The Mind and the Natural World: Buddhism, Science and the Reality of Reality

This chapter deals with the central issue of the reality of the internal and external human world and how this was considered by the most brilliant human thinkers and scientists. The understanding of the inner and external world occurs unavoidably as the perceptions provided by the senses are processed by the brain and in the mind, thus becoming partially available to consciousness. The awareness and the knowledge of the natural world occur through the filter and elaboration of the individual experiences of each subject. Even more poignant is that when the inner human world is considered, the unavoidable problem encountered is the intrinsic limitation of the object of investigation being the same instrument by which the analysis is performed. Mental activity is subjected to vast areas of subconscious inaccessibility and to emotional modulation; in this way, the brain provides a limited selection of its elaboration of the whole perception and thought processes, to the portion of mind cognitively active in any specific moment. Reality can be regarded in this perspective as a product of the individual minds, a subjective product basically indistinguishable from a dream, a nightmare or a psychedelic experience caused by hallucinogenic drugs.