Nicholas
Reid reflects in essay form on general matters and ideas related to
literature, history, popular culture and the arts, or just life in general. You are free to agree
or disagree with him.
MIND-BODY IDENTITY THEORY IN ACTION
I
confess, dear reader, that I am at best an amateur philosopher and
psychologist, although I have a number of times valiantly read my way through
texts in both philosophy and psychology.
One
thing I have heard of, in a distant sort of way, is that old chestnut “the
mind-body identity theory”. As I understand it, this theory is an empirical and
materialist counterblast to the idealist view that the mind is a non-physical
entity not to be equated with the brain.
The
mind (according to Platonic idealists and some Cartesian rationalists) is more
than the neurones and nerve connections and gloopy grey matter that reside in
the skull of each of us. Though the brain may host and be the physical seat of
the mind, the mind is detachable from our physical being. In fact, in the
idealist view of things, the mind is very simlar to the soul – the non-physical
moral and emotional essence of what each of us is.
Not
so, say empricists and materialists, sweating along in the footsteps of Locke
and Hume. The mind is simply the sum of the functions of the physical brain.
Emotions and thoughts are as much products of our physical being as digestion
and excretion. No physical brain, no mind – and certainly no non-physical
entity separable from the brain.
I
do not know enough to discuss this matter in any detail, but I do understand
the general plan of the battlefield, and at different times of my life I have
been persuaded one way or the other.
Item
– as a sometime manic-depressive (“bipolar dysfunction”, according to a more
recent jargon), I have often found myself labouring under oppressive and
debilitating feelings which sap my vigour, slow my brain down to a crawl and of
course leave me feeling totally miserable. But in such thoughts (myself almost
despising), my mind asserts itself and tells me that I have a capacity which I
call “unconquerable reason”. I can see beyond the immediate present moment –
beyond the physical pressure upon my brain, which the empiricists and
materialists say is all my mind is. Like Descartes, at such moments I become a
convinced rationalist, embracing the dualism of mind and body, knowing that the
one is not the other.
But
let me also speak of the contrary case.
Recently
I had a particularly nasty bout of gastroenteritis.
It
began as a rising nausea, which slowly crept up my gorge.
I
took the afternoon off work as a malaise began, then took the following day off
as well.
Once
I got home, I vomited copiously in the family loo. When you have nausea,
vomiting is a great relief. I thought I had expelled the evil thing that had
invaded me – but no. Having made an appointment to see the doctor, I was
backing my car down the drive when I had to stop and managed to get out the car
door just in time to vomit copiously on the grass verge.
I
made it to the doctor’s, and waited (as one always has to do in a GP’s surgery)
for about half-an-hour. The nausea built up again. I dashed to the loo in the
surgery and vomited expansively for the third time. As I emerged, pale and
shaken, the receptionist asked me if I needed some help, so I had the
humiliation of knowing that the whole waiting room of patients had heard my
wild bodily evacuation. Halfway through my consultation with the doctor, I had
to dash out for a diahorreic excretion in his surgery loo. As well as giving me
a prescription, the doctor gave me a robust plastic bag, with closeable top,
should I have to vomit before I got home.
I
went to the pharmacy. While waiting for the prescription to be filled out, I
had the embarrassment of vomiting for a fourth time – this time into my handy
plastic bag. The pharmacist was as understanding and helpful as the doctor had
been, and discreetly helped me to dispose of the filled bag in the appropriate
receptacle.
Home
I crept wearily and achingly. The mere thought of food or other nourishment was
disgusting to me. I was tired. My body ached. I crawled to bed early and slept
for about six hours. At about 2 in the morning I woke, dashed to the ensuite,
and disgorged oceanic proportions of vomit – my fifth and final big vomit
within less than 24 hours. My body had nothing left to expel. I was cleaned
out. I would feel no more nausea. But the virus had to punish me in some other
way. When I woke for the second day’s torture, my limbs and muscles ached, my
backbone felt as if it has been misused by a contortionist. Unable to make me
nauseous, the evil thing decided to make me feel in amplified form every minor
bump, grossness or imperfection of my body.
Thus
for my physical condition.
And
what was my mind doing all the while? As I experienced nausea, ached, felt
fatigue and physical pain, my mind was telling me that there was no joy in
life, than my life was worthless, that all effort was a waste, that nothing
ultimately mattered, that I was a wretch, and that oblivion was better than the
stress of living.
My
mind was dancing to my body’s tune and totally at one with it. Pure mind-body
identity.
On
the third day, after a full night’s deep sleep (most unusual for a chronic
insomniac such as I), I awoke fully recovered. No nausea, no pain, no aches.
The beast had passed through me and left me unconquered. I reflected that, in a
world where people die of hunger and in wars, my 50-or-so hours of suffering
were trivial, minor and the type of thing that only privileged people would choose
to comment upon.
The
sun was shining and my mind rejoiced. The world was good, full of promise, full
of things to look forward to. I was glad my body had been cleaned out, and
decided to profit from this fact by being a litle more frugal in my diet. There
was a spring in my step and no hint of mental fatigue.
My
mind was again dancing to my body’s tune.
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