Re-thinking Mind and Soul
What am I?
In many religious traditions, the answer would be given in terms of the "soul" -- something that is fundamentally "me". Believers in this tradition imagine something inhabiting the body but separable from he body, especially at death. After death, the soul goes on to further adventures in Heaven, Hell, the Happy Hunting Ground or perhaps another body, human or not. In any case, the soul seems to inhabit an entirely different universe, immune from the laws of physics or, dare we say it, logic.
Outside of religious thinking, we generally use the term "mind" in place of "soul", but the common image is still something inhabiting the body, different from the body and somehow "looking out" on the real world. This way of thinking saddles us with the "mind-body" problem, in which we attempt deal with one of life's central mysteries: How is it that I can look out from "inside" my mind on to a material world? The "inside" (especially "consciousness") and the "outside" seem to inhabit utterly different universes.
I have recently undergone one of those special moments when many different threads of contemplation, investigation and experience come together to give a new perspective on perhaps the most fundamental question of all: What is Mind?
MOTORCYCLES
Much of what I have to say here will seem to be utterly incomprehensible to the average reader. For someone who wants to dip his toe in these waters before attempting to swim the channel with me, I recommend the best seller, "Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance". This book impressed me deeply when I first read it back in the early 70's. What I remember most clearly is the author's claim that a motor cycle is an idea. You cannot possibly understand, operate or maintain a motor cycle without entering into and sharing the designer's idea. Otherwise it's just a complex lump of metal.
It has taken me over 40 years to make the next baby step. If the motor cycle is an idea in the mind of its designer, then quite obviously, the mind of the designer (in some sense) contains the motor cycle. Zen claims that we are "nothing but" the thoughts that run through our brains. But if an actual, physical motor cycle is one of these "thoughts", we need to start thinking of our minds in a totally new way. The "Zen connection" is further explored in "Zen and the Outside-In Mind"
OVERCOMING FANTASIES ABOUT THE SOUL
Perhaps this perspective seems crazy mostly because we have been fed from birth on the religious or neo-religious idea that our minds are contained in our heads. Whatever our minds are, they are either inseparable from our brains (and therefore are destroyed when our brain die) or they are separable and act like "souls" which can wander on to other things once the body dies. There seems to be only two alternatives.
Like many religious ideas, the chief harm done by this fantasy world view is to block consideration of alternatives. Perhaps Mind, has been "out there" in the real, physical world all along.
BIOGRAPHY - KNOWING THE MIND OF ANOTHER PERSON
Let's take a step back from motor cycles and imagine a different scenario. Suppose I die and, for some strange reason, someone wants to write a biography of me. They want to know my "mind", even though my brain has presumably gone up in smoke or is feeing worms somewhere.
Such an individual would be well advised to spend a lot of time in my library, where I spent most of my time when alive. There are hundreds of books there which I "weeded out" from the normal clutter. Every remaining book was treasured and valued by me while I was alive. A patient investigator could enjoy a years-long tour of my mind by reading every one of those books. Someone obsessively determined to know my mind could go out and interview hundreds of my former clients to understand what I built for them (my equivalent of motor cycles) and why. The point of all this is to show that, even though "I" am gone from the scene, I leave a massive physical footprint of objects that were (or are?) the contents of my mind in the same sense that motor cycles are ideas in the mind of their designers. It's fair to say that such an intrepid biographer would wind up knowing my "mind" even better than I do now, which is a spooky conclusion. Even in life, my "mind" extends tendrils into the world and outside my skull. In life, I am well aware of many of these "tendrils" (I'm happy to recommend good books and I vaguely remember all the software I wrote, some of which is presumably still running). On the other hand, I must admit that I have put most of these "tendrils" on the burner behind the back burner. Perhaps they are irretrievably lost and forgotten.
THE STRUCTURE OF THOUGHT
Let's come at it from a different angle. Full disclosure: I am a systems analyst with a strong preference for "data structures". When I think of any "system", what I see in my head is a bunch of interconnected blobs representing "ideas" with the connections representing relationships between ideas.
So from a data structure point of view, I picture the ideas (thoughts) running through my head (this is a Zen picture). They are connected to each other, so for example, the thought of the kitchen may lead me to the idea of fetching a glass of orange juice. But they are also connected to objects in the real world. For example, I remember where I left my car keys. That makes the car keys "ideas" like the motor cycle. The keys could be meaningless to someone else who found them.
Following this line of reasoning and picturing my "mind" as a data structure, I find that my mind extends outward from my skull to touch millions of objects in the real world.
THE SHARED MIND
I invite the reader to "try on" this way of thinking for awhile. It's a new idea to me as well, but it feels like the key to many related questions. For example, if our minds are "out there" in the world, they are obviously shared by others who share the same real world. This opens a new or perhaps simplified way of thinking about how we influence each other, simply by sharing the contents of our minds through the overlapping aspects of reality that are present in the minds of those around us.
Of course, the "stuff" in the real world means different things to different people. The "meaning" is the way ideas are connected with each other. We still read each other's minds imperfectly. Even so, it's a new experience to look at some object in the world and feel that we are connecting with the minds of others who know that object in some way. In the modern world, we are surrounded by objects designed, built and/or owned by others. Looking around, we pass through the minds of thousands of others. We are not unaware of this. We are endlessly curious about the people connected to the things we see: What were they thinking?
Enough for now. This idea connects all over the place to Zen of Value and Dragon Theory, for example. There is much "wiring up" to do ...
In many religious traditions, the answer would be given in terms of the "soul" -- something that is fundamentally "me". Believers in this tradition imagine something inhabiting the body but separable from he body, especially at death. After death, the soul goes on to further adventures in Heaven, Hell, the Happy Hunting Ground or perhaps another body, human or not. In any case, the soul seems to inhabit an entirely different universe, immune from the laws of physics or, dare we say it, logic.
Outside of religious thinking, we generally use the term "mind" in place of "soul", but the common image is still something inhabiting the body, different from the body and somehow "looking out" on the real world. This way of thinking saddles us with the "mind-body" problem, in which we attempt deal with one of life's central mysteries: How is it that I can look out from "inside" my mind on to a material world? The "inside" (especially "consciousness") and the "outside" seem to inhabit utterly different universes.
I have recently undergone one of those special moments when many different threads of contemplation, investigation and experience come together to give a new perspective on perhaps the most fundamental question of all: What is Mind?
MOTORCYCLES
Much of what I have to say here will seem to be utterly incomprehensible to the average reader. For someone who wants to dip his toe in these waters before attempting to swim the channel with me, I recommend the best seller, "Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance". This book impressed me deeply when I first read it back in the early 70's. What I remember most clearly is the author's claim that a motor cycle is an idea. You cannot possibly understand, operate or maintain a motor cycle without entering into and sharing the designer's idea. Otherwise it's just a complex lump of metal.
It has taken me over 40 years to make the next baby step. If the motor cycle is an idea in the mind of its designer, then quite obviously, the mind of the designer (in some sense) contains the motor cycle. Zen claims that we are "nothing but" the thoughts that run through our brains. But if an actual, physical motor cycle is one of these "thoughts", we need to start thinking of our minds in a totally new way. The "Zen connection" is further explored in "Zen and the Outside-In Mind"
OVERCOMING FANTASIES ABOUT THE SOUL
Perhaps this perspective seems crazy mostly because we have been fed from birth on the religious or neo-religious idea that our minds are contained in our heads. Whatever our minds are, they are either inseparable from our brains (and therefore are destroyed when our brain die) or they are separable and act like "souls" which can wander on to other things once the body dies. There seems to be only two alternatives.
Like many religious ideas, the chief harm done by this fantasy world view is to block consideration of alternatives. Perhaps Mind, has been "out there" in the real, physical world all along.
BIOGRAPHY - KNOWING THE MIND OF ANOTHER PERSON
Let's take a step back from motor cycles and imagine a different scenario. Suppose I die and, for some strange reason, someone wants to write a biography of me. They want to know my "mind", even though my brain has presumably gone up in smoke or is feeing worms somewhere.
Such an individual would be well advised to spend a lot of time in my library, where I spent most of my time when alive. There are hundreds of books there which I "weeded out" from the normal clutter. Every remaining book was treasured and valued by me while I was alive. A patient investigator could enjoy a years-long tour of my mind by reading every one of those books. Someone obsessively determined to know my mind could go out and interview hundreds of my former clients to understand what I built for them (my equivalent of motor cycles) and why. The point of all this is to show that, even though "I" am gone from the scene, I leave a massive physical footprint of objects that were (or are?) the contents of my mind in the same sense that motor cycles are ideas in the mind of their designers. It's fair to say that such an intrepid biographer would wind up knowing my "mind" even better than I do now, which is a spooky conclusion. Even in life, my "mind" extends tendrils into the world and outside my skull. In life, I am well aware of many of these "tendrils" (I'm happy to recommend good books and I vaguely remember all the software I wrote, some of which is presumably still running). On the other hand, I must admit that I have put most of these "tendrils" on the burner behind the back burner. Perhaps they are irretrievably lost and forgotten.
THE STRUCTURE OF THOUGHT
Let's come at it from a different angle. Full disclosure: I am a systems analyst with a strong preference for "data structures". When I think of any "system", what I see in my head is a bunch of interconnected blobs representing "ideas" with the connections representing relationships between ideas.
So from a data structure point of view, I picture the ideas (thoughts) running through my head (this is a Zen picture). They are connected to each other, so for example, the thought of the kitchen may lead me to the idea of fetching a glass of orange juice. But they are also connected to objects in the real world. For example, I remember where I left my car keys. That makes the car keys "ideas" like the motor cycle. The keys could be meaningless to someone else who found them.
Following this line of reasoning and picturing my "mind" as a data structure, I find that my mind extends outward from my skull to touch millions of objects in the real world.
THE SHARED MIND
I invite the reader to "try on" this way of thinking for awhile. It's a new idea to me as well, but it feels like the key to many related questions. For example, if our minds are "out there" in the world, they are obviously shared by others who share the same real world. This opens a new or perhaps simplified way of thinking about how we influence each other, simply by sharing the contents of our minds through the overlapping aspects of reality that are present in the minds of those around us.
Of course, the "stuff" in the real world means different things to different people. The "meaning" is the way ideas are connected with each other. We still read each other's minds imperfectly. Even so, it's a new experience to look at some object in the world and feel that we are connecting with the minds of others who know that object in some way. In the modern world, we are surrounded by objects designed, built and/or owned by others. Looking around, we pass through the minds of thousands of others. We are not unaware of this. We are endlessly curious about the people connected to the things we see: What were they thinking?
Enough for now. This idea connects all over the place to Zen of Value and Dragon Theory, for example. There is much "wiring up" to do ...
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