[descriptions] the Mind-Body Problem

March 2017

Brief note on the ‘mind-body problem.’

Philosophers say that this is a fascinating question.

Yet I hear those three words and they vibrate in my ear drum and my mind interprets the exterior meaning of the individual words, yet no emotions are elicited. Meaning is not truly captured.

To try to better explain the mind body problem, I will nudge the reader along by way of my own line of observations and thoughts.

Humans appear to be simple stimuli-response systems. 

Hunger leads to eating.

Procreational urges lead to sex.

Rudeness leads to anger.

This is all body.

Yet we know that human experience is not that simple.

Sometimes we are able to ‘think it through’ / ‘find perspective’- and the stimuli no longer effects us in the same way.

Rudeness is responded to with love.

Dissatisfaction with life is transformed into contentfulness.

The fact that while still in the same situation, we can deploy attitude/mental shifts and fundamentally change our own immediate feelings- is incredibly fascinating and leads me to the word ‘mind’ and 'consciousness.' This phenomenon is surely an uniquely human one.