>From the viewpoint of a scientist doing research, experiments can only
>manipulate physical variables. Any conceptualisation of what is occurring that
>is given a metaphysical explanation is out of range. So from a scientific
>perspective, regarding mind and brain as different ways of explaining the same
>phenomena seems like the best approach. Evidence of a metaphysical element
>could never be proved. It is hard enough to 'prove' concepts of physical
>phenomena have merit, to show that our conceptualisation, our verbal and
>mathematical descriptions of the world have some useful kind of correspondence.
As our internal experience versus the outside world seems to be the source of
this mind brain conundrum, what evidence do we have that our experiences in any
way are non-physical? It is interesting that spiritual concepts have to be
described using physical concepts, like space, light, because we cannot
otherwise describe that which we conceive of as being formless. We give
formlessness pretend qualities so we can talk about it, but it is always
beating around the bush trying to scare up something we cannot grasp.
Now look what happens with meditation. People experience different stages in
the way they experience the world. Different systems describe various kinds of
experience, but they tend to boil down to just a few scenarios. The experience
of activity, the experience of inactivity (stillness, pure consciousness), the
experience of activity and stillness, and the experience where that experience
of activity and stillness have merged. (I have left out visions, which are
perhaps waking dreams)
When experience of activity and stillness have merged, it is no longer possible
to say they are different from one another. Thus the physical world and what we
call consciousness no longer are distinct in any way: they are the same. This
solves the mind/brain problem experientially because it no longer makes any
sense to assume there is a physical *and* a metaphysical dimension to life;
they simply are one and the same ('the world is Brahman' in Hindu, Vedic
terminology), and speculation about the nature of reality from the experiential
perspective simply no longer is relevant because one experiences the world as
relationship, connectedness, rather than cause and effect.
>From a scientific perspective though, there will always be something to
>discover, but here too advanced sciences are about relationship, not cause and
>effect. When the relationships are 'known' one can determine the state of the
>system at any time. A successful unified field equation, should one ever be
>produced, does not describe what causes what, but how all the elements of the
>system fit together in all possible configurations. For example the equation 1
>+ 1 = 2 does not show that adding one to one causes two, but illustrates the
>relationship of the concepts '1' '+' '=' and '2". The equations of physics are
>of course much more complicated, but all equations show relationships,
>equivalencies.
Perhaps the reasons for the debate regarding mind and brain are psychological
rather than having anything to do with the reality of the situation. Suppose,
hypothetically, that a concrete proof were possible that showed mind and brain
were identical in every way and physical. What would that do for you
psychologically? And if one were a die-hard empiricist, and the converse was
possible to prove, what would that do for you?
