The Hands That Think 

Raghunanthan switched on his desktop and slowly reclined on the chair. A swift feeling of pain that coursed through his spine reminded him that he had crossed half a century. The screen emitted a faint red light. The old St. Petersburg which is now again St. Petersburg was then Leningrad. And there a younger Raghu, well… actually Comrade Raghu was standing with red flowers in his hands in front of the eternal red fire. Good old days of Komsomal and Soviet Union. Today all that remained of those days was the photo now digitized and made into a desktop wallpaper.

Raghu opened his mail box. After the regular mails, there was something new — a mail from Bulgaria. Raghu frowned. Most probably, a phishing scam or a spam mail that escaped the filter of his mail box? With the lines in his forehead getting more pronounced he looked at the sender’s name. Sergi Leonski! Ah… now that name rang a bell. Decades after, in fact more than a quarter century after, a message from an old friend or was it a mere acquaintance? With a smile he clicked opened the mail.

Dear Comrade Raghunandan,

I hope you would remember me. Now I am working in Bulgarian Bionics Institute where I am in charge of Prosthetics division dealing with digital neural architecture of artificial limbs….

Raghu’s mind swam back in time. It was 1987 and an October day. The ambassador car was speeding along the road from Pondicherry to Madras. Raghu was with his close friend comrade Niranjan Basu. They were both members of PPASMP (Pondicherry People’s Art and Science Movement for Social Progress). PPASMP was celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Great October Revolution. A seminar on the scientific progress achieved by Soviet Union had been planned. Sergi Leonski the cyberneticist from Soviet Union was coming to give a lecture. Yes. He was the cyberneticist from Soviet Union. His book ‘Soviet Cybernetics’ published by, the Mir publishers Moscow, was one of the few books on cybernetics then available in India.

Raghu had savoured the book thoroughly, every page of it — not just for the lucid explanation of the subject matter. Every chapter in the beginning had an opt quotation from either ‘Dialectics of Nature’ of Friedrich Engels or Lenin’s ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’. Then there was a separate chapter on how in USSR, dialectical materialism had been an abiding guiding light for not only every physical science but also new synthetic disciplines like cybernetics. The chapter explained that this phenomenon, unique to USSR, removed the dichotomy one finds in the US – the inevitable divide between bourgeois idealist philosophy and progress of physical sciences that existed in capitalist societies like US. Now Sergi himself would come and deliver a lecture in Pondicherry and he would be accompanying him. What a great opportunity it was!

‘Get up …you lazy comrade… Revolution has arrived’ Raghu woke up to see that they had arrived at the airport. Niranjan Basu was patting him mildly. Basu was a student of ecology at the Pondicherry Environmental Studies Institute. He was a member of the party, a senior member, and a secretary of PPASMP. He had made his pilgrimage to USSR at a very young age for a chess tournament. They both walked inside the airport. Those were days of less threats and lesser security. So they could very well go inside and watch the planes land and take off. Raghu still remembered watching the shining gigantic metallic bird landing down with the symbol of proletariat revolution shining in mighty red. Raghu remembered saying to Basu “The aircraft looks like pure Volga from the sky. The river of revolution descends. And unlike Ganges it is not locked in the dark matted hair of Siva – the stranglehold of Sanatana Dharma.” “Wah Wah” exclaimed Basu, with a mock Mughal salute “Raghu I never knew a revolutionary bard is hiding inside you.”

Meanwhile the passengers from the Aeroflot flight started arriving and soon they spotted their man. Sergi Leonski was taller and thinner than they expected and he was markedly different from the black and white photo of him they had seen in the back cover of “Soviet Cybernetics.” As the ambassador headed back to Pondicherry, Raghu tried starting a conversation with Sergi many times. Sergi answered in monosyllables and had an evasive look in his face. Raghu attributed it to tiredness of travel.

Sergi was put in one of the most expensive hotels of Pondicherry. He would stay there for three days and it was decided every day except the day of his lecture he would visit the house of one comrade for cultural interaction. Raghu and Basu were to look after him. Soon Raghu noted a pattern in the behaviour of Sergi. He talked more freely without Basu and in a reserved manner when he was around. He talked eagerly like a child about cybernetics and was at his evasive best whenever questions cropped up about dialectics or Marxism. If Raghu felt a bit disappointed about this behaviour of Sergi, what was blasphemous for him was when Sergi was fired with enthusiasm about US scientists like John Von Neumann or Heinz von Foerster. Worse still, he was lukewarm when talking about Soviet cybernetics. All these, Raghu noticed, happened only in personal conversations. In public gatherings he always talked very generally and very vaguely and sounded proud about the scientific achievements of the USSR.

Raghu came to the present and looked at the e-mail:

Comrade, I hope you remember that evening. The events that happened that rainy evening really affected me very much. The conversation happened on that day was not exactly pleasant but its impact never left me.

That evening was etched equally on Raghu’s memory to this day.

It was the evening of the third day, the last day of his stay at Pondicherry that he was supposed to visit Raghu’s house. Then there was an unexpected hitch. Raghu’s father was a Sri Aurobindo devotee and a staunch Goddess-worshipper too. So in his house there was ‘Kolu’.* The display was mainly of gods and goddesses along with different village scenes and animals wild and domestic — all made of burnt mud or clay and grotesquely painted. Raghu had to explain not only to Sergi but also to any accompanying comrade, with much embarrassment, that this Kolu was some primitive custom still preserved in his own house. However he was in for a worse shock that morning. His father announced that one Sri Pundalik Pandit was coming to the house on the occasion of Navaratri and he would give a small lecture on Sri Lalitha Sahasranamam.

Raghu remembered protesting in vain to his father, “Appa, can't you postpone this just this one day? You know very well that today my comrades are coming. Among them is Sergi, the world famous cyberneticist. It is bad enough that I have to explain to them the primitive Kolu ritual. But now this lecture by this Pandit… Appa, please…”

But his father was amicably adamant, “See, my dear boy… Sri Pandit is a great scholar and you don't know how happy I am that he is coming to our house. If this opportunity is missed, I don't know if there will be another. Believe me, my boy, he is not the run of the mill religious preacher. Who knows, even your comrades may enjoy his company.” There was something decisive about his father’s tone.

In the evening when Sergi got down from the taxi along with Basu there was a slight drizzle. Sergi had already learnt to remove the shoes before entering Indian households. He had, in fact, even respectfully folded his hands to Raghu’s father. Then Raghu took both Sergi and Basu to see Kolu. As Sergi looked at the arranged exhibit of mud and clay idols, the women folk of the household watched Sergi, the lean tall white man, peeping from behind the doors, and whispered in hushed voices, which were nevertheless audible. Raghu could feel the bile of embarrassment swelling up from deep within and creating a bitter taste in his mouth.

“The idols are all burnt clay”, he said to Sergi, “I think some kind of primitive preconception about materialistic monism which had to wait centuries before being scientifically put forth by Friedrich Engels… At some point the emerging priest class converted this primitive communist premonition into an idol venerating superstition so that they could wield power...” Even as Sergi affirmed what Raghu said with polite head nods, his eyes indicated indifference.

A small commotion outside distracted them. A man in spotless white kurta and dhoti, with a dangling shoulder bag, was getting down from an auto. Raghu’s father hastened to welcome him. Raghu could guess who it was. Mr. Pandit was a clean shaven man with his pitch dark hair submissively combed down. His round face with sparkling eyes seemed to hold a mischievous smile not limited to his lips. He was medium built and his walk was quick. After initial pleasantries they all settled down in the front verandah. It was still drizzling.

“A scientist from Russia Mr. Sergi…” Raghu’s father was finding it difficult to pronounce the second name as he introduced the Russian to Mr. Pandit. Raghu intervened, “Actually a cyberneticist from USSR, academician Sergi Leonski. Sergi, this is Mr. Pandit. … er… he delivers religious discourses. … kind of a guru from a nearby Ashram.” The condescending tone was obvious. Sergi extended his hand in what seemed a disinterested manner. But Pandit seemed enthusiastic. “Well, to put things straight, I am not a Guru. But a cyberneticist?” his excitement was obvious, childlike and genuine. Raghu remembered being surprised that a religious person could easily pick on that word. It seemed Mr. Pandit was a good conversationalist and he seemed to have some synchronized wavelength with Sergi.

“Understanding the interaction between consciousness and machine systems is very important in your field,” Pandit was saying and Sergi was affirming the statement with an unusual animated interest. If Raghu was amazed, Basu was visibly irritated.

“You should be having some Vedic sloka to substantiate that Panditji. Bionics is Prof. Sergi’s field. Now you people should also have proof that bionics existed in your Atharva Veda…” irritated voice of Basu rudely intercepted the conversation. Even Raghu was a bit appalled. However, Pandit remained his smiling sweet self.

“Why go to Vedas, my young friend, take Sri Lalitha Sahasranamam itself, about which I am going to have a conversation today with your father. An interesting coincidence I would say, and Jung may call it synchronicity. The namam we are going to discuss today is ‘Sarva Yantratmika’. We can say that this Name of Divine Feminine has relevance in the context of bionics too. I am not claiming we have all the knowledge of science already. But this can act as a guiding post for science in providing new creative frameworks to understand the multi-dimensional nature of reality. If the Divine Feminine symbolizes consciousness cannot we see all instruments we create as an extension of that consciousness rather than mere material objects?”

Now Raghu interfered. “But Mr.Pandit, it seems you are ignorant of Marxist contribution to scientific understanding of the emergence of tool usage. Friedrich Engels explains how tool making hands of human species through labour created human civilization. Whatever you call consciousness is in a way subordinate to labour in the process of human evolution.”

Sergi coughed lightly. Then he spoke in his characteristic whispering voice. Without an audio system one had to strain one's attention to comprehend his words, “Engels was not an anthropologist or a physical scientist. He was essentially a speculative philosopher. His guesses may be right or may be wrong. But in creating a digital-neuro interaction between machines and an organism — particularly conscious organism like human being — I am not very sure how helpful will be the guesses of Engels…”

Outside, the rain was gaining intensity and still strangely no thunders or lightening. Only the wind was blowing hard. But the words of Sergi struck Raghu heavily like thunder and he protested. “But comrade, you yourself have used Engels’ quote in your book… and there was an entire chapter…” Sergi simply smiled weakly and a brief embarrassing silence followed.

Now the voice of Pandit broke the silence. "The problem is not only with Engels. The Western philosophical system itself likes to create a conflicting binary — subjective idealism and objective materialism. What came first? Mind or Matter? They want to put either one at one side of the cause-effect arrow. Then they go on fighting. But Mr. Leonski, in Indian philosophical systems ...well. We call them Darshanas and they are not exactly philosophical systems as a western mind understands the term... eh... coming to the point, in some of our Darshanas, we have what is called 'Sat Karya Vaadha'. This sees Cause and Effect as embedded in each other. They are involuted in each other. So where is the problem of which came first? For example if you consider matter as the primary causal substance and consciousness its effect, then according to Sat Karya Vaadha, consciousness the effect is involuted in the cause. Again the litany of the thousand names of Divine Feminine has the following names, "Jada Sakthi", "Jadaathmika" meaning the consciousness that is deep within matter... And you know that Sri Aurobindo speaks of consciousness as indwelling in nature.”

Sergi made his characteristic cough. “But Mr. Pandit… we cyberneticists see consciousness as something different from what you say. Consciousness is an emergent property of the brain — a central processing system if I am to use the computer jargon now getting familiar in the West. And commands pass on to peripheral organs including hands which create and operate tools… so how can consciousness be embedded in tools or more fundamentally in hands which too are essentially tools of the brain?’

Raghu expected Pandit to wince. And Basu made an audible voice of triumph. He should have hated that mention of the West by a Soviet scientist yet here the enemy is a more primitive eastern mysticism and all is fair in love and war. And this is not just war but class war. Pandit continued the conversation naturally, “Even cybernetics has come a long way from John von Neumann model of consciousness. Most of the impressions that our reactions to stimuli come from the brain is, one can say, an illusional construct. Does not modern brain research tell us that even before we take a decision in a so called conscious way our neural system becomes pregnant with electro-potentials anticipating that so-called conscious decision? So is not the idea of brain alone being the only command center a bit exaggerated?”

Sergi was visibly impressed, “For an eastern Guru, you are well aware of scientific research Mr. Pandit. Are you referring to experiments by Libet?”

“Yes and No. No for calling me a Guru and Yes, exactly…” Pandit smiled “Backward time referral experiments by Benjamin Libet.”

Both Raghu and Basu looked lost. As if sensing their feelings, Pandit looked at them and said, “Libet’s experiments are important in neurological research. You know that for any stimulus to reach the brain, it should build a critical amount of electrical strength. Scientists call this neuronal adequacy. In many controlled experiments Libet showed that though it takes say 500 milliseconds for a stimulus to build this neuronal adequacy, the subjects become aware of the sensation within a few milliseconds, as brief as 10-50 milliseconds after the stimulus. In other words, a person becomes aware of a sensation, even as the stimulus gathers strength to reach the brain and has not yet reached the brain.” Pandit now turned to Sergi, “I think this experiment actually has opened new possibilities for cybernetics. Perhaps researches of Scott Kelso also show the way…” “Brilliant!” exclaimed Sergi and then in a subdued voice said, “But it is tough for us to get his works in our place.”

“Who is Kelso?” Raghu asked. Sergi after making his customary slight cough said in a hushed tone, “Well… his works are not exactly liked in Soviet Union. He is a British or rather Irish brain scientist. He employs non-linear models to explain cognitive processes…. If what Mr.Pandit here says is true, it is going to be very difficult to explain consciousness through the simple computer model…” Basu whispered in a way everyone could hear, “Explicit idealist uncooked meat…” Then he said belligerently, “Even if we are to consider all your primitive lies couched in bourgeois idealism to be true, still you cannot wish away materialism from science Panditji.”

“No, Not at all. Of course, not at all.” Said Pandit rubbing his forehead. Then he looked at Basu pointedly and said, “Permit me also to quote my young friend. Of course, we don't want those quotes in every chapter of a text book on science. But nevertheless it is worth quoting…” Then rummaging through his shoulder bag he took out a small hardbound book that looked like, well (at least) to Raghu, ‘The sayings of comrade Mao’. But it was not. And Pandit turned a few pages, and then exclaimed, “Ah it’s here…” and started reading. One could feel a reverence in his voice.

“If modern Materialism were simply an unintelligent acquiescence in the material life, the advance might be indefinitely delayed. But since its very soul is the search for Knowledge, it will be unable to cry a halt; as it reaches the barriers of sense-knowledge, its very rush will carry it beyond and the rapidity and sureness with which it has embraced the visible universe is only an earnest of the energy and success which we may hope to see repeated in the conquest of what lies beyond, once the stride is taken to cross the barrier.”

“Should be a quantum physicist. Heisenberg or Schrödinger?” queried Sergi.

“Sri Aurobindo,” answered Pandit

Everyone was shocked by the sheer rudeness and Sergi recoiled with shocked fear dawning on his face. Again an awkward silence followed for two minutes.

Once again Pandit ended the heaviness of the atmosphere and commenced the conversation in his typical soft voice, “Coming back to cybernetics and consciousness, yes, the cognitive processes are all not in the brain coming down like commands in a computer’s central… ah… What do you call that friends?”

“Central Processing Unit –CPU in short” answered Sergi.

Even today that memory makes Raghu smile. Pandit who was talking about then cutting edge neural research did not know a simple term that is today such a common primary school vocabulary. Then in 80s computers were rarities and marvels. But now how fast the technology has proliferated!

“Yes CPU, CPU… Often that word slips my mind.”, continued Pandit, “As I was saying, cognitive processes are not like commands from CPU going to other parts of computer. Cognitive processes can build up from other areas also… like say hands and go upwards and influence brain processes. So any part of the body can become a focused seat of consciousness. This understanding is deeper and more holistic than the idea of hands’ importance in human evolution as put forth by Engels. And this idea has been there in Indian culture for a long time integrated in our daily practices. Is it not?”

He was now looking at Raghu and Basu.

“Like what?” asked Raghu.

“Well… Have not we been taught as children that every morning when we get up the first thing we do is bring our hands together and…”

Basu violently interrupted with a derisive laughter that even shocked Raghu, “That was a chant for daily luck Mr.Pandit… How can you link a primitive luck chant with some idealist confusions emerging in science? But that is what you priestly class has been doing in this country... coining webs of words to cheat people into slumber… You will see Panditji, that dialectical materialism will triumph over all these castles of lies and falsehoods fabricated by word magic and idealist falsehoods in the name of science.”

Even Raghu felt bad about Basu’s outburst though his sympathies were with Basu. Pandit remained the same smiling self and Sergi shifted uncomfortably. Raghu could see his father’s face turning a light shade of red. Raghu knew that happened when he had a well-controlled anger. Then they heard the taxi arriving to pick up Sergi “Saved by the Taxi” Raghu thanked the Gods he never believed in. And as Sergi departed one could see a warm understanding smile pass between him and Pandit. From Pondicherry, Sergi left for a lecture organized by ‘People’s Science and Art Movement’ in Rajasthan.

Raghu came to the present from his past memories, strained his eyes and looked at the mail.

Comrade Raghunandan, I should actually apologize for being evasive to many questions you asked me during that long car ride. There were two reasons for that. One was that I had reliable information from a friend that Mr.Basu was an informer for KGB about my activities. Secondly all those quotations in my book from Engels which you loved to quote and that chapter on dialectical materialism were neither placed there nor written by me. It was a prerequisite for publishing any book in USSR. For every book a group of party ideologues sit and decide those things. You have to accept that whether you like it or not otherwise the book will never see sunlight. In fact, there was a time when cybernetics was outlawed in the USSR labelled as bourgeois science.

Comrade, when I came to your place, all of you were praising Soviet sciences but do you know the real purpose of my visit? It was to study the cost-effective artificial limbs fabricated in Jaipur. We were in need of that technology urgently for our soldiers in Afghanistan who were losing their legs in Mujahideen mines. My instructions were to study the technology and improve it in a digital way. Or in other words even as you were singing praises for our science achievements I was in India to get technological know-how from an Indian workshop. Do you realize the irony?

When the USSR became a thing of past, I joined the Bionics Centre at Bulgaria. Here we work on a digital neural interface for artificial hands. And frankly some of the things that Mr.Pandit told me on that rainy night in your house have been continuously throwing new light in my area of research. Yes the word he used was ‘Darshana’. Later I found out that it means a unifying vision. It is verily true – an inner vision that does provide new insights of perspectives in such complicated situations like neural coordination of artificial hand … Now from researches we do know that skin based electric responses develop even before brain becomes aware of the stimulus. You can google and get many such papers in the net. In our field, brain-centerism has become a paradigm of the past. What strikes me is that one Eastern Guru on a rainy evening in South India could predict this paradigm shift almost twenty years ago. Yet he was also able to face not just countering views but also angry outbursts with an unchanging smile. You Indians are so lucky to grow in such an environment. Perhaps you cannot understand my appreciation but if you had grown up in Soviet censorship I am sure you will definitely appreciate.

Raghu sighed and continued to read.

Can the artificial hand with its digital neural interface be considered as a locus for a localized emergence of consciousness? We do know from experiments that in higher apes the instruments they use are considered as extensions of their own self. Can an artificial hand be integrated at the neurological level to be an extension of one’s own self and then can it become a seat of emergence of consciousness which will facilitate the artificial hand to be integrated with the human subject? Thank goodness there is no USSR today. Otherwise how many petty minded party ideologues I would have had to beg and explain to each one of them that those were not bourgeois conspiracies in the name of science. And they would be determining whether to allow this research based on the statement made by Friedrich Engels in nineteenth century.

Anyhow after I had that conversation with Mr.Pandit I left for Jaipur. I was accompanied by a Professor from Jawaharlal Nehru University. I visited the Jaipur foot manufacturing unit. It happened to be the day of celebration – victory of a Goddess over an evil demon they said. All the instruments in that simple workshop were garlanded and respectfully kept for some ritual. Professor who accompanied me stated that this was the result of fear – fear of the priestly class at the progress of tools. I would have agreed to that disinterestedly had I not met Mr.Pandit. But now I saw things in a different way. So I told him that perhaps they see the tools as extended manifestation of their creative consciousness. He rejected that as idealist babble. He openly chided me for catching mystic virus in the tropical climate. I laughed in order to avoid any suspicion and then kept my thoughts to myself.

They never left me even as I left India. They constantly churned in my mind and being. So recently for the integration of neuro-digital interface of the artificial hands I have created a mental exercise which has been extremely successful particularly in unfortunate children who had lost their hands. As I have derived the basic idea for this from your culture and spiritual tradition I thought that it will be only fit to … well Comrade, Raghunandan please see it. The video clip is attached.

Raghu clicked the attachment and the video player opened the clip.

A black teenage boy, was sitting in a chair and a lot of cables connected his amputated limbs with a pair of shining metallic hands in front of him. He was sort of sitting straight and there were a lot of sensors attached over his head and shoulders which were feeding data into a lot of computerized panels around him.

The woman’s voice though in English had a deep East European accent.

Bruno is a teenage boy from Rwanda. He lost both his hands in ethnic violence when he was barely two. They were chopped off by warring ethnic groups. He survived thanks to immediate medical help by a native healer who also saved the boy’s life. Bulgarian Institute of Bionics had taken the challenge of integrating this cost-effective artificial hands to him thanks to an innovative method developed by Prof. Sergi Leonski.

The documentary showed some recordings of Rwandan violence followed by Bruno as a toddler and a faded photograph of an old medicine man who saved him and then came to Sergi. Sergi looked older but Raghu could see in him the fire. Sergi talked:

In building this digital artificial limb I have differed a bit from the usual architecture of making the digital path ways mere conductors of electric impulses. I have developed a psychological package that makes the subject – consciously feel the artificial hand as part of himself and as something that has the capacity for developing a conscious dialogue with what we generally consider as higher brain centres. So this is not just a technological apparatus but a techno-psychological integration package for artificial limbs – perhaps a first in the world

Now the camera moved on to the boy sitting in the room. The commentary stated that Sergi acknowledged that the idea originally came to him from a spiritual teacher in South India with whom he had an accidental conversation. Now the camera zoomed in on the boy. The boy looked as if he was concentrating. He started repeating a chant and slowly the artificial hands came together, reversed themselves and rose a few millimeters. As the audio of the chant became clearer Raghu could feel a familiarity. He clutched his headphones and listened to the faint audio of the chant that the teenage black boy was chanting repeatedly all the while intensely looking at the artificial limbs that were soon to be his own hands…

Karagre vasathe lakshmi, [At the tips of the hand resides the Goddess of wealth]

kara madhye saraswathi, [In the middle of the hand resides the Goddess of wisdom]

kara moole sthithe gowri, [At the base of the hand resides the Goddess of strength]

prabhathe kara darshanam [And as it dawns I have the vision of this hand]

Raghu sat frozen even as the video player started the clip once again. In the wall before him his father was smiling from within the garlanded photo-frame.

For more information:

• Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, 1983
• Slava Gerovitch, From Newspeak to Cyberspeak: A History of Soviet Cybernetics, MIT Press, 2002
• http://www.thecomplementarynature.com/ (web site of Dr. Scott Kelso)
• For a detailed explanation of Libet's experiments: Dr.Fred Alan Wolf, The Dreaming Universe, Simon & Schuster, 1995
• The Extended Mind, (edited by Richard Menary), The MIT Press, 2012

Note by author:

Kolu: A display of dolls and other handicrafts done during the Navaratri festival in South India

The resemblance of the Pandit character in this fiction to M.P.Pandit, a Sri Aurobindo-Mother scholar is intentional though all the incidents in this short story are purely imaginary. The story aims to provide a speculative imaginary flight into possibilities of science based on some of our traditional understanding of consciousness. However, what is depicted here as science is in no way a final word or the only possibility in machine-neural interaction.

I thank Dr. Lakshmi Chitoor Subramaniam for going through the draft and making corrections.