Page 28 - NAMAH-Oct-2022

Namah Vol. 30, Issue 3, 15th October 2022

The unenviable position of psychology paradigms when they refer to the usage of
consciousness as a term and it would be too
Of all the disciplines studying consciousness, simplistic to make one paradigm reducible

psychology is placed in an unenviable position. in terms of the other.
If psychology has to deal with consciousness
through an understanding of the mind, it has The scientific or mechanistic paradigm of
to acknowledge, albeit non-judgmentally, the consciousness works at the level of matter-
great variety in thinking-patterns. Thus, it energy. This is an area of interest for
cannot ignore the apparently contradictory several disciplines and therefore admits
mindsets of the scientist and the mystic. To a diverse viewpoints ranging from physics to
student of the human mind, both should be molecular biology, from mathematics to neuro-
equally and impartially relevant. After all, it psychology. This diversity of approaches at the
is the ‘mind’ in the scientist that dissects the mechanistic level has a unique advantage in
intricacies of Matter and it is the ‘mind’ in that it helps to understand a phenomenon from
the mystic that unravels the mysteries of the many angles at various points in time and thus
Spirit. If one of the primary concerns of human continually enlarges our repertoire of insights.
psychology is the understanding of the mind, This is not a limitation because truth itself is
then it cannot be biased towards preferential complex and cannot be always expressed in
ideas but should learn to view the individual reductionist and temporal terms.
mind as a representative or a formation of
a universal or an archetypal thought-field In contrast to the mechanistic paradigm,
where both complementary and conflicting the spiritual paradigm of consciousness is
ideas co-exist simultaneously. This is why intuitive, unitary, subtle and experiential. It
the same thing can be perceived differently, might be argued that as the two paradigms are
even though justifiably, by different mindsets. fundamentally different, they should ideally

The diversity of approaches to consciousness be considered in isolation. The scientist should
studies illustrates this phenomenon very well. be happy with the mechanistic paradigm, the
mystic with the spiritual paradigm, while
Scientific and spiritual paradigms poor psychology would have to be contented
without any reference to consciousness just as
The scientist views consciousness as a concept it had to do when introspectionism collapsed
and a phenomenon understandable in terms with the entry of behaviourism in the early
like energy-fields, non-physical fields, qualia, part of the Twentieth Century. However, the
etc. analysed through diverse ways viz. problem is that the mechanistic paradigm
cognitive, neuro-physiological, psychodynamic, itself cannot remain strictly bound within
computational and quantum models. The rigid boundaries and cannot totally disregard
mystic understands consciousness as a truth a place for intuitive or subtle insights.
experientially perceived in the form of a
supreme value, or a Being, or an impersonal, Supra-physical realities
formless status attainable through techniques
like yoga. Thus, the scientist and the mystic There are supra-physical realities that cannot
seem practically to indicate two distinct be merely explained as epiphenomena of

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