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False Dichotomies: Mind and Body
This is one of those delayed posts I've meant to write, but haven't gotten around to.
This is one of the ones that annoys me. In all sorts of things, people keep acting like your mind and body are too separate, different things. But, let's begin at the beginning, with the fundamental question. What exactly is "mind"? To be honest, I'd have to admit I have no idea. Well, that's not exactly true. Mind's a vague word, so even pinning down what people are talking about isn't easy. So here's my guessing definition, which I suppose is really the whole point of disagreement. If you really want more, there's been shelves and shelves of books written by doctors, priests, scientists, philosophers, and random people. So, how would I define "mind"?
Mind, I think, is the pattern that results from the interactions of neurons and chemicals and everything else in your brain. I could use lots of buzzwords like "emergent" and "self-organizing" or so on, but I won't. It's the sum total of the pattern of all the interactions of your thoughts, it's not something neat and easily definable. I'm SO not getting into anything about if there's parts of it that don't come from your brain, but some outside source, or things like that, because I don't know, and I'm not getting involved in an argument about souls. And, as I'll explain, it's somewhat irrelevant, at least how I'm approaching the question.
So, you say, if it's a pattern, couldn't you copy that pattern somewhere else? In theory, yes, sort of. But since it'd be an astonishingly complex pattern, from a stupidly huge number of interactions, it'd be nearly impossible to do perfectly. And even if you did, it'd be different. Different stimuli, different things interacting, different paths for the pattern to use. So even if you had an uber computer, or "copied" somebody's mind onto another brain, it'd be different, maybe not in big ways, but different.
Part of this comes from reading Mind Hacks, which talks about how the brain develops, and lots of it is just random speculation. Your mind happens in your brain, and your brain is part of your body. It's affected by if you're healthy or sick, hungry, tired, fed, or so on. There's a lot of range of tolerance, but your brain is a soup of chemicals, hormones, electrical impulses, and gray goop. Most of which are influenced by the rest of your body. Especially since a lot of your brain is devoted to the unconscious balancing act of keeping your body running. So when your body's not working right, it affects your brain. And vice versa.
I can tell I'm not making my point clearly, and just spouting random gibberish, so I'll try and sum it up clearly. Your mind happens in your brain, and your brain's part of your body, so your mind and body aren't divided, even if they're not exactly the same thing. They affect each other, not just in a simple "mind tells the body what to do" sense. So you have to take care of your body and your mind both, neglecting either's gonna hurt the other.
Maybe I should make up a "bullshit" tag for posts like this. It seemed a lot simpler and clearer until I sat down to try and write it out.
Technorati Tags: Mindscribbles
This is one of the ones that annoys me. In all sorts of things, people keep acting like your mind and body are too separate, different things. But, let's begin at the beginning, with the fundamental question. What exactly is "mind"? To be honest, I'd have to admit I have no idea. Well, that's not exactly true. Mind's a vague word, so even pinning down what people are talking about isn't easy. So here's my guessing definition, which I suppose is really the whole point of disagreement. If you really want more, there's been shelves and shelves of books written by doctors, priests, scientists, philosophers, and random people. So, how would I define "mind"?
Mind, I think, is the pattern that results from the interactions of neurons and chemicals and everything else in your brain. I could use lots of buzzwords like "emergent" and "self-organizing" or so on, but I won't. It's the sum total of the pattern of all the interactions of your thoughts, it's not something neat and easily definable. I'm SO not getting into anything about if there's parts of it that don't come from your brain, but some outside source, or things like that, because I don't know, and I'm not getting involved in an argument about souls. And, as I'll explain, it's somewhat irrelevant, at least how I'm approaching the question.
So, you say, if it's a pattern, couldn't you copy that pattern somewhere else? In theory, yes, sort of. But since it'd be an astonishingly complex pattern, from a stupidly huge number of interactions, it'd be nearly impossible to do perfectly. And even if you did, it'd be different. Different stimuli, different things interacting, different paths for the pattern to use. So even if you had an uber computer, or "copied" somebody's mind onto another brain, it'd be different, maybe not in big ways, but different.
Part of this comes from reading Mind Hacks, which talks about how the brain develops, and lots of it is just random speculation. Your mind happens in your brain, and your brain is part of your body. It's affected by if you're healthy or sick, hungry, tired, fed, or so on. There's a lot of range of tolerance, but your brain is a soup of chemicals, hormones, electrical impulses, and gray goop. Most of which are influenced by the rest of your body. Especially since a lot of your brain is devoted to the unconscious balancing act of keeping your body running. So when your body's not working right, it affects your brain. And vice versa.
I can tell I'm not making my point clearly, and just spouting random gibberish, so I'll try and sum it up clearly. Your mind happens in your brain, and your brain's part of your body, so your mind and body aren't divided, even if they're not exactly the same thing. They affect each other, not just in a simple "mind tells the body what to do" sense. So you have to take care of your body and your mind both, neglecting either's gonna hurt the other.
Maybe I should make up a "bullshit" tag for posts like this. It seemed a lot simpler and clearer until I sat down to try and write it out.
Technorati Tags: Mindscribbles
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They're separate entities for the most part, but definitely interconnected. Like a joined Trill is with a host and a symbiote, or like McDonald's and Burger King.