Western science has had remarkable success in explaining the functioning of the material world, but when it comes to the inner world of the mind, it has very little to say. And when it comes to consciousness itself, science falls curiously silent. There is nothing in physics, chemistry, biology, or any other science that can account for our having an interior world. In a strange way, scientists would be much happier if minds did not exist. Yet without minds there would be no science. This ever-present paradox may be pushing Western science into what Thomas Kuhn called a paradigm shift–a fundamental change in worldview.What is puzzling is the Anwar trial judge’s refusal to recuse himself from the trial. As long as a bias is perceived by the accused, that alone should disqualify him in the interest of justice.
But nobody is surprised by High Court Judge Zabidin Mohamed Diah’s ruling refusing to recuse himself from hearing Anwar’s case. He was right on the mark, as expected!
The funny thing about Anwar’s court trial is that the judgments are predictable. From Day One it was very apparent that the apparatus of the state would be used stringently to put away Anwar for good. A free Anwar, as perceived by many observers, would sound the death-knell for the BN.
Every step and every action taken during the course of his trial – all point to the inevitable conclusion that Anwar will be convicted, come what may.
He had to be arrested even though he had given his word that he would be reporting to the police station as required. He was waylaid and arrested like a common criminal and detained for the night – even though it was indicated earlier that he would be released that evening – because it is very apparent that his fresh DNA was urgently needed to implicate him. They had to create a situation so that the DNA could be obtained. That was exactly what happened.
They extracted his DNA from the water bottle, towel and tooth brush which he had to use as he was detained overnight. Strict orders were given that these items should not be removed. He was tricked to leave behind his DNA.
The pertinent question is: why couldn’t they use his earlier DNA obtained in 1998? This clearly exposes the plot. Fresh DNA was required to implicate Anwar. If the 1998 DNA was used, the plot would have been exposed and therefore it could not be planted to implicate him, according to thinking Malaysians.
Apart from the police, many believe that even the court conspired to deny him certain documents that were crucial to his defence. When a man claims that he was a victim of political intrigue in order to convict him, the court should have allowed him access to vital information to defend himself. Contrary to the dictates of justice, the court denied him this information.
It is the duty of the court in any civil society to ensure that the accused is entitled to a fair trial. A fair trial would entail access to information that would help him in his defence. When the court does not assist in this respect, it becomes a sham trial and the court is guilty of contributing to this sham.
According to the medical report in the possession of Malaysiakini, Saiful was never sodomised by anyone, least of all by Anwar Ibrahim. Dr Mohamed Osman Hamid from the Hospital Pusrawi had confirmed this fact after physically examining Saiful on 28 June 2008. Is this the evidence that is being suppressed because it would have helped Anwar to mount a vigorous defence?
Why did the doctor who took the stand refuse to refer to his own notes? After all they are his observations and conclusions and he was there to give evidence based on those notes. But he refused to refer to those notes in spite of Karpal Singh prompting him several times. If he had referred to those notes, then the defence would have had a right to those notes. The doctor was aware of this technicality. He stubbornly refused to refer to his notes because he did not want to hand over his notes to the defence.
How would it have affected the doctor and his profession if his notes were made available to the defence? What was his interest in cooperating with the prosecution to disallow this information to Anwar? Was he scared that his notes could clear Anwar? Was he fearful that the scrutiny of the notes by Anwar’s experts would punch holes in his testimony?
There are many other instances and examples to confirm the existence of a plot. All these have been highlighted but to no avail.
Notwithstanding all this, what is puzzling is the judge’s refusal to recuse himself from the trial. As long as a bias is perceived by the accused that alone should disqualify him in the interest of justice. You don’t even have to prove bias, but the mere perception is reason enough to disqualify himself to ensure a fair trial.
After having come to the following conclusions emphatically:
• that he had found Saiful to be a truthful and reliable witness and his evidence is intact despite lengthy cross-examination by the defence;
• that Saiful had narrated in detail the sexual intercourse when he was under examination-in-chief;
• that the testimony of three Kuala Lumpur Hospital doctors corroborated Saiful’s evidence that there was penile penetration with the use of lubricants;
• that the evidence of chemists Dr Seah Lay Hong and Nor Aidora Saedon – who established that the DNA profile of the semen found in the anus of Saiful matched that of Anwar’s – was acceptable;
• that there was no difficulty in accepting the evidence of these expert witnesses;
• that there was no room for the tampering of evidence;
• that Anwar had introduced his penis into the anus of Saiful until ejaculation;
• that Saiful had given a blow-by-blow account of the sexual act in a room of the condominium;
what kind of a judgment will Zabidin be delivering after the trial? That final judgment has to reflect and confirm his above conclusions. If there is anything that is to the contrary, it would discredit his conclusive and emphatic judgment that ordered Anwar to stand for trial.
It would be in the interest of justice for a new judge to hear Anwar’s case.
- P Ramakrishnan is the president of Aliran
This process begins when the prevalent paradigm encounters an anomaly — an observation that the current worldview can’t explain. As far as the today’s scientific paradigm is concerned, consciousness is certainly one big anomaly. It is the most obvious fact of life: the fact that we are aware and experience an internal world of images, sensations, thoughts, and feelings. Yet there is nothing more difficult to explain. It is easier to explain how the universe evolved from the Big Bang to human beings than it is to explain why any of us should ever have a single inner experience. How does all that electro-chemical activity in the physical matter of the brain ever give rise to conscious experience? Why doesn’t it all just go on in the dark?
The initial response to an anomaly is often simply to ignore it. This is indeed how the scientific world has responded to the anomaly of consciousness. And for seemingly sound reasons. First, consciousness cannot be observed in the way that material objects can. It cannot be weighed, measured, or otherwise pinned down. Second, science has sought to arrive at universal objective truths that are independent of any particular observer’s viewpoint or state of mind. To this end they have deliberately avoided subjective considerations. And third, there seemed no need to consider it; the functioning of the universe could be explained without having to explore the troublesome subject of consciousness.
However, developments in several fields are now showing that consciousness cannot be so easily sidelined. Quantum physics suggests that, at the atomic level, the act of observation affects the reality that is observed. In medicine, a person’s state of mind can have significant effects on the body’s ability to heal itself. And as neurophysiologists deepen their understanding of brain function questions about the nature of consciousness naturally raise their head.
When the anomaly can no longer be ignored, the common reaction is to attempt to explain it within the current paradigm. Some believe that a deeper understanding of brain chemistry will provide the answers; perhaps consciousness resides in the action of neuropeptides. Others look to quantum physics; the minute microtubules found inside nerve cells could create quantum effects that might somehow contribute to consciousness. Some explore computing theory and believe that consciousness emerges from the complexity of the brain’s processing. Others find sources of hope in chaos theory.
Yet whatever ideas are put forward, one thorny question remains: How can something as immaterial as consciousness ever arise from something as unconscious as matter? If the anomaly persists, despite all attempts to explain it, then maybe the fundamental assumptions of the prevailing worldview need to be questioned. This is what Copernicus did when confronted with the perplexing motion of the planets. He challenged the geocentric worldview, showing that if the sun, not the earth, was at the center, then the movements of the planets began to make sense. But people don’t easily let go of cherished assumptions. Even when, 70 years later, the discoveries of Galileo and Kepler confirmed Copernicus’s proposal, the establishment was loath to accept the new model. Only when Newton formulated his laws of motion, providing a mathematical explanation of the planets’ paths, did the new paradigm start gaining wider acceptance.
The continued failure of our attempts to account for consciousness suggests that we too should question our basic assumptions. The current scientific worldview holds that the material world–the world of space, time and matter — is the primary reality. It is therefore assumed that the internal world of mind must somehow emerge from the world of matter. But if this assumption is getting us nowhere, perhaps we should consider alternatives.
One alternative that is gaining increasing attention is the view that the capacity for experience is not itself a product of the brain. This is not to say that the brain is not responsible for what we experience — there is ample evidence for a strong correlation between what goes on in the brain and what goes on in the mind — only that the brain is not responsible for experience itself. Instead, the capacity for consciousness is an inherent quality of life itself. In this model, consciousness is like the light in a film projector. The film needs the light in order for an image to appear, but it does not create the light. In a similar way, the brain creates the images, thoughts, feelings and other experiences of which we are aware, but awareness itself is already present.
All that we have discovered about the correlations between the brain and experience still holds true. This is usually the case with a paradigm shift; the new includes the old. But it also resolves the anomaly that the old could not explain. In this case, we no longer need scratch our heads wondering how the brain generates the capacity for experience. This proposal is so contrary to the current paradigm, that die-hard materialists easily ridicule and dismiss it. But we should not forget the bishops of Galileo’s time who refused to look through his telescope because they knew his discovery was impossible.
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