Most of us assume that humans exist so as to interact with each other and build societies together. This has become axiomatic in 21st century across the globe, where ever human groups make claim to modernity. Humans interact with each other more than they do with their natural environment. They work with each other to create environments to live their life cycles through. Dogs, elephants, lions do not do that. Dogs play a role within the environment they find themselves in – if they are in the wild, they learn to hunt small game and survive by roaming in packs and re-produce by competing among themselves. But dogs in one pack do not intend to take over other packs around to form a pack empire, within which then they set rules for how dogs will do things etc.
 
So what is different about humans? What brings about such differences? These are two questions that get asked by humans, as they stand back and ponder to figure out how to navigate through the rather complex situations they find themselves in – within the paradigm for humans they seem to have invented for themselves. And over the last 50 years there has been substantial work done in neurology and cognitive sciences to answer those questions. Steven Pinker's writings provide a summary view of the progress made through scientific research into the question of human nature and its drivers – that is what I will use as my window into, what I broadly term as, cognitive sciences.

Science inherited the problem of defining human nature from Theology in Europe. The human began being seen as having body and mind. Body was biological and the mind was projection of the soul, a theological entity. With the scientific method of observation, definition of mind as a pure theological entity was chipped away. But it was replaced by social learning or in other words, impact of the social environment on developing the mind. The soul was still there, but social impact on this soul led to development of texture of the mind in individuals. In the last 25 years or so, the view has taken hold in science that the human mind is a product of biology mostly, with some cosmetic / packaging level impact due to social factors. I am obviously simplifying and the reason for this approach will become clear as we read through the next few articles.

The problem for science is then set up as nature vs nurture, implicitly acknowledging it has nothing to say about the theological role. It then goes on to list observed human phenomena and show how those phenomena can be better explained by biology, than by social learning. What makes this problem, and the approach science takes towards resolving it, interesting? Well, if it is biology then humans apparently may have better direct control over their destinies. That I believe is the crux of human endeavor beyond comfortable survival, individually and collectively: to better be able to navigate uncertainty in their life cycles. The Indian Advaita tradition of Non Duality, which I want to explore in this context of how to describe human nature, sets up the problem of human nature differently a) it sees human body and mind as a spectrum of energies; b) a transient phenomena; c) which has the potential of becoming any one of the myriad sentient entities in the universe. It does not negate biology; only that biology is driven by the spectrum of component energies. It does not negate the mind; only that it is an experience of the component energies changing over time. But it is not physics describing biology and psychology in terms of energies. We will explore how the non-dual approach talks about physics and therefore try to draw from it what is meant by energies.

Clearly the vocabulary of the non-dual model that I will begin describing in these articles will be different from that of science, since the underlying model is different. Underlying the discomfort in accepting the vocabulary of the non-dual model is the question whether this non-dual model should be consigned to the dustbin of history, as science has done to the theological model, needs to be addressed squarely.  If it can be shown that the non-dual model holds promise of a) being subject to scientific inquiry; and  b) has within it propositions that could potentially help humans better navigate their life cycle experiences, then this attempt at bringing out the non-dual model to address some of the questions raised from within current state of cognitive sciences, would have value.

The non-dual model I will begin describing will be a work in progress. It will be based on my readings of 9th century Indian philosopher Shankara, as well my contemplations on the Upanishads, which provide interesting approaches to questions that humans continue to raise about their experiences. The development of the non-dual model in India appears to have come to a stand still after Shankara. Its intellectual development between the Upanishad's and Shankara, in the hands of philosophers such as Nagarjuna,  has not been well researched (or at least not available to interested readers outside a narrow band of academics) to provide its intellectual history as a starting point. And certainly the connection between Indian philosophy and the questions being raised in cognitive sciences in the 21st century has not been made formally. While these may come across as assertions, they are serve me more as assumptions – so that as I begin describing the non-dual model, it is clear to my readers that it is an extension of my understanding and not representation of statements made by Indian philosophers such as Shankara and Nagarjuna.