Part 2 of 2
HHDL: When this world initially formed, there seem to have been two types of events or entities, one sentient, the other insentient. Rocks and plants, for instance, are examples of non-sentient entities. You see, we usually consider them to have no feelings: no pains and no pleasures. The other type, sentient beings, have awareness, consciousness, pains and pleasures.
But there needs to be a cause for that. If you posit there is no cause for consciousness, then this leads to all sorts of inconsistencies and logical problems. So, the cause is posited, established. It is considered certain.
The initial cause must be an independent consciousness. And on that basis is asserted the theory of continuation of life after death. It is during the interval when one's continuum of awareness departs from one's body at death that the subtle mind, the subtle consciousness, becomes manifest. That continuum connects one life with the next.
At this moment, we are using the sense organs at the grosser level; then when we are dreaming, a deeper level of consciousness manifests itself. Then beyond this there is deep sleep without dreaming, with a still deeper level of consciousness;
On some occasions, people faint. Even when your breath temporarily stops, during that moment, there is a reduced level of consciousness. Consciousness is most reduced late in the course of dying. Even after all physical functions cease, we believe that the "I", or "self", still exists. Similarly, just at the beginning of life, there must be a subtle form of consciousness to account for the emergence of consciousness in the individual.
We must explore further the point at which consciousness enters into a physical location. At conception, the moment when and the site where consciousness interacts with the fertilized egg is something to be discovered, although there are some reference to this in the texts. The Buddhist scriptures do deal with it, but I am interested to see what science has to say about this. During this period we believe that without the subtle consciousness, there would be a life beginning without consciousness. If that were the case then no no could ever recollect experience from their past life. It is also in terms of Buddhist beliefs relating to this topic that Buddhism expounds its theory of cosmology: how the universe began and how it later generates.
Based on this metaphysical reasoning and other arguments, and based on the testimony of individual who are able to recollect their experiences in past lives very vividly, Buddhists make this claim. I am a practitioner, so based on my own limited experiences, and the experiences of my friends, I cannot say with one hundred percent certainty that there is a subtle consciousness.
You scientists don't posit consciousness in the same sense that Buddhist do. At the moment of conception, however, there has to be something that prevents the sperm and egg from simply rotting, and causes it to grow into a human being. When does that occur? Why does that occur?
Antonio Damasio: Biological properties...
Patricia Churchland: Of the cell and DNA. It is an important problem, but it has an explanation that we now understand. It requires no special forces, no supernatural process, no ghostly interventions.
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