Mason's Meditations

If you're looking for something to chew over, some thoughtful seeds for mental cultivation, bookmark this page for Jeff Mason's monthly meditations. To think in or take away...

Number Nineteen: Dualism

Dualism is the view that the mind and matter are distinct. Mind is conscious. Inert matter is not. Consciousness is the problem, because it seems to leave no trace in matter, but, like the rudder of a ship, slides through it without leaving a trace. But is mind distinct from living matter?

We have always been impressed by the difference that death makes to a person. One minute we have a conscious being, whatever we decide consciousness to be, and the next minute we have a mound of unfeeling flesh in a state of terminal decay. The consciousness is gone, we say, but the body remains.

Even without death, we are drawn to distinguish between mind and body. Right now, it is true, I am not constantly making this distinction, since my body is functioning to enable me to write this meditation. However, if my hands became arthritic, I would feel alienated from them. If they had to be cut off, I would not see part of myself lying in the bowl, but something fleshy that used to be part of my body.

Dualism is a specific example of the more general distinction between myself and something else. It is a moveable line. For example, I normally distinguish myself from my car. However, when I am driving my own car, I can feel its metal skin as if it were my own. If someone’s bumps into my car, I feel like saying that I have been hit. What I count as "me" changes in different contexts.

It now seems that the idea of a substantial split between body and mind is untenable. We cannot, after all, imagine a free floating mind, totally independent of the working of the body. Whether the mind and the body are ultimately identical, or whether they are two aspects of the same underlying substance, a functioning body seems to be necessary for the existence of a functioning mind.

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Previous Meditations

18. Time and Immortality (15 January 2002)
17. Perennial Philosophy (15 November 2001)
16. Pain and Grief (15th October 2001)
15. Paradise Now (15th September 2001)
14. The Life of Pleasure (1st August 2001)
13. The Most Terrible Thing (1st July 2001)
12. Assisted Suicide (1st June 2001)
11. Death (1st May 2001)
10. Pessimism and Optimism (1st April 2001)
9. Leisure (16th March 2001)
8. The Reflective Life (1st March 2001)
7. On Having an Open Mind (15th February 2001)
6. The Art of Conversation (1st February 2001)
5. Having, Doing, Being (15th January 2001)
4. The Good of Things (1st January 2001)
3. Is Happiness Overrated? (15th December 2000)
2. The Fiction of Forevermore (1st December 2000)
1. The Art of Living (15th November 2000)