The Mind-Body Continuum

Here I am again, posting my weekly article midweek, instead of the weekend, because I've wrapped up work for the year and now enjoying a well-deserved break. This is also most likely my last post for 2022.

I'm listening to some Telemann Sonatinas over Spotify while typing these words. Baroque music is so conducive for writing and reflection. What shall I reflect upon today? Perhaps the nature of reflection itself?

Descartes famously made his cogito ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am) declaration almost 400 years ago, initiating what is now known in philosophy as the mind-body problem. We could all be living in The Matrix but what makes us who we are is our thinking mind. We are thinking, reflecting and doubting about the reality of our existence; yet the only thing we cannot deny is our thinking faculty. That fact that we are capable of doubting means that we, or at least our mind is real. The rest could be illusions, generated by the Devil (in Descartes hypothetical though experiment) or in our cyberpunk parlance, simulated by machines.

So we are thinking creatures, or that's what we believe we are. As I'm typing these words, I am encapsulating my thoughts into words so that they may be transmitted to you. You are reading these words and suddenly--my thoughts materialise in your head. It is quite a miracle, isn't it?

Information has been transmitted through a pattern of dark marks on the screen. We are immediately linked karmically, because there is no way you are not reacting to what I just wrote. The fact that you understood my sentence indicates that something is already synthesized in your head. I have dropped a pebble into the pond of your mind and you are now feeling its rippling effects.

The ripples in your mind are your thoughts. Yoga citta vritti nirodha--Patanjali's definition of yoga, which is the second aphorism in the Yoga Sutras, loosely translated as "Yoga is the cessation of waves in the mind".  When we meditate we see these waves arising, and we allow them to subside. Mind waves or thoughts shrink and subside, if you would allow them to. 

Mind waves, the citta vritti, constantly arise from vibrations captured through the senses. Our senses prompt us to act and react to these input signals. We can shape the reactions of the mind by adjusting its 'viscosity'. Imagine two bowls on the table--one containing water, the other oil. When you tap on the table, which bowl of liquid has more ripples on its surface? Why is there a difference?

The "mind-stuff" of every individual is different.  But this mind-stuff is all we can change, for better or worse. The mind is a black box with a time-variant state, which produces some output based on the input. It is a neural network that constantly learns and thus we can never predict what the output would be at any given moment. If we know what we want to achieve, we can shape its learning so that it converge towards a certain desired outcome.

What effect does this Telemann Sonata in F minor that is playing now has on my mind? I do not know exactly, but I do feel relaxed and focussed. Words are streaming out effortless from my mind; words that wrap each moment of time with its potent energy. Words are like packets of energy that impinges on another person's mind, triggering a series of chain reactions there. Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains! These simple but powerful words from Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto, for better or worse, changed the world. 

Philosophers talk about the mind-body problem--how do mental events affect the world of matter and vice versa. This is a false dichotomy. Information cares not about its medium of transmission. Karma is just information, which requires energy to transmit. It hops from mind to mind and mind to body, resulting in action.  

The light tapping of my fingers on the computer keyboard is my action. The pattern of taps is determined by information conveyed through my thinking. The information is encoded in these symbols that you see now on the screen. And then these symbols act like computer programs that generate further thoughts in your mind, and fused with fresh information from your memory, who knows what further actions they will trigger? 

Thoughts and actions are just two ends of the spectrum. Thoughts are just subtle actions; actions are gross expressions of thoughts. The mind and body is but a continuum. Let's release our thoughts into the world. You'll never know what changes they shall affect.