All along we are stuck in the paradigm where the mind owns the body, where the mind is seen as whole and the body part.
When we have a body owner paradigm the body is whole and the mind is part.
By flipping the paradigm many problems dissolve. What once were hard problems become easy ones.
The mind is identical to the process of the body.
The obsession of downloading a mind from one body and uploading it to another surely is the clearest indication that the mind is conceived as an embodied “thing”. That we do not want to just let the mind float about without a body must mean we understand all too clearly that a mind requires a body.
I have not always been a materialist. I used to think a lot about abstract objects to the point of being obsessed of them, ignoring The material world all together.
In some ways I was like hardcore idealists, thinking the material was a creation of the mind. The mind/spirit was more important than the physical self and world.
This ways of thinking did not get me very far. I was confused and frustrated with my relationship to the world. which perhaps why I chose to change my way of thinking, to abandon privileging the mind and spirit. Because every time I try to function with mind and spirit in priority I ended up failing, or dissatisfied with the outcome.
To cut to the chase, by dealing with this body in this world it took care of the mind and spirit. I was not neglecting them but they were better for this flipping of properties. The world became more manageable. My mind and spirit then also became more manageable as well.
This transformation was not overnight but gradual, and it took many years of trial and error until reaching where I am now. And even then I am still not fully whereI want to be but much closer and also heading in the right direction. Prioritizing the mind, spirit and abstract objects had literally felt like being led in the complete opposite direction far from where I had wanted to be.
Where I want to be is not a physical or material place but I can’t reach there without prioritizing the physical over the ideal. This much I know.
Let me be clear: the claim is, a mind is not a thing.
A mind is a process of a thing.
Looking at another thinker I see an external object. And yet I see an internal in the external. My mind is therefore someone else’s external as well. A further example of problem of internal/external duality.
In other words, internal and external are relative terms with an impossible basis. My internal is someone else’s external.
There are two objects. One is similar to the other. From experience I assume their characteristics are similar to one another as well.
This body has a mind. It is therefore reasonable to assume other similar bodies have minds as well.
Earlier I said I have direct perception to my thoughts but it is more accurate to say that I have perceptual access to my thoughts.
In the view of Descartes to think is to know that one exists. But the question is to exist as what, as mind or as mind in body? In some ways dualism is correct. There does seem to be these two separate “things”. I will argue that one is an illusion. I will argue that one relies on the other.
The way we have access to the mind is important. I believe without the body we have no mind. I believe this because of the evidence, not because of blind faith.
I believe many philosophers and philosophies perceptually mis-arrange the internal and external worlds.
This mis-arrangement can be evidenced from their language. The descriptions given usually speak of separate worlds. This in itself is not a problem. The problem is in what way are they separate. The common mis-arrangement is one of internal and external worlds being exclusive, when in reality, the external world, by definition, includes the internal world.
The theory of an embodied mind is neither new nor original. It is a staple of cognitive linguistics beginning with perhaps Mark Johnson and George Lakoff. The mind is never from any other perspective than the body within which it functions.
theoria 