For my "science" brain philosophy always was kind of abstract thing, it is somewhere there, disconnected from your mind. Year ago I took an actual Philosophy class just to fulfill the requirements and I was glad that it finished. Nope. Here I meet Descartes and his meditations again.
For me the most uncertain part in Descartes's thoughts is the moment of separation of mind and body. I can imagine the mental effort to do that but it seems to be enormous. In Maslow's hierarchy of needs the self-actualization (level where you start to think about abstract and ephemeral things) is the top need, to get there you need to overcome physiological, safety, social and self-esteem needs. So you should have at least food, safe place to sleep, someone who loves you (or at least knows about you) and someone who will respect you. And you desire it, one thing after another. So why now, when you finally reached the top of your life, you should deny everything that you have built and separate your mind that craved for all and your body that now exist in perfect environment? For me it seems like an impossible effort.
And imagine that you somehow reached that condition and denied everything you owned, everything you ever felt (because feelings are lies), everyone you know. In that case how can you return to tell everyone the "real truth" you've seen in that condition? You denied everything, you forgot them, you have no reason to return. If you had any reason to come back that means that at some moment this thought was more important than calm revelations, so how can you prove that thought hasn't affected the truth you brought back?
As you can see I'm really skeptical about possibility of bringing any "real truth" out of some kind of trans. I believe in experiments and data. Maybe it is wrong, and feelings are actually lies, but at least in my reality, the one I know, it is truth, MY real truth.
Hi Svetlana,
ReplyDeleteI completely understand your skepticism and realist lens you are using here. The 'splits' throws me through a loop and leaves me questioning "Why might this matter?" or "What do we get out of this kind of 'knowing'?" It's definitely difficult to envision the end game here. But, that's just our human nature. We are quick to extract the benefits in anything - for this, a particular way of thinking. Yet, I feel as though envisioning personal benefits is not necessarily the point in separating the mind and body. It is not a linear effort, but rather circular - more complex. Those are my two cents - I hope it was somewhat comprehensible. Cheers.