‘Attempting to Reduce Mind to Body’
I found your editorial (Jan. 6), “Mysteries of Mind and Body,” an intriguing and unique change from the usual sort of political and economic commentary one finds on the editorial pages of major newspapers. Although most scientific research is, as you say, “attempting to reduce mind to body,” there are notable exceptions. A few researchers agree with Plato, who, as mentioned in the editorial, “asserted that the mind could exist outside the body.”
For instance, there is the work of Dr. Michael Sabom, a respected cardiologist and professor at the Emory University Medical School, in the area of near-death experiences (NDEs). These involve accounts of trauma victims who report observing their own bodies from a perspective outside the body, even though under an anesthetic or otherwise unconscious according to medical indications.
Initially skeptical of anecdotes of NDEs, Dr. Sabom set up control groups of cardiac-arrest patients, and found convincing evidence that those who reported NDEs were actually able to give accurate accounts of the details of their medical treatment, corresponding to the actual records kept by physicians who took part in the operations or resuscitation efforts.
In his book, “Recollections of Death: A Medical Investigation,” Dr. Sabom arrived at this conclusion concerning the mind-brain question: “If the human brain is actually composed of two fundamental elements--the ‘mind’ and the ‘brain’--then could the near-death crisis event somehow trigger a transient splitting of the mind from the brain in many individuals? . . . My own beliefs in this matter are leaning in this direction. The out-of-body hypothesis simply seems to fit best with the data at hand . . . Could the mind which splits apart from the physical brain be, in essence, the soul, which continues to exist after final bodily death, according to some religious doctrines? As I see it, this is the ultimate question that has been raised by reports of the NDE.”
Extremely careful research has also been carried out by Dr. Ian Stevenson, professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia, in past lives memories, an area admittedly muddled with fraud and inaccuracy. Dr. Stevenson, however, has been able to verify accounts of past lives by very young children, who would not have been able to use books and other means to fill their minds with authentic details.
Finally, I would like to point out that the mind-body dualism is not only found in the teachings of Western philosophers such as Plato, and later Descartes. For instance, India’s Bhagavad-Gita includes a very thorough explanation of the distinction between the conscious self and the physical mechanism of the body and how to directly perceive this through meditation. The Gita says: “As the sun alone illuminates all this universe, so does the living entity, one within the body, illuminate the entire body by consciousness. Those who see with eyes of knowledge the difference between the body and the knower of the body . . . attain to the supreme goal.”
I hope this isn’t the last time you’ll illumine your editorial pages with some philosophical reflection on life’s deeper questions. It’s a great way to start the morning.
DRUTAKARMA DASA Editor Bhaktivedanta Book Trust Los Angeles You correctly pointed out that although Plato claimed more than 2,000 years ago that the mind could exist outside the body, neither he nor anyone else has provided the slightest shred of evidence to support the notion of this mysterious non-physical force called mind.
It is incumbent upon those who claim the existence of mind, psyche, free will etc. to give a clear, lucid explanation as to the nature of these mysterious forces. For instance, how is it that the mind communicates with, and manipulates the physical chemical brain to carry out its desires? What is the source of its desires?
As each new fact concerning the workings of the brain is wrestled from the unknown, it will become overwhelmingly clear that the brain is a physical-chemical problem-solving mechanism.
Of course the notion that man does not have free will will be a bitter pill for religionists to swallow. Free will is the cornerstone on which the notion of divine judgment is built. After all, if man’s thoughts and resulting actions are the result of his genetic endowment and environmental conditioning, how could he be judged in another world for what he thought or did in this one?
But if man does not have free will, isn’t he a robot? Yes, but nature has endowed man with a precious gift, the “feeling of freedom.” Due to the complex structure of the brain, the potential responses to any stimuli are so great that it creates the illusion of freedom, or choice.
Perhaps when nature has written the final chapter, man will bask in the warm glow of comprehension and the concept of “mind” will join the three-headed conceptual monstrosity of God, free will and the human psyche on the junk heap of phony notions.
PACKARD J. ROUNDTREE Yucca Valley Your editorial reminded me of philosopher Bertrand Russell’s approach to that enigma. He once referred to mind and matter as “forever staring at each other across the unbridgeable gulf”. Whenever he attempted to discuss the subject with his grandmother, she would quote the old philosopher’s joke: “What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind.”
VANCE GEIER Los Angeles Unlikely as it may seem, there really is a general scientific explanation for the mind-body problem you describe, and it is currently in search of a publisher.
Plato’s speculation that the mind could exist outside the body is incorrect, after all. Some body is necessary, though not necessarily a human body. The processes involved are not physical or chemical in a literal sense but do require material circumstances of some kind for their mechanization.
And, yes, a conscious robot might well quit work out of boredom one day. Or he might just as easily pause for a moment’s reflection on the nature of life and then decide to get on with the job.
LESTER ZICK Los Angeles
