Can Mind Affect Body?

[Dustin]

Let's discuss whether or not the mind can have an effect the body.

[Didymos Thomas]

How would you have us define "mind"?

If we take "mind" to be some emergent aspect of our physical body, specifically of the brain, then of course the mind can affect the body because the mind is part of the body.

That is, basically, my view and way to reconcile mind-body problems.

[Dustin]

Human consciousness manifested especially in thought, perception, emotion, will, memory, and imagination.

[linux_user]

Body is the result of Desire of Mind.

Each is the other....

Brett.

[Didymos Thomas]

Human consciousness manifested especially in thought, perception, emotion, will, memory, and imagination.

Well, unless there is some reason to think these are not aspects of our physical body, I'm not sure what the problem is.

Of course, we could take Brett's spin on things - that notions of a physical body are emergent features of our mind. The problem here is people who do not seem to have a "mind". Imagine the poor fellow who, after some terrible accident, does not have thought, perception, emotion, will, memory or imagination. He has no "mind" from which the physical body could emerge.
If his body is then merely the result of someone else's mind, then we have, in essence, reasoned this poor fellow out of existence entirely.

[saiboimushi]

But ... what if he really didn't exist? ::Twilight Zone music::


Supplemental questions:

1. I wonder how we could prove that we had minds?
2. When Descartes says, "I think therefore I am," what in the world does he mean?
3. What is thinking; what is that which thinks; and, pray tell, what is being?

[Didymos Thomas]

1. What do you mean by prove? Do you think, for some reason, that we do not have minds?
2. That thinking is a sufficient condition for him to exist
3. a function of the brain; debatable, Descartes quote attempts to shed some light on this particular question; being what?

[saiboimushi]

I don't know what it means to "prove" something. That's a very good question. And indeed, as strange as it may seem, I am open to the possibility that we do not have minds.

But what does it mean to "think" or to "exist"? If we don't know what these terms mean, Descartes' declaration is reduced to "I x therefore I x." And what does "I" mean? Now we're left with "x x therefore x x." (And then there's the question of what meaning is.)

To say thinking is a function of the brain certainly seems to explain its origin (i.e., the brain). But is an explanation of the origin of thinking an explanation of its nature or essence? (And then there's the question of what an explanation is.)

"Being what?" Excellent question. The being that belongs to a thing, and the thing itself--are these the same, or are they different?

[saiboimushi]

I realize I haven't been very constructive. My apologies.

Here is something we can work with more easily. The "ghost limb" phenomenon: a person loses a limb but on occasion will "feel" it as if it were still attached. This suggests that the sensation of the limb is mental.

Another suggestion that material sensation (if not matter per se) is mental comes from a common observation: when the mind is completely unconscious, it does not appear to have any sense of the body.

So a limb that does not exist materially can occasionally be felt, and a limb that does exist materially can at times not be felt. Is the body, or at least a bodily sense (assuming that this sense is different from the body itself), therefore mental?

[Aedes]

Originally Posted by Didymos Thomas

Well, unless there is some reason to think these are not aspects of our physical body, I'm not sure what the problem is.

Of course, we could take Brett's spin on things - that notions of a physical body are emergent features of our mind. The problem here is people who do not seem to have a "mind". Imagine the poor fellow who, after some terrible accident, does not have thought, perception, emotion, will, memory or imagination. He has no "mind" from which the physical body could emerge.
If his body is then merely the result of someone else's mind, then we have, in essence, reasoned this poor fellow out of existence entirely.

Exactly. It's a late night college dorm type of philosophy that really needs to dwell on whether things truly exist outside of our consciousness, i.e. the tree in the forest conundrum. Well, that's being cruel, I mean that philosophy does exist quite sincerely in some Buddhist philosophy, but I don't think the original question was posed under Buddhist assumptions.

The mind is a physiologic function of the brain, and specifically the telencephalon / neocortex. Some mental states are beneficial to the health of other parts of the body, whereas other mental states are deleterious. But as in Thomas' example, even the absence of a mind, i.e. anencephaly (a neural tube defect in which babies are born with only a brainstem and midbrain), or brain death (like from head injuries or drowning or anoxia), the body goes on. Well, it goes on with some life support -- but if you put someone on a ventilator, keep them hydrated, and keep them nourished, the body can go on for years and years and years.

In other words, most physiologic functions of the body are completely autonomous from the brain's direct control (let alone the mind). The mind works so that the body will do things like eat, sleep, avoid danger, etc.

Originally Posted by linux_user

Body is the result of Desire of Mind.

I hate to be concrete, but in what way is, say, your common bile duct or your transitional epithelium "the result of Desire of Mind"?