Part I : The Evolution of a Cat from matter to mind & nothingness

This is the first part of my multi-part series through which I would track the quest of a clairvoyant cat through the annals of reasoning , faith , philosophy , physics and software engineering.

Background:Last month my mother-in-law presented me a book written by Immanuel Kant in German (Zum ewigen Frieden und andere Schriften). Although I don’t read German but my better half could always help me with the translation.The problem was that I suddenly remembered an advise from Will Durant that said “Kant is the last person whom we should read on Kant.To adapt Hegel’s phrase about Spinoza: to be a philosopher , one must first have been a Kantian.” During one such intense read of Durant in the backseat of office bus I imagined a mythical , clairvoyant cat which would travel with me through the brightest human minds of all times and reflect their reasoning,perception & deduction and finally arrive at our contemporary software era.

Let us adjust the space-time surrounding to reach George Berkley’s drawing room to meet our clairvoyant cat who is measuring him with a sidelong stare.The cat can almost hear Berkley’s thoughts in his ears :

<The Cat’s Mind processing Thought Stream of Berkley>

“there is nothing in the mind except that was first in the senses” (1) which is untrue as the reality of the cat is only that its image is projecting on the retina of my eyes…the cat is a mere quantum of my consciousness made up of fur,tail , claws and other body parts..if I was devoid of senses the lazy cat would lose its existence … so the cat extrapolated to all matter living or non-living would cease to exist without mind (2)

</Out of the Cat’s Mind>

The cat now cognizant of destruction of matter curled its tail against its body in fear.But the same voice on the back of its head told that it would soon discover a mind so powerful that it would destroy itself!! It was essential for the mind to be destroyed now for the survival of matter. The wait following the anticipation was over soon , David Hume at the mere age of twenty-six wrote A Treatise of Human Nature in France, and our cat deduced:

<In the Cat’s Mind>

Our understanding and the recognition of mind , is identical to our ways of recognition of matter , via perception!! “The mind is not a substance,an organ that has ideas ;it is only an abstract name for the series of ideas” (3)

</Out of the Cat’s Mind>

The cat heaved a sigh of relief now that the ultimate judge of the matter , the mind, is destroyed.But then after a little introspection it realized that both matter and mind have been destroyed by Berkley & Hume respectively. The history stood a mute spectator of this annihilation! The cat was in search of another brilliant mind..

(1)Locke (2) In the same way this phenomenon applied to household cleanliness would destroy all the dirt and unstable state being the most stable state (Law of Thermodynamics), together prevents us to have a clean and ordered living space (Is my wife listening!) (3) Wil Durant – The Story of Philosophy

PHOTO COURTESY : The evolution of cat photo is an wonderful work by Mzelle Biscotte , the license details are here and the black cat photo is a great work by fazen released with the following license

Part I : The Evolution of a Cat from matter to mind & nothingness by Shudh Datta is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 India License.