Perception in VP

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Note 2: VP on perception:

Namaste All,

There's the use of a curious word 'perceptuality' in VP

(pg.13 trans.) which I'm sure is a translation of a Sansrit technical

term. I take it that it means 'capacity to be perceived'. Well you may

say, that's easy, ask me a hard one. If I stand in front of the tree in

my yard and look directly at it not being brain damaged etc then I will

see the tree. Yes, that's correct but there's a little more. Evidently

when I am aware of the tree it is present to my consciousness but it is

not physically inside my head. Psychologically certain events are taking

place in areas of the brain but what is it that gives me the knowledge of

the tree and not of some brain events? What makes the mental modification

of the tree to *be* the tree. What is the nature of the tree or anything

else that allows this? Here the question is metaphysical i.e. concerning

fundamental reality, rather than psychological i.e. concerning the sensory

apparatus of the human being.

 

Quote (pg.13 VP)((my comments))

" Objection: What, then, is the criterion (prayojaka) of perceptuality

according to the tenets of Vedanta?

Reply: Do you inquire about the criterion of the perceptuality of

knowledge or of objects? ((mental modification, within the consciousness

of the subject or the object itself)) If it be the former, we say it is

the unity of the Consciousness reflected in the means of knowledge with

the Consciousness limited by the object. To be explicit: Consciousness is

threefold - as associated with the object (visaya), with the means of

knowledge (pramana) and with the subject or knower (pramatr). Of these,

Consciousness limited by a jar etc, is the Consciousness associated with

the object; that limited by the mental state is the Consciousness

associated with the means of knowledge; and that limited by the mind is

the Consciousness associated with the subject. "

 

Very well it may be asked given the fact that we have the sort of senses

that we do, particular to humans does that not mean that the object that

we hold in our minds is different from that of a bee or a bat or for all

we know another human being? Sankara writes of this but it must be the

subject of another post.

 

Best Wishes,

Michael