And they ask you concerning the soul. Say, ‘The soul is by the command of my Lord; and of the knowledge thereof you have been given but a little.’ (Al Quran 17:85)
And they ask you (Muhammad) concerning the soul. Say, ‘The soul is by the command of my Lord; and of the knowledge thereof you have been given but a little.’ (Al Quran 17:85)
Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times
After decades of search, I have found my soul-mate, Robert Lawrence Kuhn. He is obsessed with human consciousness and Afterlife and so am I. While, I find so much common between myself and him there is a slight difference also. He is an agnostic Jew and I am a Muslim theist. But, there are strong reasons for me to team up with him to bring these subjects with greater clarity to the Muslim and other audience.
When people from different Abrahamic faiths work together, it not only promotes interfaith tolerance, but also brings them ‘closer to truth.’
Kuhn is the creator, writer and host of the public television series Closer to Truth, which presents scientists and philosophers discussing fundamental issues (cosmos, consciousness, philosophy/religion).[9] Kuhn’s presentation, Asking Ultimate Questions,[10] is the foundation of Closer To Truth.
My obsession about the subject of human consciousness and Afterlife, like Kuhn’s, stems from natural human curiosity and human struggle with our mortality and in my case also from my devotion to the Quran.
There are at least two verses of the Quran about sleep that flatter me, as I am a practicing Sleep Disorders specialist in upstate New York, and help maintain my obsession about these subjects:
Allah takes away the souls of human beings at the time of their death; and of those also that are not yet dead, during their sleep. And then He retains those against which He has decreed death, and sends back the others till an appointed term. In that surely are Signs for a people who reflect. (Al Quran 39:42)
And among His Signs is your sleep by night and day, and your seeking of His bounty. In that surely are Signs for a people who hear. (Al Quran 30:23)
My task here is to simply propose a hypothesis that someday better understanding of additional dimensions will give us further insights into human consciousness. These would also provide for a means of constant duplication of human consciousness, in additional dimensions, into another medium and for a later day substantiation of the same after our death in Afterlife.
Having said that I want to now catalogue useful videos and other materials under three headings below and in the comments section, until I or others have additional insights to offer:
My collection of articles about soul and Afterlife
For my articles about consciousness or human soul please click here and for Afterlife.
Videos about consciousness
Think of each video of Robert Kuhn as a collection of different interviews. He starts with an opening statement and then 4-5 interviews, to be concluded with his final remarks.
I want to start off with three videos in this section and then several more in the comment section:
One of the interviewees in the middle of the above video is Deepak Chopra. He suggests that the most fundamental and foundational thing is consciousness. As a theist, if I were to accept that, I would say that the basis of all reality is consciousness of the Infinite, All-Knowing God:
Is He who created the heavens and earth not able to create the likes of these people? Of course He is! He is the All Knowing Creator: when He wills something to be, His way is to say, ‘Be’– and it is! So glory be to Him in whose Hand lies control over all things. It is to Him that you will all be brought back.’ (Al Quran 36:81-83)
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Videos about extra dimensions
Current versions of string theory require 10 dimensions total, while an even more hypothetical über-string theory known as M-theory requires 11. But when we look around the universe, we only ever see the usual three spatial dimensions plus the dimension of time.
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Epilogue
God of the Quran works through laws of nature and one of His 99 attributes is the Hidden الْبَاطِنُ, mentioned in chapter 57 of the Quran. This draws our attention to naturalism in a methodological sense not only for the scientists, but for the Creator as well, without metaphysically denying theism. If there is Afterlife then the All Knowing God has set up mechanisms, not necessarily for the preservation of human soul at the time of death but for it’s duplication. There is a Quranic verse that draws our attention to it:
Your creation and your being raised again in Afterlife are nothing more than the creation of single soul for Allah. Indeed He is All-Hearing and All-Seeing. (Al Quran 31:28)
Humanity can claim to have solved or demystified the mystery of consciousness, when and if they are able to create or recreate it. Until then there would be attempts to solve it and sometimes tall claims of triumphalism and slogans raised in favor of atheism.
Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times
Many if not most present day scientists and philosophers in the West are atheists, so no wonder that they believe that all that exists, in our universe are the material or physical things, matter and energy and the whole existence can be explained from these foundations. I beg to differ.
My job has been made easy by Robert Lawrence Kuhn, by making hundreds if not thousands of videos on the subject of cosmology, mathematics, metaphysics and religion. If I can outsource to him to explain, why mathematics does exist in a plantonic sense as an addition to the material existence suggested by the atheists then all I have to prove is that if mathematics exists then God exists necessarily.
My proof for my assignment will have two sections to it:
A. Mathematics cannot exist but in the mind of a Conscious Being.
B. Mathematical equations do not have any creative power and this can be taken as a brute fact for now and over time we can put some flesh on the skeleton of this brute fact. As we exist and we observe the universe and therefore something exists and that something could not have come from mathematical equations alone.
Now, I can conveniently discuss all my premises under three headings below.
Mathematics exists in a platonic sense and is not merely discovered?
The first interviewee in the above video is Sean Carroll. He is a physicist and an atheist and given his perspectives, he suggests that the total reality is merely Quantum mechanical wave function. The next interviewee starting at minute 8 is David Chalmers who coined the hard question of consciousness. He rejects physicalism of Carroll and others as he he constantly obsesses over consciousness and cannot deny it. So, now we have another thing, consciousness, added to the list of foundational categories to the list of things that exist. Chalmers does not believe that abstract objects or mathematics have separate fundamental existence. The final interviewee in this video is Page, who is unabashedly a theist, like myself and has a specific category in addition to the physical universe, namely God. He is no big fan of mathematics either, he describes mathematics as a logical necessity. If that be so then one of the three premises of my article collapses. My argument will hold only for those who believe in the fundamental platonic existence of mathematics. So, for that let me go to additional videos of Robert Lawrence Kuhn:
I do not have a horse in the race in the above video. All I am saying is that if you believe that mathematics is discovered, then I am suggesting that what necessarily follows is that mathematics exists independently and so does the God of Abrahamic faiths.
Roger Penrose is the first person interviewed in the above video and he suggests that many mathematicians feel that it has some independent existence. He describes mathematics as a platonic reality.
Around minute 12 of the above video, Gregory Chaitin a mathematician suggests that mathematics may be in the head of God, for lack of any better explanation. This is a perfect segue to our next section and heading:
Mathematics cannot exist but in the mind of a Conscious Being
In the above video, Luke A. Barnes, who is an Australian cosmologist is interviewed around minute 11.30. He suggests that mathematics should be considered as thoughts in the necessary being: God. In the Quran we repeatedly find mention that Allah created the heavens and the earth and what is between the two, in other words the whole of the universe or the multiverse, ‘with truth.’ The Quranic expression, ‘truth,’ in this context can and should be considered as mathematical truth. In other words God created the universe with the laws of mathematics.
Now, let me quote a few mentions of this theme in the Quran:
We have created the heavens and the earth and all that is between the two in accordance with the perfect truth and wisdom. (Al Quran 15:85)
He has created the heavens and the earth in accordance with the perfect truth and wisdom. Exalted is He far above all that they associate with Him. (Al Quran 16:3)
There truly are signs in the creation of the heavens and earth, and in the alternation of night and day, for those with understanding, who remember God standing, sitting, and lying down, who reflect on the creation of the heavens and earth: ‘Our Lord! You have not created all this without purpose or without truth – You are far above that!’ (Al Quran 3:190-191)
Do you not see that Allah has created the heavens and the earth in accordance with the perfect truth and wisdom? If He please, He can do away with you, and bring a new creation. (Al Quran 14:19)
Another interviewee in this video asks the question if God is in any way constrained by the mathematical truths? I believe that the theological answer can be very simple here. Just like Allah cannot tell a lie, He is also constrained by the mathematical truths and cannot violate them. However, His mathematics may be far more extensive than the human mathematics, possibly infinite. That I believe is closer to the truth!
Mathematical equations do not have any creative power
The heading above, can be taken as a brute fact or self evident. It may not be difficult to imagine that humans can build things based on mathematical models, but, equations written on a paper or even if inscribed on a stone have no creative power.
If we believe that the universe cannot exist without the mathematical laws, which may have platonic existence as abstract objects, then it inevitably leads to a Conscious Being that has created the universe in line with these mathematical laws.
While we marvel at this brute fact, we may as well marvel over a few other ideas, in the videos below.
In the first video below the last interviewee, David Bentley Hart, makes the best case for God being necessary and every thing else is contingent:
The Quranic Compassion 