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[Conclusion] Therefore, no conscious states are bodily qualia the causes of which continue to be available.” With the first premise, the Nyaya states that even though qualia such as color change in a body, if the cause of those qualia do not disappear, those bodily qualia will last as long as the body. With the second premise, the Nyaya states that the body outlasts all conscious states. For instance, conscious states are always lacking in a dead body. From the first and second premises, the Nyaya rightly conclude that there are no conscious states that are properties of the body because the materialist has not been able to show that a cause is lacking in cases where the body is not conscious. The Nyaya’s original first premise is stated, “All qualia of the body endures as long as the body does, for example color and the like.” The materialists refuted this premise by indicating that qualia such as color might not endure as long as the body because a person could dye his hair. The Nyaya then realized that in cases such as someone dying his hair, the causes of the qualia are still available so the quality of having color is still present despite change in hair color. A materialist might state that qualia such as having skin, muscles, and organs are not classified as qualia of the body because their cause always disappear before the body has fully decomposed. Thus, the materialist might argue that it does not make logical sense that qualia such as having color, which every single object has, are part of the body but that qualia such as having skin, which are somewhat unique to the human body because not all objects have these qualia, are not. The Nyaya, however, could argue this by stating that in cases of having no skin, muscle, or organs, the causes of the qualia are lacking and so the loss of qualia such as having skin is explainable. In the case of consciousness, there is no such explanation available so the Nyaya added the phrase, “the causes of which continue to exist” to the original first premise. There is a possible materialist response to why there is no consciousness in the body: its cause, electrical brain activity, is not available in a dead body. Consciousness could be the first thing to go whenever the body is dead because its cause is gone; thus, whenever there is a dead body, there is also no consciousness. The Nyaya, however, might argue that there is no way to prove that electrical activity in the brain is the cause of consciousness. The Nyaya would probably concur that the brain is an instrument of consciousness but also assert that “it by no means follows that the brain is itself the conscious knower” (136). “Additionally, the arguments based on the lack of cotemporality, pervasiveness, and utter dissimilarity also go to show that consciousness is not a state (or quale) of the brain” (136). Similar to the Nyaya’s objections with any example the materialist has heretofore presented, the Nyaya could again respond that the materialists can not propose electrical activity in the brain as part of the debate because it is under dispute. According to the Nyaya epistemology of inference, the general acceptability of inductive examples (GAIE) states that both sides must agree on something as the basis of the debate. With the example stated by the materialist in the previous paragraph, the Nyaya could state that under GAIE, electrical activity is disputed by the Nyaya so it is futile for the materialist to try to prove that the cause of consciousness in a body is electrical activity. Whenever the Nyaya declare that some point is under dispute and therefore not admissible in the debate, the materialist retorts that if people did not make inductive examples, they would not know anything. The materialist has a point here, but the Nyaya could state that under the flaw of uniqueness, one can not make an inference on anything about the human body that pertains only to the human body and nothing else because it does not make sense for one to make an inference based on an unique example. It seems unfair that the burden of proof lies with the materialist and that the Nyaya can further complicate matters for the materialist by discrediting every materialist response using GAIE. The Nyaya, however, do not need to cite an immaterial cause because there has been no doubt cast on the continuation of consciousness in the immaterial self. The Nyaya has achieved his goal of proving that conscious states are part of the immaterial self because the materialist has not been able to prove that conscious states are part of the material body. Unless the materialist can come up with an answer that does not violate GAIE and the flaw of uniqueness, the Nyaya has clearly won the debate. Western thinkers are quick to side with the materialists, but they should not be too quick to disregard the Nyaya because many moral problems that have up to this time not been attached to any causes in the material world might to be found in the immaterial realm. Bibliography: Word Count: 925
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