(no subject)
Monday, August 22nd, 2005 03:21 pmSome people firmly believe in the concept of Mind Over Matter. These people often have amazing stories about wonders performed by their enlightened guru of choice, or the miraculous recovery of their great aunt's godmother's step-niece's best friend once removed, yet their own personal experiences tend to be along the lines of that time when they, through an intensive regimen of meditative practice and positive thinking, drove away the common cold in six days instead of their usual seven. They may know a little something about the results of legitimate studies illegitimately extrapolated, but conversations with them often end in an exotic region of nowhere populated by the bright fluffy angels with sparkly wings.
Other people, skeptic souls, are convinced that matter is the only thing that matters--never mind the mind. Every ailment is brought about by a physical cause, whether genetic, chemical, or bacterial. Even emotional and psychological issues all have a physical cause, best treated by some well-publicized recent addition to the pharmacopoeia. Any study demonstrating that, say, people are more susceptible to infection when they're highly stressed out, is an irremediably flawed study to be discarded as soon as it's mentioned. Your mind is just an epiphenomenon, an illusion springing from the meaningless interactions of chemicals and electrical sparks in your brain matter. Your mind has power over nothing. Individual blobs of matter are all you need to concern yourself with. Some folks will argue for this belief in matter with their dying breath, even if they have to resort to using government coverups and space aliens as an explanation to do so.
Can you believe the lengths people will go to in order to avoid the obvious?
It's not mind over matter or matter over mind or one being an illusion or the other never existing. Whatever the mind is, mind interacts with matter. At its best, the interaction is a dance between two partners with respect for each other.
Sometimes, though, the interaction becomes a duel, or the less-civilized barroom brawl. Sometimes matter beats mind into submission.
Ow.
There was going to be a point to this post, but then the migraine that's been hanging round off & on for the last few days decided to remind me of its continuing malevolence. Whatever the matter was, it slipped my mind.
Did I actually just try to slip the word "epiphenomenon" into a LiveJournal post? Ay yi yi.
Other people, skeptic souls, are convinced that matter is the only thing that matters--never mind the mind. Every ailment is brought about by a physical cause, whether genetic, chemical, or bacterial. Even emotional and psychological issues all have a physical cause, best treated by some well-publicized recent addition to the pharmacopoeia. Any study demonstrating that, say, people are more susceptible to infection when they're highly stressed out, is an irremediably flawed study to be discarded as soon as it's mentioned. Your mind is just an epiphenomenon, an illusion springing from the meaningless interactions of chemicals and electrical sparks in your brain matter. Your mind has power over nothing. Individual blobs of matter are all you need to concern yourself with. Some folks will argue for this belief in matter with their dying breath, even if they have to resort to using government coverups and space aliens as an explanation to do so.
Can you believe the lengths people will go to in order to avoid the obvious?
It's not mind over matter or matter over mind or one being an illusion or the other never existing. Whatever the mind is, mind interacts with matter. At its best, the interaction is a dance between two partners with respect for each other.
Sometimes, though, the interaction becomes a duel, or the less-civilized barroom brawl. Sometimes matter beats mind into submission.
Ow.
There was going to be a point to this post, but then the migraine that's been hanging round off & on for the last few days decided to remind me of its continuing malevolence. Whatever the matter was, it slipped my mind.
Did I actually just try to slip the word "epiphenomenon" into a LiveJournal post? Ay yi yi.
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