The Untidy Business of Thinking - Part 3: Beyond Perception: The Battle Between Mind and Matter

The Untidy Business of Thinking - Part 3: Beyond Perception: The Battle Between Mind and Matter

The third fundamental inquiry defining existence asks, “What am I?”. This question concerns the nature of reality and the human composition. It asks whether people are merely complicated arrangements of matter or if they possess non-material parts like souls or spirits. This inquiry, known as metaphysics, focuses on reality’s most general features.

This metaphysical debate hinges on whether reality consists of one type of substance or two. Dualism holds that reality comprises exactly two contrasting kinds of things: mind and matter. Conversely, materialism asserts that only matter exists. Idealism occupies the final opposing position, denying matter entirely and claiming everything is mental or spiritual.

The Illusion of Self

The question of ‘What am I?’ finds a profoundly challenging answer in the philosophical tradition of ancient India. The unknown Buddhist text, King Milinda’s chariot, explores this problem, probably written between 100 BC and AD 100. In this text, the Buddhist monk Nagasena debates with the regional ruler King Milinda.

When questioned, Nagasena states his own name is ‘a mere name, because there is no person as such that is found’. The person is not a simple, independently enduring thing. Nagasena explains this radical concept using the Buddhist doctrine of the ‘five aggregates’. These five elements are material form, feeling, perception, mental formations (character/dispositions), and consciousness. The person is not identifiable with any single aggregate.

Nagasena employs the chariot analogy to illustrate this point. The monk asks Milinda whether his chariot is its axle, or its wheels, or its pole. Milinda repeatedly answers, ‘No’. Since the chariot is not any single part, Milinda concludes the word “chariot” exists only as a ‘mere designation’ because its parts (axle, pole, reins, etc.) are present. Nagasena replies that ‘Nagasena’ also exists as a mere designation because the five aggregates are present.

This argument emphasizes that wholes are less objective and less real than the parts composing them; they are, instead, a matter of convention. This ’no-self’ doctrine attempts to alleviate human suffering. Buddhists believe that ‘clinging to self’, the overestimation of the individual ego’s importance, causes immense suffering.

The Dualist Dilemma

Western philosophy often supports dualism, contrasting starkly with the Buddhist ’no-self’ view. The famous French philosopher René Descartes is a noted exponent of this doctrine. Descartes argued that his mind, soul, or self must be something distinct from his body and capable of existing without it. Thus, a human being consists of a material body and a non-physical mind.

The core difficulty for dualism involves interaction: how the non-physical mind can affect the physical body. We assume that what we feel or think (mental states) influences our actions (physical events). However, scientific theory often suggests that physical events must have other physical events as their causes. Dualism must then either deny this scientific causality or concede that thinking and feeling must be physical processes. If mental states are physical, the non-physical ‘mind stuff’ becomes redundant.

Materialists avoid this problem by positing that the entire universe consists solely of matter. Democritus, an ancient Greek philosopher, proposed that everything consists of tiny material particles called ‘atoms’ moving in a void. Conversely, idealists like Bishop George Berkeley (1685–1752) argued that the idea of a non-mental physical existent was incoherent. Berkeley asserted that everything, including chairs and mountains, is either mental or spiritual.

The investigation into “What am I?” thus spans continents and centuries, ranging from the absolute impermanence of the self in Eastern thought to the intractable problem of uniting mind and matter in the West.