The Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR) has always been comparative. That is, it explains religious phenomena shared across a large swathe of traditions. Nevertheless, CSR researchers have often generalized familar, Abrahamic religious elements into ones considered the most universal. This is not to say that pioneering work has yet to be done in CSR that recenters non-Abrahamic religious traits. Still, this remains an underexplored area. For this reason, this panel is devoted to the specific exploration of CSR methodology in the strict context of South Asian traditions. By focusing on key elements and thinkers from Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava, Buddhist, and Tantric traditions, we hope to expand the explanatory power of CSR by demonstrating its applicability outside of the Abrahamic sphere.
The siddha-rūpa is the perfected, unique, body that advanced Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava practitioners cognize in meditation and inhabit in liberation. This paper builds on Haberman’s notion that Gauḍīya practitioners inhabit their siddha-rūpa identity through “acting” as in the Stanislavski Method, when performed actions allow actors to fully inhabit their target character’s subjective world (Haberman, 1988). This paper utilizes the interrelated notions of 4E cognition and transjective reality in order to illustrate siddha-rūpa formation as more than a subjective pursuit. According to 4E cognitive science, cognition is not only embodied and enacted, constituted by bodies and what they do, but also embedded and extended within an environment (Rowlands, 2010). Vervaeke’s notion of transjective reality builds on this, proposing that reality is “co-shaped” by an organism and its environment (Vervaeke 2019). I argue that the siddha-rūpa is likewise “co-created” by the relationship between a bhakta and their expansive, immersive “environment” of devotional interrelationship.
This presentation explores the nature of cognition through a dialectic encounter between scientific and religous thought. On the latter side, I draw from the work of two important Buddhist commentarial figures on Dharmakīrti’s (fl. 6th or 7th century CE) Proof of Other Minds (Saṃtānāntarasiddhi): Vinītadeva (710-770) and his Tibetan commentator, Ngawang Tendar (b. 1759). On the former, I draw on Alan Turing (1912-1954), bolstered by the theories of predictive coding championed by Karl Friston (1959-). Both camps are concerned with defining cognition, intelligence, and awareness. That is, how do we know when someone or something is aware and intelligent? This question is especially pressing given the advances of Open AI’s ChatGPT. And while these authors pursue these questions in different contexts, putting their analysis in conversation provides new resources on how we might approach an answer. This dialectic gives fodder for an eliminitavist approach to CSR that overcomes certain hurdles.
One of the most enduring debates within the study of religion over the last century and half has been how to make sense of the plurality of mystical experiences. However, there is a rich history in Indian theological and philosophical thought that has recognized and developed various theories relative to their particular worldview. Among these is the mystical pluralism of early Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava theology, the most comprehensive articulation of which is arguably found in Jīva Gosvāmin’s Ṣat Sandarbhas (ca. 16th c.). To make sense of Jīva’s theory of mystical pluralism, I argue, we can take a multiprong approach that draws on history, contemporary theories of mysticism, and psychological scientific research. I argue that different soteriological processes, such as those that Jīva discusses, can serve as learning strategies that help one increasingly internalize a particular conception of divine reality and what it is like to experience or perceive it.
This preseentation offers a comparative assessment involving a contemporary, currently popular neuroscientific theory addressing the relation between the mind and the body, Integrated Information Theory (IIT 3.0), in relation to a medieval Indian model, the 11th century Hindu philosopher Abhinavagupta’s nondualist Tantric panentheism, the Pratyabhijñā, or Recognition philosophy. What is unique about Abhinavagupta’s philosophical model is that he uses a first-person perspective as a primary ontology, and in a departure from other Indian idealist monisms such as Advaita Vedānta, insists on the reality of the external world. I suggest that Abhinavagupta’s philosophical insights can help us to think through some of the logical ramifications of a first-person perspective—specifically, that Abhinavagupta’s use of a first-person ontology as a way of bridging the mind-body gap can shed light on the cognitive neuroscience model formulated in Tononi et al.’s IIT 3.0.
| Tejas Aralere | Tejas.Aralere@unh.edu | View |