mind-body relationship

The Mind-Body problem is based on a mistaken and non-empirical premise: that the world is “fundamentally physical.” Because every school of Buddhism that I’m aware of has avoided this error, it is hard to find any Buddhist explanations that address it in the terms of modern philosophy.

As I understand it, all the various theories you refer to stemmed from the basic project of trying to discern the mind of an inaccessible Creator through understanding his works (like we might try to understand a clockmaker’s mind by examining his clocks); and subsequently having to deal with the collapse of faith in such a Creator by trying to understand how the clocks could build and run themselves (so to speak).

This dead-end philosophizing has sustained itself not because of any advances in solving the problem created by this error; but by taking a free ride on the extraordinary scientific and technological advances that have been made without needing to question ontological assumptions. Yet it has left our society deeply impoverished in our knowledge and use of consciousness, which makes Buddhism a vital corrective for our modern age.

The one Buddhist teacher I know who has devoted significant attention to this issue is B. Alan Wallace. While embracing the scientific method, he is sharply critical of the kinds of philosophical baggage that shortcut applying this method to consciousness. To give a sense of his analysis, I’ll quote an extended passage from his chapter in an excellent book he edited, called “Buddhism & Science - Breaking New Ground” (pp 13-14), in which he addresses the 'physicalist' assumption of the dogma of scientific materialism:

The research instruments of science, since the time of Galileo, have been designed to measure physical phenomena only. Thus if other types of phenomena exist, they must lie outside the domain of science as it has developed thus far. Advocates of the metaphysical principle of physicalism, however, have concluded that only those phenomena that can be detected with the tools of science actually exist. The universe is believed to consist solely of matter and its emergent properties. To understand this principle, it is crucial to recognize that the matter in question is not the familiar stuff that we bump into in everyday experience. A rock held in the hand, for instance, is experienced as having a certain color, texture, and weight. But all those qualities are secondary attributes that exist, according to [sociobiologist Edward O.] Wilson, not in the objective world but as representations inside our heads. The matter that is the fundamental stuff of the objective universe, according to scientific materialism, exists independently of all such secondary attributes that arise only in relation to a conscious subject. The real properties of matter are its inherent primary attributes that exist independently of all modes of detection.

What does science know today about the nature of matter? Physicists agree that matter consists of atoms, which in turn are made up of elementary particles such as electrons and protons. There are then further speculations concerning quarks, superstrings, and so on with regard to the component parts of elementary particles. But the actual nature of these fundamental building blocks of the universe is somewhat shrouded in mystery. Some physicists argue that atoms are emergent properties of space or space-time. But which space are they referring to? There are actually countless possible spaces with their own geometries, each of which is equally valid and self-consistent. Others maintain that atoms are not things at all but are better viewed as sets of relationships (Wallace 1996:55).

Even if matter is regarded as some independent stuff existing independently in the objective universe, its mass and spatial and temporal dimensions are not fixed or absolute but, according to relativity theory, depend upon the inertial frame of reference from which they are measured. And, in terms of quantum mechanics, it appears increasingly dubious whether the elementary particles of matter have any discrete location independent of all systems of measurement. Ever since the origins of quantum mechanics experts have expressed diverse views, ranging from the assertion that elementary particles exist independently as real, distinct entities to the view that there is no objectively existing quantum realm at all (Herbert 1985)! As physics continues to progress, the primary status of matter appears to be on the decline. As physicist Steven Weinberg recently commented, “In the physicist’s recipe for the world, the list of ingredients no longer includes particles. Matter thus loses its central role in physics. All that is left are principles of symmetry” (Cole 1999).

Upon confronting such startling lack of consensus about the nature and primacy of matter, the physicalist may take refuge in the notion of energy and its conservation as the primary stuff of the universe. But, once again, one is bound for disappointment, for, according to physicist Richard Feynman, the conservation of energy is a mathematical principle, not a description of a mechanism or anything concrete. He then goes on to acknowledge, “It is important to realize that in physics today we have no knowledge of what energy is” (Feynman, Leighton, and Sands 1963:4–2).

For scientific materialists such as Edward Wilson, signs of the existence and primacy of matter are to be found everywhere, even though those signs are all indirect (existing, as they do, as mere mental representations). Although matter is never detected as an independently existent stuff in the objective world, it is assumed to be the origin and basis of all that we experience. As to its actual nature, there have always been many competing views, and the number of hypotheses does not appear to be on the decline. Upon reflection, it seems that matter presently fills the role for the materialist that God has traditionally filled for the theist. And the diverse speculative theories of “materialogians” provide little support for the belief that such mysterious stuff can support the ontological burden of the entire universe of subjective and objective phenomena.