How about study and direct observation? As for study, how does one filter out any egocentric defence of a prevailing but challengeable explanatory position? With observation, are the human being’s five senses and their processor, the brain, even when assisted by equipment which can register forces operating beyond human perceptual capabilities, able to perceive and measure all the forces and influences ‘out there,’ including acquiring (perhaps) the maths needed to manipulate this potential ‘evidence’?
An example is consciousness. Neuroscientists rely on neural traces established in the brain through experience to explain the workings of the brain, but cannot pin down the location of consciousness, or the sub-conscious, or even the mind which told them about such matters. Hinduism’s Upanishads claim, on the other hand, that the mind is not conscious; and that it is only an instrument of consciousness.
This suggests that consciousness is outside the physical operation of the brain. Is it a force, or facility, or an ‘atmospheric’ influence?
RAJA ARASA RATNAM 