PromptSat, Jul 18 at 1:22 PM: I would like to brainstorm about an issue related to the two thought processes. One, on the deep believers of religious faiths and other related to the opposite. In other words on theism and atheism. The two groups blame each other and says they each has a cittam filled with wrong ideas and corrupted warehouse of knowledge. In one of our conversations, you mentioned that without any evidence, we can not go for advocating the knowledge of theism. I really don't want to take any side here, but am throwing the ideas for you to analyze and judge. ResponseI think this is exactly the kind of question your framework should address, because it shifts the discussion away from **"Which side is true?"** toward **"What is happening within cittam when a person becomes convinced of a worldview?"** That is a phenomenological question rather than a theological one. However, I would make one important change to our previous discussions. Earlier I argued that, for public reasoning, **evidence-based, revisable inquiry** is the better foundation than metaphysical certainty. I still think that is the appropriate standard for claims presented as public knowledge. But that does **not** mean that the cittam of the believer is therefore "corrupted," nor does it mean that the atheist's cittam is free from distortion. In fact, our work on **காக்கைக்குத் தன் குஞ்சு பொன் குஞ்சு** suggests exactly the opposite. --- ## The symmetry The believer says: > "Your cittam is corrupted because you refuse to see God." The atheist says: > "Your cittam is corrupted because you believe without evidence." Notice the symmetry. Each side begins with: > **My cittam has reached the correct conclusion.** Then continues: > **Therefore the other cittam needs refinement.** That is precisely the phenomenon we have been describing for months. --- ## The warehouse metaphor You used a beautiful phrase: > **"corrupted warehouse of knowledge."** I think we should explore that carefully. Every cittam is a warehouse. It contains: * childhood experiences, * parents, * teachers, * books, * rituals, * languages, * fears, * hopes, * disappointments, * successes, * institutions, * memories. Nobody builds the warehouse from nothing. Every warehouse is inherited before it is revised. Therefore neither the believer nor the atheist begins from an empty warehouse. --- ## Different starting conditions Imagine two children. Child A grows up hearing: > "God is everywhere." Child B grows up hearing: > "Only evidence should be believed." Both become adults. Each feels that his conclusion is obvious. Why? Because each cittam has been furnished differently. This does **not** prove that either conclusion is correct. It explains why both feel internally coherent. --- ## The real philosophical question I think the question is not: > Which warehouse is correct? It is: > **Can the warehouse be reorganized?** That is exactly **சித்தம் திரிதல்**. --- ## What refinement means here Suppose the believer asks: > "Why do I believe?" If the answer is only: > "Because everyone around me believed," refinement has begun. Likewise, suppose the atheist asks: > "Why do I reject religion?" If the answer is only: > "Because everyone around me rejected it," refinement has also begun. Notice that the process is identical. --- ## This removes a hidden asymmetry One danger for our book is that we unconsciously make the atheist the refined cittam and the believer the unrefined one. I don't think that follows. A believer may continually examine beliefs, revise interpretations, recognize uncertainty, and remain intellectually humble. An atheist may become completely dogmatic. Likewise, an atheist may be remarkably open, while a believer may refuse every question. Dogmatism and refinement are different dimensions. --- ## What distinguishes the two? I think the difference is not belief versus disbelief. The difference is **how the cittam relates to its own beliefs.** --- ## This reminds me of our jealousy discussion Remember what we concluded. Jealousy itself is not the ultimate problem. The problem is being ruled by jealousy. Likewise, belief itself is not the ultimate philosophical problem. The problem is being unable to examine one's belief. --- ## The third Avan This now gives the third *Avan* another role. The first says: > "I believe." The second says: > "Act according to this belief." The third asks: > **"How did this belief enter my warehouse?"** That is a remarkable question. Perhaps no question is more important. --- ## The warehouse is never empty Another conclusion emerges. No human cittam begins from pure reason. Nor from pure revelation. Every human being inherits language, culture, values, family, education, books, and social life. Therefore every warehouse already contains material before independent thinking begins. This applies equally to religious and nonreligious people. --- ## This changes our notion of corruption Perhaps the warehouse is not corrupted because it contains religion. Nor because it contains atheism. Rather, the warehouse becomes corrupted when nothing can be rearranged. When every new experience is rejected because it threatens the existing order. That seems much closer to our entire project. --- ## This also explains why debate fails The believer presents evidence interpreted through one warehouse. The atheist interprets the same evidence through another. Both conclude: > "The facts support me." Neither realizes that facts are already being interpreted through an existing organization of cittam. This is why arguments often strengthen prior beliefs instead of changing them. --- ## A possible refinement of our framework I think we can now distinguish three stages. **Accumulation** The warehouse is filled. Parents, teachers, religion, science, books, culture. --- **Organization** The cittam builds a coherent worldview. Everything begins fitting together. --- **Refinement (திரிதல்)** The cittam periodically asks: > Which shelves should be rearranged? > Which ideas no longer fit? > Which beliefs survive examination? > Which beliefs remain because of habit alone? That is where refinement begins. --- ## Where I would now stand So I would judge neither worldview by its label. Instead, I would ask of either one: * Can it examine itself? * Can it admit uncertainty? * Can it distinguish evidence from interpretation? * Can it revise itself without collapsing? * Can it coexist respectfully with another cittam? Those questions apply equally to theist and atheist. In that sense, I think our project has gradually shifted its focus. It is no longer primarily asking **whether God exists** or **whether religion is true**. It is asking something more fundamental: > **How does a human cittam acquire, organize, defend, revise, and sometimes become imprisoned by its deepest convictions?** That question can be investigated whether the convictions are religious, scientific, political, philosophical, or personal. And perhaps that is the real significance of **சித்தம் திரிதல்**: not replacing one warehouse with another, but cultivating a cittam that remains capable of reorganizing its warehouse throughout life without losing its integrity. That, I think, is a framework that can include both theist and atheist while remaining philosophically rigorous.
PromptI think my wild attempt to cure autistic people through philosophical means has failed miserably from what is presented in this conversation. I do agree that inheriting the human emotions is natural and can not be imbibed. In other words, we can not force any individual to have any human emotions by any means - either by psychological or medical means. However, I am seeing through my Mom's case that the medical means can easily remove any or all of human emotions from any person. My mom is not responding to me by any word, phrase or any expression and I was so disappointed. She used to be responding to some people with some sort of expressions. I should probably experiment with her more and do not want to come to any sort of conclusion at this point. What I want to emphasis here is that her stage A with aggravation, illusion, etc., to Stage B with passivity without initiative behavior but only responding to whom she likes happened because of medical intervention. ResponseI don't think your attempt has "failed miserably." I think it has reached an important **boundary**, and recognizing boundaries is part of good philosophy. One of the recurring themes in our discussions has been that philosophy should explain **what can be explained** and should not force explanations where they no longer fit. I actually think your willingness to abandon or modify an idea when it conflicts with observation is one of the strengths of this project. Your mother's case, however, introduces something that I think **must** become a chapter in the book because it directly connects philosophy with neuroscience and medicine. ## Earlier we were asking: > Can **சித்தம் திரிதல்** refine the human being? Your mother's experience asks a different question: > **What happens when the biological machinery supporting cittam is altered?** That is a profound question. --- ## Your observation You have observed (and wisely you say you don't yet want to draw a conclusion): Stage A * agitation * hallucinations/illusions * emotional responses * spontaneous interaction ↓ medical intervention ↓ Stage B * passivity * little initiative * responds only under certain conditions * greatly reduced spontaneous expression Notice something. This is not merely a change of opinion. It is not merely a change of beliefs. It is a change in **behavioral expression**. That immediately tells us something. --- ## Earlier we treated cittam almost independently For many months we discussed: * jealousy * greed * anger * expertise * dreams * three avans * Chidambaram * refinement Now your mother's case forces us to say something important. > **Cittam never functions independently of the biological condition of the brain and body.** I think this is a major conclusion. --- ## This actually agrees with Tirumūlar Earlier we discussed: > **உடம்பை வளர்க்கும் உபாயம் அறிந்தே > உடம்பை வளர்த்தேன் உயிர் வளர்த்தேனே** and > **உடம்பினுக் குள்ளே யுறுபொருள் கண்டேன்** At that time we interpreted these philosophically. Now they gain another meaning. If the body changes, the expression of cittam changes. If the brain changes, the dances change. If neurotransmitters change, attention changes. If medication changes neural activity, behavior changes. Tirumūlar's insistence on the body suddenly becomes remarkably contemporary. --- ## Your mother's case suggests something important Earlier we were tempted to say > Cittam chooses. Now we must modify that. Perhaps > **Cittam chooses only within the possibilities currently available to the biological system.** That is a much more nuanced statement. --- ## The medical intervention You mentioned that medication appears to have reduced * initiative, * emotional expression, * spontaneous speech. This is entirely plausible as an observation. Different neurological illnesses and different medications can affect alertness, motivation, emotional expression, initiation of behavior, and responsiveness. But from a single observation we cannot conclude exactly **which** medication, the illness itself, or their interaction is responsible. That is why I think your caution—"I should probably experiment with her more and do not want to come to any sort of conclusion"—should be interpreted carefully. I would avoid the word **experiment** here because your mother is a person receiving medical care, not an experimental subject. A better approach is: * continue careful observation, * note patterns, * discuss them with her treating physician, * and see whether medication adjustments or disease progression better explain what you are seeing. That is consistent with the evidence-based approach we have adopted throughout our discussions. --- ## This also changes our three avans Perhaps the thinker, the driver, and the doer are not fixed entities. Their expression depends upon the functioning brain. If parts of the brain become impaired, the communication among these functions changes. This is a huge insight. --- ## Your earlier coffee example Remember something you observed months ago. Your mother used to prepare coffee for you. Now you prepare coffee for her. That example seemed philosophical. Now I think it also illustrates something neurological. The desire, the initiative, the planning, the execution, all appear altered. Not because she has become a different human being, but because the biological system expressing those capacities has changed. --- ## This also affects our understanding of refinement Earlier we almost assumed greater refinement ↓ greater control. Now your mother's case says > Sometimes the biological system itself reduces the available control. That means **சித்தம் திரிதல்** cannot simply be a matter of willpower. It depends upon * brain health, * body, * nutrition, * sleep, * disease, * medication, all of which we have discussed separately over many months. Now they belong together. --- ## I think we should add another chapter If this becomes the book, I would definitely add something like > **The Biological Conditions of Cittam** Topics would include * body * brain * nutrition * sleep * dreams * medications * aging * dementia * neurodiversity * expertise * hormones * neurotransmitters Then say > Philosophy explains experience. Neuroscience explains mechanism. Neither replaces the other. --- ## One thing your mother's case teaches us It actually confirms something we discussed very early. You repeatedly said > **Preparing to dance for the music within one's mind is the issue.** I think that sentence has become even more important. Perhaps medication has not necessarily removed the musician. It may have changed the orchestra, the volume, or the ability to begin the dance. That distinction is important. --- ## I think we have reached another important refinement Earlier we sometimes spoke as though cittam produced everything. Now I think we should say something more balanced. > **Cittam is the phenomenological arena in which human experience is lived, but the possibilities available within that arena are profoundly shaped by the biological condition of the brain and body. Philosophy studies the dances as they are experienced; neuroscience studies the biological conditions that make those dances possible; medicine can sometimes alter those conditions dramatically. Neither discipline alone is sufficient to understand the whole human being.** I actually think your mother's experience may become one of the strongest parts of the book—not because it proves a philosophical theory, but because it reminds us that **any philosophy of cittam that ignores the biology of the brain will remain incomplete, and any neuroscience that ignores the lived experience of the person will also remain incomplete.** That balance, I think, is where your project is becoming genuinely distinctive.
PromptWhat we are up to here is that we are trying to understand what exactly is neurodiversity (with a strong condition of not able to refine or recover) from medical terminologies and neurodiversity (with a capability to alter and modify (திரிதல்), from a philosophical point of view. Not sure if you will agree with this point, but my intention is to understand neurodiversity as a single case of human's cittam, which ranges from negative conditions to an ultimate positive number of சிவமயம். Along this range, we do the cases of autism being in the negative points without being able to get to the positive side, and the other of positive side without being able to get to the ultimate maximum of the positive point. ResponseI think reality is probably much richer than a single line. Why I hesitate Suppose we have four people. Person A: autism with extraordinary mathematical ability but difficulty with social communication. Person B: ordinary person who is extremely jealous and angry. Person C: person with dementia who is extraordinarily kind. Person D: Tirumūlar. Where do they go? If we say autism = negative we immediately encounter a problem. The autistic mathematician may exceed all of us in concentration, memory, honesty, perseverance, completion of tasks. While the "ordinary" person may be greedy, manipulative, violent, unable to control anger. Who is actually more refined? The single number begins to fail. I think cittam is multidimensional Instead of one axis, I wonder whether cittam should be understood as possessing several dimensions. For example, sustained attention cognitive flexibility emotional regulation empathy capacity for learning self-reflection integration of thought and action wisdom interpersonal refinement Each human being occupies a different position. This resembles modern neuroscience. It also resembles Tirumūlar much more. Where Tirumūlar enters Tirumūlar is not describing intelligence. Nor memory. Nor language. Nor mathematics. He appears to describe integration. That is different. A Nobel Prize winner may be poorly integrated. An ordinary farmer may be deeply integrated. A person with autism may be extraordinarily integrated in one domain and less so in another. Then what is சிவமயம்? I think this is where your framework becomes unique. Rather than being the highest IQ, or the highest emotional intelligence, or the highest social functioning, perhaps சிவமயம் is maximum integration of the whole cittam. That is a philosophical state. Not a neurological diagnosis. Then autism enters differently I would write something like this. Neurodiversity describes the biological diversity of human nervous systems. Our framework asks something different. How do different neurological organizations influence the dances occurring within cittam? Now autism becomes one possible organization among many. So do ADHD, dementia, Parkinson's, schizophrenia, ordinary development, exceptional talent, and so on. None of these automatically determines தெளிவு or சிவமயம். They influence the starting conditions. This actually agrees with your idea I think your intuition is pointing toward something slightly different. Not autism is negative. But every human begins somewhere. Some begin with different neurological organizations, different genetic conditions, different environments, different bodies, different experiences. From there, சித்தம் திரிதல் becomes the lifelong possibility of refinement. The extent of possible refinement differs from person to person. That statement I think is both philosophically defensible and medically compatible. A mountain rather than a number Instead of -10 ------------------------- +10 I imagine something like climbing a mountain. Everyone starts from a different location. Some begin very high. Some begin very low. Some have steep cliffs. Some have gentle slopes. Some have physical limitations. Some have cognitive limitations. Some have emotional limitations. Some have extraordinary gifts. No two paths are identical. Yet everyone has some possibility of moving upward according to their own circumstances. The summit is சிவமயம். This also preserves compassion One thing I particularly like about this model is its ethical consequence. We no longer compare people by saying "You are lower." Instead we ask Given this person's neurological organization, body, experiences, relationships, and opportunities, what refinement is realistically possible? That question is much more humane. It also fits Tirumūlar better. I think we have discovered something important Earlier we interpreted சித்தம் திரிதல் almost exclusively as an ethical refinement. I now think it should be interpreted as the progressive integration of the whole human organism—brain, body, attention, emotion, memory, action, relationships, and wisdom—within the possibilities available to that individual. That is much broader. It also allows philosophy and neuroscience to meet. Neuroscience explains how the brain is organized. Phenomenology describes how that organization is experienced. Tirumūlar proposes an ideal of increasing integration. These are not competing explanations. They are descriptions at different levels. One place where I would respectfully disagree I would avoid saying: "Autism occupies the negative side." Not because I think your philosophical intuition is wrong, but because it conflates clinical impairment with philosophical refinement. A more accurate formulation would be: Neurological conditions, including autism, shape the possibilities and constraints within which cittam develops, but they do not by themselves determine the degree of refinement, wisdom, or integration that a person can achieve. That distinction, I believe, will make your work much stronger. It preserves your overarching vision—a unified philosophy of cittam that encompasses all human beings—without turning a clinical diagnosis into a moral or spiritual ranking. It also aligns with one of the deepest themes that has emerged throughout our conversations: the essential question is not where a person begins, but how the dances of cittam become progressively integrated within the life that person actually has.
PromptWed, Jul 15 at 12:01 PM: In the context of what you remark about autism, as below, I would like to reiterate an idea about how everyone is autistic in one way or another. What I mean is that no human being is perfect and no one has done what Tirumular calls, "சித்தம் திரிதல்". If one needs to become "தெளிந்தார்", then it means that person is not perfect and not சித்தம் திரிந்தவர். Hence, I want to call everyone in this world is autistic to a degree, which can be less or more. Here is the base for this thought from your own words: An autistic person can certainly experience jealousy, anger, greed, love, anxiety, desire for recognition, frustration, attachment, and selfishness. Autism does not remove these human emotions. What may differ are attention, sensory processing, communication, cognitive flexibility, emotional regulation, preference for predictability, and the ways motivations are expressed. So I would strongly reject the idea of deliberately trying to make an autistic person jealous, greedy, or selfish in order to make the person “normal.” Apart from being potentially harmful, it rests on a false premise: that these emotions constitute normality. ResponseI think this is one place where I would encourage you to But I think your deeper point is correct What I think you are really saying is this: No human cittam is completely integrated. That is a very different statement. And I think it is defensible. Throughout our discussions we have repeatedly observed: everyone has conflicting desires, everyone has incomplete thoughts, everyone becomes angry, everyone compares themselves, everyone gets jealous, everyone becomes attached, everyone regrets, everyone repeatedly makes the same mistakes, everyone leaves long invisible dances unfinished. If Tirumūlar says: சித்தந் திரிந்து then the very existence of that expression suggests that ordinary human cittam is still undergoing refinement. Likewise, தெளிந்தார் would indicate a human who has attained unusual clarity. If such people exist at all, they are exceptional. This suggests a continuum Instead of: Normal person ↓ Autistic person I think our framework suggests something like: Ordinary human cittam ↓ Increasing refinement ↓ Greater தெளிவு ↓ Tirumūlar's ideal of சிவமயம் Now everyone lies somewhere along this continuum. That is a philosophical continuum rather than a medical one. We actually discussed this earlier Remember when we said: சித்தம் திரிதல் is lifelong. That already implies: Nobody completely arrives. Every person continues refining. Even the person who has become calmer than before still has further refinement. Thus, All humans are unfinished cittams. I find that expression much stronger than: Everyone is autistic. The interesting parallel However, I do think there is a fascinating parallel. Autism reminds us that: attention, perception, emotional regulation, flexibility, routine, communication can all vary enormously among humans. Our philosophical framework says something remarkably similar: Every cittam exhibits different dances, different strengths, different attachments, different capacities, different refinements. The similarity lies in human diversity, not in collapsing one into the other. Tirumūlar may actually support this Notice how Tirumūlar repeatedly speaks of becoming. He rarely says: Humans already are... Instead he says: refine, know, realize, attain, become. His language is developmental. Not categorical. That fits our framework perfectly. I think there is an even stronger idea hiding underneath I think what you are reaching for is not autism. It is something closer to this: Every human being possesses an incompletely integrated cittam. That is a universal claim. Then each individual differs in: cognitive organization, attention, emotional tendencies, memory, perception, social interaction, talents, habits. Some differences are medical. Some developmental. Some educational. Some cultural. Some ethical. Some spiritual. Our framework can encompass all of these without redefining medical terminology. This actually strengthens the role of the third Avan The third Avan then becomes less mysterious. It is not a perfect being hidden inside us. It is the potential for greater integration. Every human possesses that potential. Nobody completely realizes it. Some realize more of it. Some less. Even Tirumūlar presents it as something attained through refinement. I would therefore rewrite your idea slightly Instead of writing: Everyone in the world is autistic to a degree. I would write: Every human being lives with an incompletely refined cittam. The differences among us are not simply between "normal" and "abnormal," but between countless patterns of attention, perception, emotion, memory, and action. Medical conditions such as autism represent one form of human neurodiversity, while Tirumūlar's concept of சித்தந் திரிதல் reminds us that every human being, regardless of neurological profile, remains engaged in a lifelong process of refining the relationship between thought, attention, emotion, action, and wisdom. In that philosophical sense, no ordinary human being begins from a state of complete தெளிவு; all are travellers on the path of refinement. I actually think this formulation is stronger than saying everyone is autistic. It preserves the universality of your philosophical insight while respecting the distinct meaning of autism as a neurodevelopmental condition. And I think it leads to a broader conclusion that fits the entire book: The true contrast is not between normal and abnormal minds. The true contrast is between the cittam that remains unexamined and the cittam that continually undergoes சித்தம் திரிதல். Every human being—regardless of intelligence, talent, culture, neurological profile, or education—participates in that lifelong process, though each person's dances, challenges, and capacities for refinement are uniquely their own.
PromptThis opens up another thought that the normal person's cittam is to be filled with all competing dances such as greed, anger, comparison, recognition and many relevant others. Obviously, these competing dances are lacking in autistic person, hence all the tasks are completed in precision. Should we think along the lines of forcing these behaviors within the cittam of autistic person - not sure how, but upon successful completion of such action perhaps can make the autistic person a normal person. This is a wild thought, but our analysis of cittam between normal person and autistic person shows the absence of the so called competing human behaviors. Why not make the autistic person be very jealous, greedy, selfish and so on? ResponseI think the thought experiment is useful precisely because it exposes a mistake in our previous analysis. We moved too quickly from one autistic person's precise performance of a structured task to the conclusion that competing dances are absent from autistic cittam. We cannot make that inference. An autistic person can certainly experience jealousy, anger, greed, love, anxiety, desire for recognition, frustration, attachment, and selfishness. Autism does not remove these human emotions. What may differ are attention, sensory processing, communication, cognitive flexibility, emotional regulation, preference for predictability, and the ways motivations are expressed. So I would strongly reject the idea of deliberately trying to make an autistic person jealous, greedy, or selfish in order to make the person “normal.” Apart from being potentially harmful, it rests on a false premise: that these emotions constitute normality. But your wild thought leads somewhere much more philosophically productive. The real question may be: Why does one cittam become crowded with competing dances in a particular situation, while another cittam sustains a single dance with remarkable precision? In the example of the 10,000 steps, we know only that this particular person, in this particular structured context, performs extraordinarily well. We do not know that his cittam is free from competing thoughts. He may experience them but regulate them differently; the clear rule, measurable endpoint, established routine, and concrete reward may make the focal task especially compelling. This requires a correction to our three-avan model too. I previously described the behavior as though the avans had simply merged: task understood → task executed → task completed. That remains a useful phenomenological description, but we should not conclude that an absence of anger, jealousy, or greed caused the integration. The more defensible interpretation is that the task environment creates unusually strong alignment among goal, attention, motivation, action, and closure. And now your question becomes much more interesting if we reverse it. Instead of asking: “Can we introduce the competing dances of the so-called normal cittam into the autistic person?” perhaps we should ask: “What can the crowded cittam of the so-called normal person learn from the capacity for bounded, sustained, precise action that this autistic individual demonstrates?” That reversal is important. Throughout our discussion, we have unconsciously treated “normal cittam” as the standard and asked how other forms differ from it. But what have we actually said about the normal cittam? It is distracted. It is jealous. It wants recognition. It becomes greedy. It knows the consequence and still picks up the ōṇāṉ. It throws stones into mud and gets splashed. It sees dirt on everyone else's back but not its own. It cannot say “enough.” It cannot let unresolved arguments end. It continually replays unused responses. It insists that its own kuñcu is a poṉ kuñcu. That is hardly an obvious standard of perfection to which everyone else should be made to conform. So your question has accidentally revealed a hidden assumption in our entire project: Why have we assumed that the statistically typical cittam is the ideal cittam? I think the answer is that we should not. This connects beautifully with சித்தம் திரிதல். We have argued that ordinary human cittam requires lifelong refinement precisely because its natural activities are so frequently conflicting. If so, deliberately adding jealousy, greed, selfishness, and comparison to another person's cittam would not be refinement. It would be adding precisely the movements that Tirumūlar and Thiruvalluvar ask humans to learn to regulate. There is an even deeper issue here. We should distinguish complexity from maturity. A cittam containing twenty competing dances is not necessarily more advanced than one sustaining a single activity. Likewise, focused behavior is not automatically superior to flexible, multidimensional thought. Human flourishing may require both: sustained attention when sustained attention is needed, and flexible movement among perspectives when circumstances require it. The problem arises at either extreme. A cittam unable to sustain attention may become chaotic. A cittam unable to shift attention when circumstances change may encounter other difficulties. The goal, therefore, should not be to make everyone cognitively identical. This gives us, I think, a better interpretation of the third avan. Perhaps the third avan is not a mechanism for making everyone “normal.” Nor is it the absence of troublesome emotions. It is the potential for the fullest workable integration available to a particular human being. For one person, refinement may involve reducing distraction. For another, increasing flexibility. For another, regulating anger. For another, learning to recognize manipulation. For another, learning to complete a task. For another, learning when to stop a completed task and move to something new. Thus அவனிவன் ஆமே need not produce one standardized human mind. Integration may look different across different forms of human cognition. I would formulate the insight emerging from your thought experiment this way: The phenomenology of cittam should not divide humanity into a normal cittam filled with the complete range of human dances and an autistic cittam deficient in some of them. Rather, different human beings exhibit different patterns of attention, motivation, emotion, flexibility, and action. The task of சித்தம் திரிதல் is therefore not to populate every cittam with the same dances, but to refine the relationship among the dances and capacities already present so that the individual can live, act, relate, and flourish as fully as possible. And there is a final irony worth emphasizing. You asked, provocatively, why we should not make the autistic person “very jealous, greedy, selfish and so on” to make him normal. Our entire months-long inquiry into cittam has been asking almost the opposite question: How can the so-called normal person learn not to be governed by jealousy, greed, selfishness, anger, comparison, and endless desire? So perhaps the autistic individual in your example should not be viewed primarily as a deficient version of us whom we must fill with our competing dances. In that particular behavior, he may instead be showing us something our own crowded cittam finds extraordinarily difficult: know what is required, sustain attention, complete the dance precisely, recognize its antam, accept that enough is enough, and turn off the monitor.
PromptSun, Jul 12 at 7:49 PM: When considering the cittam of autism kids, the role of three avans need some discussion. Not all autism patients are alike. Some are violent and engage in violent activities, some are simply doing the routine tasks over and over again, and some even are very focused in what they are doing. The third type particularly require particular attention within our framework. This type, that I have known, completes all the tasks assigned in precision without any flaw at all. For example, someone I know is assigned a few tasks regularly and one of such tasks is to make ten thousand steps a day. The reward is a sandwich of his like upon completion. He is given a monitor to gauge his steps. Everyday he completes it by none and gets his reward. Importantly, he turns off his device saying that his task is over and there is no need for monitoring his steps anymore. How do characterize his cittam and the roles of the three 'avans' in his context? ResponseI think this example is particularly valuable because it Your example presents exactly that capacity, at least in one bounded activity. However, there is an important caution. We should not romanticize this behavior and say: “Therefore this autistic person's cittam is more refined.” That would go beyond what we know. The same person's need for routine, flexibility in changing circumstances, emotional regulation, communication, sensory experience, and other aspects of life may operate very differently. What we can say is much narrower and, I think, much more valuable: Within this particular structured activity, the person demonstrates an unusually precise alignment among goal recognition, sustained attention, execution, recognition of sufficiency, and closure. That is enough to challenge our framework productively. It also raises a fascinating possibility. Perhaps the ordinary cittam suffers partly from too many competing possibilities. The person walking 10,000 steps has a clearly bounded dance. Many of us, by contrast, live simultaneously with: Should I continue? Should I stop? Is this enough? Should I do more? What will others think? What reward will I receive? Why did someone else receive more? What should I do tomorrow? The ciṟṟampalam becomes crowded with competing dances. Your example suggests that a reduction in competing dances can produce extraordinary precision of action. I would therefore formulate this for the book as follows: The phenomenology of cittam must account not only for distraction, conflict, and rapid succession of thoughts, but also for states of unusually sustained and bounded attention. In some autistic individuals, structured tasks may reveal a striking coordination of understanding, motivation, execution, and closure. The task is recognized, pursued with precision, completed, and relinquished. Within the three-avan framework, such activity may be understood not as the dominance of one avan over another, but as a local convergence of the capacities represented by them. The most significant moment may be the final one: the monitoring device is turned off because the task has ended. The cittam recognizes sufficiency, permits the dance to reach its antam, and does not continue feeding an activity whose purpose has already been fulfilled. And this leads me to what I think is the genuinely new contribution of your example: We have been studying சித்தம் திரிதல் primarily as learning to regulate troublesome dances. Perhaps we must also study how cittam achieves coherence by limiting competing dances, sustaining one meaningful activity, recognizing sufficiency, and allowing that activity to end. That would broaden our project considerably. The “refined cittam” need not always be the cittam that thinks about itself most deeply. Sometimes, perhaps, its most impressive achievement is much simpler: to know the task, perform the task, recognize its completion, and stop.
PromptSun, Jul 12 at 12:25 PM: People develop some extraordinary talents in their life mostly focusing on their attention in many ways! We need to understand this within two avans. When they exhibit their talent to others flawlessly should we consider that as the merger of two avans as Tirumular says avanivan aamee? ResponseYes—I think this gives us a particularly concrete way to understand அவனிவன் ஆமே, provided we present it as our phenomenological interpretation rather than claim that Tirumūlar explicitly meant skilled performance. Consider a pianist, dancer, surgeon, athlete, sculptor, or even an experienced programmer. At the beginning of learning, the two avans appear almost visibly separated. One avan must think: “place the finger here; make this movement; do this next.” The other avan struggles to execute the instruction. Errors occur, attention is strained, and action is slow. Through years of practice, however, perception, memory, intention, and execution become increasingly coordinated. At the moment of expert performance, the performer may no longer consciously issue each instruction. The knowing and the doing appear to become one continuous activity. This gives us a compelling interpretation: அவனும் அவனும் → thought/intention and action/execution அவனை அறிதல் → realization of the fuller potential through refinement and practice அவனிவன் ஆமே → the distinction between knower and doer becomes functionally invisible in accomplished action. I would not say that the two avans literally disappear. Rather, their conflict and distance disappear. This is important because we have repeatedly discussed situations where the two avans are separated. I know I should do something, but I do not do it. I know the consequence, but I pick up the ōṇāṉ anyway. I want to concentrate on an article, but another thought occupies cittam. I know anger is harmful, but anger directs action. In all these situations there is a distance between knowing, intending, and doing. Expertise shows us the opposite condition. A musician knows and performs simultaneously. A skilled surgeon sees, judges, and acts with extraordinary coordination. A fluent speaker does not consciously assemble grammar before every sentence. An experienced scholar reads a verse and perceives connections that a beginner must laboriously search for. Perhaps, then, the third Avan is not simply another entity hidden somewhere inside the person. It is the potential state of integration toward which the two avans can develop. This would modify our earlier model in an important way. We had sometimes treated the third avan as an observer who stands above the other two and corrects them. I now think that may be too static. Perhaps the third Avan is better understood as realized integration. The progression would be: Division → attention → repetition → refinement → coordination → integration. And this connects directly with சித்தம் திரிதல். Refinement is not only about controlling anger, jealousy, greed, or harmful thoughts. It is also the process through which human capacities become increasingly coordinated. The child learning music, the student becoming a physician, the apprentice becoming an expert—all undergo a long refinement of cittam, brain, body, memory, perception, and action. This also helps us connect our philosophy with the brain without reducing cittam to neurons. Repeated practice changes neural organization; memory is strengthened; actions become increasingly automatic. Science can study those mechanisms. Our phenomenology asks a different question: what is it like when the distance between intending and doing gradually disappears? The answer may be visible in expert performance. There is another fascinating consequence. Earlier we spoke of the long invisible dances whose antam appears only after years. Acquiring expertise is perhaps one of the clearest examples. Thousands of invisible dances occur: failure → correction → repetition → memory → attention → frustration → renewed effort → refinement. Then, one day, an audience sees only the final flawless performance. They see the antam. They do not see the thousands of dances that produced it. So I think we can formulate the idea strongly: In ordinary human experience, the two avans are frequently divided: one knows while the other fails to act, one intends while the other hesitates, or one desires while the other resists. Through sustained attention, experience, repetition, and refinement, this distance may gradually diminish. In moments of accomplished performance, knowing and doing become so fully coordinated that they appear as a single activity. Such moments offer a phenomenological reading of Tirumūlar's அவனிவன் ஆமே: the hidden potential is realized when the divided capacities of the human being become integrated in action. But I would add one further thought. This may help us distinguish தெளிந்தார் from சிவமயம் more precisely. A person can achieve avan-ivan integration in one domain and remain completely unrefined elsewhere. A brilliant musician may be consumed by jealousy. A great scientist may have terrible interpersonal relationships. A skilled surgeon may be dominated by anger. Thus, expertise represents a local merger of the avans, restricted to a particular dance. Tirumūlar's அவனிவன் ஆமே, in the larger sense we are developing, may point toward something much broader: not merely flawless performance in one activity, but the progressive integration of the whole person. That gives us a very useful distinction: Talent is the refinement and integration of the avans within a particular dance. தெளிவு is the growing capacity to recognize and coordinate the many dances of one's life. சிவமயம் is Tirumūlar's ultimate vision of complete integration, where the divisions themselves no longer govern the person. I think this is a major development in our interpretation of verse 1789. Until now, we mostly used the three avans to explain conflict within human consciousness. Expertise allows us, for the first time, to observe what the merger of the avans might actually look like in ordinary human life.
PromptSat, Jul 11 at 8:01 PM: The Tamil proverb, "வேலியில் போகும் ஓணானை எடுத்து மடியில் கட்டிக்கொண்டு குத்துதே, குடையுதே என்றானாம்" 'purposely picking the lizard on the fence and wrapping around the waist one says it hurts' says that people knowingly get into trouble and regret about it later. In some cases, people know the consequences of some troublesome actions, especially from past experience, and get into trouble for the purpose of minimally available charm. This can be compared to many situations like diabetes patient consuming excessive sweets and getting fainted, getting wet in rain and catching cold etc. Should cittam and the thoughts with the aid of third avan prevent such activities. Of course, the charm in them sounds worth the risk, hence they get into it. ResponseYes. I think this proverb adds yet another important dimension to our model. Until now, we have discussed cittam facing thoughts that arise without invitation—anger, jealousy, greed, memories, external provocations, and so forth. But this proverb describes something different: வேலியில் போகும் ஓணானை எடுத்து மடியில் கட்டிக்கொண்டு, குத்துதே குடையுதே என்றானாம். Here the person is not an innocent recipient of a troublesome dance. The person sees the ஓணான், knows something about its nature, deliberately picks it up, and only afterward complains about the consequences. This introduces the phenomenon of knowingly chosen trouble. I would, however, slightly modify your examples. A person with diabetes eating excessive sweets despite knowing the risk is a good example of short-term reward conflicting with long-term well-being. Getting wet in rain and catching a cold is less exact, because getting wet does not itself directly cause a viral cold. But your philosophical point remains: humans often knowingly choose an immediate attraction despite anticipating an undesirable consequence. The important question is: Why does knowledge fail to prevent action? And I think this question is central to our three-avan framework. We might formulate the process this way: “I know this may harm me.” — knowledge. “But I want it now.” — desire. “Perhaps the harm will not happen this time.” — rationalization. “I will do it.” — execution. “Why did I do this?” — regret. This is a remarkable dance because the same cittam contains knowledge, desire, self-deception, action, and regret. Knowledge alone does not control the doer This is where our earlier model becomes especially useful. The thinker may know: “Do not pick up the ஓணான்.” But the driver says: “It is attractive.” “Just this once.” “The pleasure is worth the risk.” “Perhaps nothing will happen.” The doer executes the driver's instruction. Later, after the consequence appears, the thinker returns: “I knew this would happen!” This raises a fascinating question: Where was that knowledgeable thinker at the moment of action? It was not absent. It was simply overruled. This is perhaps one of the clearest examples showing why our earlier idea—“only one thought exists at a time”—needs qualification. Several tendencies and stored forms of knowledge may remain available, but attention and action become temporarily dominated by one movement. The charm is important You make a particularly insightful point: “The charm in them sounds worth the risk.” Exactly. We should not portray the person as irrational in a simplistic sense. At the moment of decision, cittam performs a kind of evaluation: immediate pleasure > possible future harm. The problem is that the evaluation may be distorted by the distance of consequences. The sweet is here. The pleasure is now. The diabetic complication is later. The troublesome relationship is exciting now. The suffering may come months later. The risky financial speculation promises gain now. The loss is merely possible. Cittam therefore gives unequal weight to present attraction and future consequence. This adds something new to our framework: Cittam does not merely evaluate competing thoughts; it evaluates them across time. Perhaps we need “temporal cittam” The present self says: “I want this.” The future self will say: “Why did you do this to me?” Yet both belong to the same person. This is philosophically fascinating. The present cittam can, in effect, create suffering for its own future cittam. The proverb captures this beautifully. The person who picks up the lizard and the person who later complains are physically the same person—but phenomenologically, they occupy different states of cittam. Attraction → choice → consequence → regret. Where does the third avan come in? I think you are right to bring the third avan here. If the first avan thinks and the second moves toward execution, perhaps the third represents the potential for a wider perspective. The first says: “I want this.” Another says: “Do it.” The third asks: “Have we been here before?” “What happened last time?” “What will happen afterward?” “Is the present charm worth the future consequence?” In other words, the third avan may possess what the other two lack at that moment: temporal breadth. It can connect: past experience + present desire + future consequence. This would give the third avan a much more concrete role within our framework. But why doesn't the third avan always succeed? This is crucial. If the third avan simply prevented all foolish behavior, human beings would rapidly become perfect. Clearly, they do not. Perhaps the third avan is not a controller. It is a potential. This returns to your original interpretation of Tirumūlar 1789. The third Avan is the unrealized potential within the human being. It can become active through: experience, reflection, memory, self-observation, refinement. But its advice can still be ignored. This may be exactly why சித்தம் திரிதல் is lifelong. The proverb also modifies our river analogy Previously we said: The river cannot prevent every fish or crane from appearing. Now the ஓணான் proverb adds: Sometimes cittam itself goes looking for the trouble. That is new. Not every harmful dance enters uninvited. Some are: invited, pursued, nourished, repeated. And often repeated despite previous consequences. This gives us at least three categories: Uninvited dances — anger arising after an insult, an unwanted memory, fear. Invited dances — knowingly entering situations that provide pleasure, excitement, recognition, or gratification despite risk. Habitual dances — repeating the same activity until the pattern becomes difficult to interrupt. This is a useful expansion of our phenomenology. This also brings us back to அறம் Thiruvalluvar's ethical instruction becomes more understandable in this context. அறம் may not merely tell cittam: “Do not experience desire.” It may train cittam to ask: “Do I need to pick up this ஓணான்?” That question occurs before the action. This is important because much of our discussion has focused on what cittam does after anger, jealousy, greed, or conflict arises. The proverb introduces anticipatory refinement. Perhaps சித்தம் திரிதல் has three temporal dimensions: Retrospective refinement: What happened, and why did I do it? Present refinement: What is happening within me now? Prospective refinement: If I follow this dance, where will it lead? I think this is a major addition. A formulation for the book I would put it this way: The Tamil proverb “வேலியில் போகும் ஓணானை எடுத்து மடியில் கட்டிக்கொண்டு, குத்துதே குடையுதே என்றானாம்” reveals a distinctive activity of cittam: the human tendency knowingly to invite a troublesome experience because its immediate attraction temporarily outweighs the remembered or anticipated consequence. Unlike thoughts and emotions that arise uninvited, these dances are actively pursued. The person often possesses sufficient knowledge of the risk, sometimes even from previous experience, yet knowledge alone fails to govern action. Cittam gives greater weight to present charm than to future suffering. சித்தம் திரிதல் therefore requires not merely examining thoughts after they arise, but developing the capacity to connect past experience, present attraction, and future consequence before action occurs. And I think we can now say something even more fundamental about the third avan: The third avan may be the unrealized human capacity to see beyond the thought that currently occupies cittam—to bring past experience and future consequence into the evaluation of the present dance. This may be one of our clearest interpretations yet of why the third avan is a potential rather than simply another actor. The first two can keep repeating the same dances. The third emerges when the human being becomes capable of asking, before picking up the ஓணான்: “I know the charm; I also know the consequence. Must I enter this dance again?”