The most important idea in Indian philosophy

LLMs prove it's true because they think without consciousness

The most important idea in Indian philosophy, an idea which has been almost unknown in the West, is this:

Consciousness and mental activity (for example, thinking) are different things.

Another way to say it: Consciousness and its contents are different things.

Western philosophers, theologians, and scientists have almost always assumed the opposite. They take for granted that the two things are inextricably bound, so much so that they don’t have clear, unambiguous concepts for each thing separately.

Descartes’ famous cogito (I think, therefore I am) is a good example of the Western view. Descartes’ argument rests on his assumption that the act of thinking proves that “I” exists. But from the Indian point of view, this leap from “thinking is happening” to “I exist” is unjustified.

And what is this “I”, this thing whose existence Descartes attempted to prove? If we examine it very closely — something that is strangely difficult to do, for reasons that the Indians analyzed in detail — we discover that:

1. What we really mean when we say “I” is a self-evident knowing. It requires no thought or deduction to be known.

2. This self-evident knowing is most clearly apparent when mental activity (including thinking) is absent — the opposite of what Descartes assumed or believed he observed.

3. Because this knowing is self-evident, its existence requires no proof. Once we recognize it — an empirical matter — the idea that its existence requires proof is seen as absurd.

The ancient Indians had many words for this self-evident knowing, especially the Sanskrit word cit. The best English word for it is “consciousness.”

Descartes called his inextricable combination of thought-and-consciousness “mind.” Earlier Europeans called it “soul.”

I should clarify that not all Indian philosophers held what I’m calling the Indian view. It was held by the two main Indian soteriological traditions, Samkhya/Yoga and Advaita Vedanta, and perhaps Yogacara, but rejected by nearly everyone else in India. It was also held by a few non-Indian traditions that were influenced by India including Dzogchen.

One reason why I call it the Indian view is to keep my sentences simple. Another reason is because I think it’s one of humanity’s greatest discoveries and I like to give India credit. Although I call it a view, it’s actually an empirical observation, not a theory. The same observation must have been made many times over the centuries by people in other cultures because it can be made without special training or equipment. Meister Eckhart, a 14th century German priest, is an example. But as far as I know, India is the only civilization where people not only observed independently that consciousness is distinct from its contents but also wrote many books about their discovery, taught the idea in schools, built major philosophical system on it, and incorporated it into religions. The Indians recognized the importance of the discovery and institutionalized it and by doing so, preserved it for all humanity. (Tibet may deserve the same kind of credit. I'm not enough of an historian to know how much of what they did was indigenous and how much derived from Indian influences.)

Another way to describe the difference between the Indian and Western outlooks is this: Both civilizations divided all of reality into two main categories, but they put the dividing line in different places. The two civilizations agree that consciousness is on one side and physical stuff is on the other, but they disagree about where to put thinking and other mental activities.

The West puts thinking together with consciousness. India (the traditions I mentioned, to be precise) puts thinking together with physical stuff.

LLMs demonstrate that the Indians were right. LLMs think but they aren't conscious. You may protest, “But they don't really think. They don't really know what they’re thinking. They don't understand like we do what they’re thinking.” That's exactly right: they don't know that they are thinking or what they are thinking. But neither do you when you daydream, as I pointed out at length in my articles on the lost-in-thought (DMN activity) state. What you’re actually noticing, in my opinion, is that LLMs aren’t conscious. And because you take for granted that thinking requires consciousness, you say their thinking isn’t real thinking.

For the most part, the Indian idea never surfaced in Western philosophy. Plotinus is often named as an exception but I’m not sure that’s true. (If you look only at his metaphysics it’s probably true, but if you look at things that way, the two main Indian traditions I’ve been lauding are radically different. What I’m talking about here is psychology not metaphysics.)

But recently some Western philosophers have started talking about “orthogonality of thought and consciousness” and that really seems to be the Indian idea in modern form.

My favorite LLM at the moment, Claude Opus 4, tells me that this use of “orthogonality” originates in a 2008 paper called Orthogonality of Phenomenality and Content.

He also tells me that recent philosophers express the idea like this: “Consciousness can exist without thinking, and thinking can exist without consciousness.”

I like this verbal formula. Westerners may be late to the party but they’ve shown up with a really nice gift. And you know, when a party has been going on for 2600 years — that’s probably how long ago the Indians discovered the idea — the hosts have seen everything and it’s not easy to find a good gift. Kudos where they’re due!