क्या मन पदार्थ से निकलता है? क्या एक पूर्ण वास्तविकता मौजूद है, किसी भी जागरूक व्यक्ति से स्वतंत्र है? यदि नहीं, तो क्या एक व्यक्ति द्वारा अनुभव की गई वास्तविकता दूसरों के अनुभव से थोड़ा अलग है? ये ऐसे सवाल हैं, जो प्रो। देबंजन भौमिक अपनी नई प्रकाशित पुस्तक: क्रॉनिकल्स ऑन कॉन्शियसनेस (ए जर्नी ऑफ सेल्फ-डिस्कवरी) में उत्तर देते हैं। प्रो। भौमिक वर्तमान में आईआईटी दिल्ली के इलेक्ट्रिकल इंजीनियरिंग विभाग में सहायक प्रोफेसर हैं। उनका शोध उभरते हुए नैनो-इलेक्ट्रॉनिक उपकरणों की भौतिकी और कृत्रिम बुद्धि के क्षेत्र में उन उपकरणों के अनुप्रयोगों पर केंद्रित है। भौतिक इलेक्ट्रॉनिक्स (ईएलएल 211) और डिजिटल हार्डवेयर डिजाइन (ईएलएल 318) दो स्नातक पाठ्यक्रम हैं जो वह अक्सर सिखाते हैं। वह क्रिकेट की दुनिया और प्रो-रेसलिंग के बारे में अपने पोस्ट के माध्यम से सोशल-मीडिया उपस्थिति बनाए रखता है। चेतना पर इतिहास उनका पहला उपन्यास है; यह कैलिफोर्निया में अपने डॉक्टरेट अनुसंधान की अवधि के दौरान अपने स्वयं के अनुभवों पर आधारित है और मन और चेतना के बारे में अंतर्दृष्टि जो उन्होंने उनसे प्राप्त की है। यहां उनकी नई प्रकाशित उपन्यास की बीएसपी द्वारा तैयार की गई समीक्षा है:
The book can be purchased here: https://www.amazon.in/Chronicles.../dp/1638325782/
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The novel “Chronicles on Consciousness” is a riveting tale about Ary, a young Indian student, as he carries out doctoral research abroad and goes through a journey of self-discovery in the process. It combines elements of general fiction with that of popular science and philosophy, and thereby provides for an excellent read if the reader loves any of these genres. Thus, anybody with an inquisitive mind, who wants to gain more perspectives about life, will enjoy this book.
Among such inquisitive minds, we feel that young students like us, studying science and engineering, will be particularly able to relate to the protagonist in the book: Ary. Just like these students, he is also pursuing research in the sciences and trying to make sense of the world around and the world within oneself through scientific theories. The experiences that he has and the related epiphanies, as narrated in the book, will help these young students, who are following a similar trajectory as him, develop a better understanding of their own personal experiences and thus resolve their career related confusions. Even an everyday phenomenon like a stick bending inside water due to the refraction of light is used in the book to bring out a deep mystery, related to the brain, which has hardly been mentioned before in high school science textbooks, to the best of our knowledge.
Ary’s character is very interestingly and meticulously developed in this novel and that precisely makes it such an entertaining and insightful read for the young readers. Every significant event that happens in his life during his years of doctoral research and the manner in which he reacts to each event are narrated with utmost honesty. The readers can probe into what exactly goes on in his mind, and thereby develop a deep understanding about the mind and consciousness of any individual in general. The prologue of the book explains that the author’s main purpose of writing this book is to explore more about mind and consciousness and we feel that he is successful in doing that through such an honest depiction of Ary’s consciousness. Among the other characters in the novel, the character of Polo, Ary’s love interest, is particularly interesting. She brings a breeze of aloofness with her, which is pretty unique.
Having covered the positives about the book, we will next mention a negative. A key component about the character of the protagonist Ary, which drives the narrative, is his obsession. As his obsession shifts from one thing to the other, new ideas about the mind and consciousness are developed. But the readers are not provided with much of an insight into the root cause of Ary’s obsessive nature. A sub-plot, which covers the key events in Ary’s childhood that have led to the development of such an obsessive nature by the time he starts doctoral research, could have been a nice addition in this novel. This is the hindi version.