Mind-Body Dualism

The way I talk about inner experience, many often label me as a “dualist,” that “mind” and “body” are separate. These labels are blurred with modern science’s world of quantum mechanics, Bohm’s implicate/explicate order, etc. There is also the “map is not the territory” defense which leads to interesting discussions regarding whether something exists if we don’t know about it or can’t describe it. My answer to this question has been “yes” being a “map is not the territory” kind of guy. A great example of this is Sherwin Nuland’s book, The Mysteries Within, in which he discusses how our “understanding” of the different organs in the body has evolved over the years (e.g., since Hippocrates, a Phusikoi). Things seem to work before we know how to describe (or even observe) them.

As someone interested in creative processes and an aspiring “modern-day Phusikoi,” I am interested in understanding how and why things happen. There seem to be “external” physical things that can be expressed, shared, seen, heard, and pointed to (the “physical” or “material” world), and there are things that are more “internal” such as ideas, feelings, and thoughts which exhibit physical artifacts / characteristics (neurons firing, change in breathing, tears, etc.), but also seem to have other subjective meaning (leading to the “hard problem” of consciousness (http://www.imprint.co.uk/chalmers.html). From where do ideas come from? How can we have a shared experience or connection? What does it mean to have a shared experience?

In most cases, thoughts and ideas precede action (though this is debatable http://www.consciousentities.com/libet.htm, http://www.intuitive-connections.net/2003/vanauken1.htm). Where are we when we are in thought? When we listen to a story, what is the inner experience? What is the landscape of thought and how do thoughts influence physiology? In reading this article right now, there are physical characteristics of the display that you are reading this text from, the monitor, etc. There is probably a keyboard in front of you as well. You can measure their spatial dimensions and proximity to your body, etc. Even these words have “physical dimension” on the screen. However, in reading these words, your mind is somewhere else. I’d even make a case that if you understand what I’ve been getting at so far, you and I are at “the same place” or at least nearby in thought. But where is thought? Where is this place that we are now sharing, that I have “led you to” through the words that are now in front of you on this screen? There no “physical address” to this place we are at (like the post office or some other physical place), but these words have led some of you to this place of “thought.” Where are we right now?

Many people spend a lot of time in thought. Thought and feeling are intimately connected. A lot of violence happens because of this around the world, every day. What are feelings without thought? What happens when you bring your full awareness to the present moment and bring yourself completely to the physical experience of being? Grounded in physical reality (http://www.budsas.org/ebud/mfneng/mind0.htm)? What happens to feeling in the absence of thought?