| | For the sake of clarification, I'd like to expand further on Post 239. As I indicated, Branden posits the view that the mind interacts with the body and that there is a reciprocal influence of mind and matter. What this would have to mean is that the mind interacts with the brain and that there is a reciprocal influence of the mind and the brain, with the mind influencing the brain, and the brain, in turn, influencing the mind, a view which implies that the mind and brain are separate and distinct entities that exist independently of each other.
The fallacy in this view becomes clear when one recognizes that, far from the brain's existing independently of the mind - independently of thought - and therefore being influenced by it, it is the brain that is the organ of thought - the means by which one engages in a process of thought - just as it is the physical senses that are the organs of perception and the means by which one perceives reality. One thinks with the brain, just as one perceives with one's senses. In other words, the material brain is the organ through which thinking takes place, just as the physical senses are the organs through which perception takes place. There can no more be a "reciprocal influence" of the mind and the brain (or of mind and matter) than there can be a reciprocal influence of perception and the organs of perception.
To be sure, the condition of one's brain can influence how well on thinks, just as the condition of one's physical senses can influence how well one perceives reality. But it makes no sense to say that one's thinking has a reciprocal influence on one's brain, any more than it makes sense to say that one's perception has a reciprocal influence on one's organs of perception. The brain is the vehicle through which one thinks about reality, just as one's sense organs are the vehicles through which one perceives reality.
I hope the foregoing provides a little clearer explanation of what I think is wrong with the interactionist view of mind and body as expressed by Branden in his book The Art of Living Consciously. Interestingly, I don't recall Rand's ever having stated a clear position on this issue, although in his book, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, Peikoff presents the following view, which he attributes to Rand:
"There is no basis for the suggestion that consciousness is separable from matter, let alone opposed to it, no hint of immortality, no kinship to any alleged transcendent realm." (p. 34)
This particular view, which is mine as well, is sometimes equated with materialism, which denies the reality of consciousness altogether. But to reject the reality of a disembodied consciousness is not thereby to adopt materialism; nor does the acceptance of a material or embodied consciousness imply Cartesian dualism. As Peikoff puts it,
"A philosophy that rejects the monism of idealism or materialism does not thereby become 'dualist.' This term is associated with a Platonic or Cartesian metaphysics; it suggests the belief in two realities, in the mind-body opposition, and in the soul's independence of the body - all of which Ayn Rand denies." (p. 35)
- Bill
(Edited by William Dwyer
on 5/15, 2:24pm)
Edited for grammar
(Edited by William Dwyer
on 5/15, 10:41pm)
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