Subhash Kak
Subhash Kak (born March 26, 1947, Srinagar, Kashmir) is Delaune Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Professor in the Asian Studies and Cognitive Science Programs at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge. He is best known for his contributions to history and philosophy of science.
His announcement of an astronomy of the Vedic period in his book The Astronomical Code of the Rgveda in 1994 challenged the long-standing academic view related to the Aryan invasion and the nature of early Indian science. This was followed by the co-authored In Search of the Cradle of Civilization the next year that marked the beginning of the serious debate and polemics on the origins of Indian culture.
He is one of the founders of JCIS, a biannual conference on science and consciousness that has been held in North Carolina beginning in the 90s. According to his scientific philosophy, a fundamental subject-object dichotomy makes it possible for science only to deal with objects and not with the perceiving subject and, therefore, it is impossible to create a formal science of consciousness. Since the mind can make models of the outer reality, which, at its deepest level, is quantum mechanical, he argues that the mind must have a quantum mechanical basis. But his view of how the brain works is different from other quantum approaches to it. He sees brain as a machine that reduces the infinite possibilities of a quantum-like universal consciousness, which is a consequence of the recursive nature of reality. The mind can only operate sequentially while reality is simultaneous across countless dimensions, suggesting that such a reduction from a universal consciousness may explain the amazing feats of savants and creative people.
His ideas on mind and consciousness are scattered in a variety of writings. The most accessible sources for his philosophy of recursionism are his books "The Gods Within", "The Architecture of Knowledge", and the cryptic "The Prajna Sutra".
Books
- Patanjali and Cognitive Science (1987)
- India at Century's End (1994)
- In Search of the Cradle of Civilization (1995, 2001)
- The Astronomical Code of the Rgveda (1994, 2000)
- Computing Science in Ancient India (2001)
- The Wishing Tree: The Presence and Promise of India (2001)
- The Gods Within (2002)
- The Asvamedha (2002)
- The Nature of Physical Reality (1986)
- The Prajna Sutra (2003)
- The Architecture of Knowledge (2004)
Poetry:
- The Conductor of the Dead (1974)
- The London Bridge (1977)
- The Secrets of Ishbar (1996)
- Ek Taal, Ek Darpan (1999)
Essays
Interviews
