Sunday, October 7, 2007

Mind and Body




Body is a biological organism, a machine, a part of a nature and its laws that undergo various physical changes and chemical reactions. Mind is a state of being, existence built upon consciousness, emotions and ability to construct concepts and imaginary representation of feelings and ideas. However what makes body live and able to function is not operation of its components such as cells, organs and systems but mind, which represents our soul, energy and sparkle of life.
Let’s take the example of a car. In order to function, it needs sparkle of energy, an ignition. The same thing applies to the body. It needs mind for ignition to be able to function. The body needs fuel in form of energy from the food but mind is fed by our experiences, memory, perception and feelings. Without a mind body would represents a vegetative existence.
Mind cannot be simply generated from the brain operations; it needs independent stimulus to exist, the control of our self that dictates our mental being. Let’s take the same example with a car that has a body and is ignited but cannot move and operate without control of outside stimuli (driver). This form of control can be represented by our consciousness. This inner awareness separates our body from our mental states of being.
Another idea of the mind as a separate substance is the representation it creates such as dreams or artistic creativity. Our body is mobile only in one physical reality, however our mind can shifts in many realities, thus can detach itself from the material existence. When we read a book we can easily imagine being in the fictional reality but our body cannot. When we dream our mind experiences the symbolic world and imaginary realities but our body cannot.
Therefore, I think mind and body are one fused substance with different properties that can distinguish one from another….by having physical existence and mental existence.

1 comment:

Professor Roger said...

It seems like you have some very developed and thought-out ideas on this subject. I like the examples you use here.