see immediately reminds the function of a router in a computer network that deals and processes the information. This first sub-sequence last from nano-seconds up to 50 milliseconds. The next subsequence is the process in which the image of the previous cycle of events (quantum) is still present in the memory, because a nerve impulse lasts for about 50 milliseconds, more than the double time of the initial bit of consciousness. So the Memory interprets and projects as if there is a permanent, unchangeable self, who feels and acts compare with the theory of life and Buddhism by Dr. Senaka Ranasinghe).

 

Again, compared to rape this ignorantly perceived notion of self does not prevent the rape based the allegedly pulsating bit by bit occurrence but on the contrary, it creates and enables it. This is the process that Albert Einstein described as the optical delusion of consciousness. Let’s see how this sequence of memory works by giving a concrete example from the domain of the practice addressing the eradication of destructive emotions. So when we apply this description to all kinds of destructive emotions aversion, anxiety, anger and many more, we can say that when there is an unpleasant object that CITTA (consciousness) cognizes, while there are ignorance and lack of mindfulness and wise attention, in this case, CITTA (consciousness) will arise together with an unwholesome CETASIKA of aversion that will be accompanied also by this wide range of negative emotions and possibly by other unwholesome mental factors that are to say CETASIKAS. The process that I have described in my other dissertations concerning the brain's functioning including the AMYGDALA, which acts as a repository for our repertoire of negative emotional habits and as a storehouse for negative emotional memories including our schemas, fits exactly in this very short period of time (MILI– seconds). This is why the research mentioned in the introduction found that negative emotions based on the interaction of body and mind can trigger male arousal and penile erection even under such stress and unfavorable situations whereas as I also outlined above this was an evolutionary necessity of our ancestors to survive. In the next bit of consciousness, CITTA will cognize the mental CETASIKA and Anger itself, while at this moment it will arise once again together with the CETASIKA of aversion and Anger, while this time aversion will address not only the unpleasant object, maybe even not the object at all, but the previous mental state as its object. In other words: we become a kind of a reactor, a generator, which produces in an ongoing manner aversion and anger.

 

The Human Brain as a Router with embedded Bugs
In her book "Emotional Alchemy" Tara Bennett – Goleman adds another perspective on this process from the point of view of Neuroscience. She says: "Neuroscience offers a parallel at another level in its analysis of how the brain processes information. It tells us that whenever we sense something, that information goes immediately from eye or ear to the thalamus, a relay station that translates raw physical waves into the language of the brain. From there the information is shunted to the Neocortex, the thinking brain, as well as to the Amygdala, that storehouse for negative emotional memories, such as the things we fear. If the Amygdala recognizes an emotionally potent stimulus similar to something we reacted strongly to in the past, it unleashes a flood of emotion and a fitting action. The Amygdala acts as a repository for our repertoire of negative emotional habits, including our schemas. All our intense fears of abandonment and rejection, of unlovability or failure, lurk like demons in hiding, ready to rise up and attack at a moment’s notice. And again, from the point of view of Neuroscience, the reason why the researches mentioned in the introduction found that arousal and penile erection can be caused both by positive and negative emotions.

 

Continuing the discussion, we can read then furthermore the following explanation in the book: “Our schemas are a screening system through which everything that happens to us must pass, like going through the security scanner in an airport. These emotional patterns spy on our lives, ever alert to anything that pertains to them, anything reminiscent of the focus of their fear or rage, or of the events that shaped them. If the schema gets a match, it immediately triggers whatever reaction we learned: we’re flooded with fear and rage, want to run, fight, or freeze (happens a lot in rape situations), have panicked thoughts about being helpless and unjustly treated. Whatever the emotional habit, it plays itself out all over again…. our brain’s design primes the Amygdala to react as though a threat were coming, even when the evidence is very slim". In terms of evolution, the reflex reaction on the level of unconscious that we will be discussing immediately triggers a bodily reaction that does not condition a flight but quick sexual response. The reason is that our ancestors not like modern humans had to have sex in nature where threats even from predators where big and at the time they were vulnerable. Being involuntary, unconscious and a reflex male arousal and penile erection can also happen when a man is raped by a woman. The underlying insight is important: male erection and even arousal do not necessarily mean consent. She then continues and says "Better safe than sorry is the operating principle here (in our case means finishing fast than suffering harm). The logic, of the emotional brain, remember, operates through the rules of what Freud called the primary process, where a mere resemblance or symbolic similarity gives two things the same identity, something like a Hologram, where the least part stands for the whole. This means that a situation that is even vaguely reminiscent of those that created an emotional habit can act as a trigger and this is the hologramic nature of our brain that I already mentioned above.

 

 

Life Quantum, Computer Networking, and Selflessness

In a modern network, every e-mail message is broken up into small pieces. The pieces are sent individually and reassembled when they’re received at their final destination. Because the individual pieces of information are called packets and each packet can be sent along a different path, like a train going through a set of switches, this kind of network is called a packet-switched network. It means that you don’t have to build a dedicated network between you and your friend on the other side of the country. Your e-mail flows over any one of thousands of different routes to get from one computer to the other. This is, in essence, is the same principle introduced in computer science as information packages and is comparable with life quantum in human life, which once again reminds us on the same process that both, human beings and computers, undergo in terms of processing information and awareness (See “How Routers Work” at “How Stuff Works”). This similarity between human beings and computers catches immediately our eyes and attention. When comparing us to computers, it is possible to say that our physical body can be compared to the hardware, while the mind is the software and the processes. Exactly as with computers, we can see that this “human hardware” contains both, raw materials as well as electricity in form of electrical energy (if you consider the brain from neurological point of view), while the only difference here is that computers get their electrical supply from an external sources and our human brain have an “internal electrical supply” (which enables us luckily to do what we want at any time!!!). Besides this, a part of the mind can be described as software, while the other part can be seen as a process. So when we are going to sleep it is as if we shut down the computer, while when we wake up it is as if we turn it on. So when we wake up according to Metzinger’s book and research occurs an unbelievable simulation with the world – we would say the human-computer is responsible for this through what Einstein is calling the optical delusion of consciousness and ego – making us to believe that we are separate from the world, while this is of course not more than a fiction, an Illusion. Metzinger says according to this process that the illusion of the ego is actually boring a tunnel into reality, limiting this reality very much, while it is of course not more than an Illusion. According to Metzinger, in reality, there is no such entity as “I” or “ego”, it doesn’t exist at all and is nowhere to find. Again, the interaction of body and mind that is similar to computers is another level that enables male rape by females.

 

Anyway, when talking about the next similarity, we should consider computers from the point of view of networking. Here we can see that each particular computer in a network has a certain identity, he can identify himself from other computers, with whom and to whom he is communicating. So it is clear that the computer has certain awareness, but no “I”, “Ego” or “Self”, this is obvious and clear too. What actually allows computers to identify themselves, to have certain awareness, is actually the process of analyzing information, again something the research from the introduction mentions but here in a different way where the sides effect enable female on male rape. In human beings, it happens more or less in the same way, only that here this process is much more sophisticated. To summarize this topic, we can say that the process of analyzing information is equal to the Illusion of the Ego in human beings, while in computers it creates a certain and limited awareness in comparison to human beings. Those are also the “life quantum” and the “information packages” processed, both in humans and computers, as I have described above. So what we can learn and see here is not only that there is no “ego”, no "self” or no “I”, but also that like Buddhism says there is enormous interconnectedness between everything in the universe. We can see here as the Abhidhamma – one of the most important books in Theravada Buddhism – says that in the world there are only nama and rupa – rupa which doesn’t feel anything and nama which experiences something. As we can see, this is true not only between human beings themselves but also between human beings and computers as well as between everything in the world. This shows of course also the enormous interconnectedness in-universe from which Buddhism is speaking.

 

Here we come to talk about another point of overlap between humans and computers as well as life quantum and information packages. In his article on the quantum theory of life and Buddhism Dr. Senaka Ranasinghe writes the following: according to Buddhism, the whole universe is a single, dynamic web of energy that can exist in three forms. These three forms of energy that exist in the universe also exist in the human body. The energy in the universe can exist are:

 

1. Free Energy

2. Forces,

3. Matter.

 

Free energy is pure, undifferentiated energy. Therefore, this form cannot be perceived directly or indirectly. Free, undifferentiated energy exists in the human body as consciousness. In Buddhism, consciousness is described as VINNANA. Forces are a type of differentiated energy produced by moving matter, which in turn causes movement of matter. The forces that exist in the universe are:

 

1. Electricity

2. Magnetism

3. Gravity.

 

These forces do not exist in the material form. (i.e. particles or waves). Their existence is in the form of an energy field which can be detected indirectly. By these forces, the movements that occur in all matter in the universe are interconnected. Though these forces are studied separately, in reality, they exist in a union, giving rise to a unified field which can be called the thought force. This is the force that moves the whole universe. The moving matter produces thought forces which in turn cause similar movement in matter. The thought force exists in association with the living human body as the subconscious force of the individual. By this force, the individual is connected to all human beings and events in the universe. The subconscious force determines the future events of the individual. In Buddhism, the subconscious force is described as BHAVANGA. We will discuss it further details in the next chapters.

 

The matter is a manifestation of differentiated energy. This form of energy can be perceived directly. In an individual, the matter is represented by the physical body. The fundamental unit of matter that exists in the universe and in the human body has four inseparable but interchangeable qualities. They are Solidity, Liquidity, Motion, and Heat. Depending on the predominant element, the quality of the matter may differ. Eg: Solidity is predominant in the earth, mountains, bones, liver muscles, kidney, etc. Liquidity is predominant in water, saliva, gastric secretions, etc. Motion is predominant in the wind, breathing, blood circulation, etc. Heat is predominant in the fire, the sun, bile, etc. The material body contains the following six sensory organs, by which the individual perceives the universe:

 

1. Eye _ Visual perception 
2. Nose _ Olfactory perception 
3. Ear _ Sound perception 
4. Tongue _ Perception of taste 
5. Skin _ Perception of touch 
6. Mind _ Perception of thoughts.

 

The mind is simply an area in the brain (known as the Limbic system) by which the individual perceives thoughts that exist outside. A musician trains his ears to a particular note. Similarly, the mind can be trained and developed by concentration (See and compare with the theory of life and Buddhism by Dr. Senaka Ranasinghe).