The relationship between mind and body may be one of the hardest questions because it is related to what human beings are ultimately. I first began reading about it when I was writing an essay on whether there is life after death. The tutor who I had a tutorial with thought that after death people would survive as immortal minds or souls. On the other hand, the tutor who had given the initial lecture thought that the accounts of those who had near death experiences were connected to the bodily chemistry rather than the mind and body being separate and was coming from a physicalist perspective. I have continued to wonder about this, partly in relation to the question of life after death.3017Metaphysician wrote: ↑July 8th, 2022, 6:25 pmJack, Jack, Jack! I love you buddy but resist the temptation of equivocation. Just like the 'qualifications' from the subject-object dynamic, Dualism on its face recognizes the relationships between mind and matter. From the hard problem of consciousness (the difficulty in physically describing things like the feeling of color, Love, the Will, time, music, and other ineffable, abstract or otherwise qualitative phenomena) to left-brain/right-brain cognition, feeling v logic, will v intellect, physical/metaphysical, and/or any axiom associated with the unity of opposites, dualist epistemology is existential. There is no escaping it. We can only integrate it.JackDaydream wrote: ↑July 8th, 2022, 10:46 amThat makes you a dualist to a large extent. Very few people are dualists and, generally, the idea of the separation of the mind from the body, as described by Descartes is seen as a false dichotomy between mind and body. In the criticism of Descartes' dualist split the main emphasis is upon embodied consciousness as an imminent reality.SteveKlinko wrote: ↑July 8th, 2022, 10:28 amI start with the assumption that Conscious Minds are a separate Phenomenon from Bodies/Brains and all the whole Physical Universe. Conscious Minds exist in a separate Conscious Space. Our Bodies are Incubators for the Conscious Mind that must eventually become the pure Consciousness that it always was. When the Body/Mind dies, the attached Conscious Mind continues and is born into a completely new form of existence as a pure Conscious Mind. We cannot imagine what this pure Conscious Existence will be like.JackDaydream wrote: ↑July 6th, 2022, 4:37 pm
Thanks for your detailed reply. The most interesting statement which I find in your post is about the conscious mind is not 'a Ghost in the Machine, but rather a Ghost connected to a Machine.'. The idea of the ghost in the machine was too problematic as involving a potential separation between mind and body, almost as a mind within a body as a container. The notion of a Ghost connected to a machine is more intricate as seeing the brain as the basis of wiring between brain and body.
It may well be that consciousness fizzles with the end of the brain's existence as the idea of disembodied consciousness. The nature of consciousness does seem to be imminent rather than separate, although my one query would be the possibility that the brain is a filtering down of consciousness. This was the view of Henri Bergson of and Aldous Huxley, with the idea of there being 'mind at large'. This concept would also relate to Jung's idea of the collective unconscious, which would be about a source for the existence of consciousness itself. But, the nature of this source is a little unclear because it does depend whether the unconscious is completely unconscious, or whether anything remains of a person's consciousness beyond the death of the brain. Is consciousness once it exists simply a product of the physical or does it develop into any independent form of existence which transcends matter?
However, I do have times when I do wonder about dualism. That has been mainly on the basis of experiences of experimentation with hallucinogenics, and a few borderline sleep experiences. I really did have the sensations of flying around my bedroom and seeing my body lying on the bed. On one occasion, I saw a silver coil attached to the centre of my forehead which seemed to be the connection between mind and body. Strangely, Descartes spoke of this connection, as the pineal gland in the centre of the forehead. My experience of seeing the silver coil was before I read the writings of Descartes.
I do find it hard to know what my experiences represented because such experiences may not be what they appear to be at face value. In particular, those using hallucinogenics are chemically induced. However, I do seriously wonder about dimensions beyond the physical, and I think that I have speculated on these in a couple of my own previous threads, as dimensions or levels beyond 3D reality, with time itself being at this juncture as the 4th dimension.
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As you may be aware, contradictions or opposite determinations follow necessarily from most cognition during the apperception of knowing. Or simply said, during everyday thinking. To this end, you may first want to ask yourself the questions: What do we know?", "What does it mean to say that we know something?", "What makes justified beliefs justified?", and most importantly and germane to dualism: "How do we know that we know?"
To say "very few people are dualists" needs qualified, pun intended
So much of the literature which I have come across in libraries and bookshops has been in the direction of materialist understanding of the mind, especially the associated philosophy of realism. However, it is not that I have come to a creat conclusion and I do wish to read so many other perspectives. There are also different forms of dualism, including substance dualism. Do you think that Shopenhauer's outlook is based on that? I came across a book based on Deleuze's understanding of dualism in a charity shop, called' Imminence'. I didn't buy it at the time and when I went back it had gone, but it was gone. The first book that led me to think about imminence was one by the physicist, Fritjof Capra, called 'The Turning Point', which I don't have any longer. He critiqued the Newtonian-Cartesian model and spoke of systems..I am not sure that he was a complete materialist though because he was drawing upon the new physics which makes things far from simple.
About a year and a half ago, I got to the point of thinking about going beyond dualism, but, then I started to wonder to what extent is this based on materialism in some ways. Definitely, my own experience of taking acid twice felt like a confirmation of dualism. I felt able to walk through other bodies and no one seemed to complain about me bumping into them.I even worried that I wouldn't get back into my body ever again. I don't really plan to take acid again because it was so dramatic and I had to start hanging out in dance music events which I don't go to usually.
In some ways, duality and non duality may be an essential paradox. In particular, even though some claim that mind may be beyond the body, the condition of the body is so central to sentience and states of mind. For example, I find it hard to cope with extreme weather, the heat, freezing temperatures and the pouring rain. It makes me feel awful and there is talk of Britain having highest temperatures on record this coming week. I think wondering how I will cope because I have hayfever already and find it hard to think clearly, probably because the air quality in London is so poor. So, I would gladly try and climb out of my body in bad weather and sleep can be difficult in it, with sleep and dreaming being one of my main ways of losing direct experience of the body.