Fascinating perspective on Descartes. I wonder though, this division between res cogitans and res extensa, is it as hard and fast as we imagine? That the body can heal itself certainly implies an embodied intelligence, which is to say that it also thinks. It's simply that this happens beneath the level of our conscious awareness (although certainly, we can feel it). What I mean is that perhaps the division between the mental and the mechanical is really just a question of perception, what is available directly to the awareness of any given mind. What one mind perceives as self, another mind experiences as mechanical or material. A similar shift in perspective makes all the difference between body and environment: to a white blood cell, the body is the environment. Yet wherever one looks one finds mind within. One's health is then a question of whether these little minds are cooperating with one another, or in conflict ... and this is related to whether one is oneself cooperating or in conflict with the big Mind in which one's body is embedded, with one's own mind serving as an intermediary between the two levels.
Wow! Deep and thoughtful. I am a retired GP with over 30 years of practice.
I can attest to the mind healing. Patients would often come to me suddenly improved after they made their appointment. I would joke that I healed them from afar, but they were actually healing themselves ,I think , with the positive action (and hopefully confidence in me). I always felt explaining what was going on with their bodies was one of my most important jobs , and a sign of good care.
I had not known of Descartes’s writing in the body. His thoughts echo the NYU doctor John E. Sarno who found that type A personalities tended to develop certain chronic physical ailments that distracted them from emotions they could not control. Here is a summary of his insights https://www.thecut.com/2019/07/what-is-healing-back-pain-by-dr-john-e-sarno.html. He came to this conclusion from finding a major discrepancy between patients’ perception of back pain with their actual MRI identified conditions. Those who should be in intense pain from abnormalities reported nothing of the sort, while those who were doubled over in crippling pain often showed no signs of physical damage or structural weakness.
Descartes’ message comes with a critique of those doctors who act too intrusively, thinking they know the patient’s body better than the patient himself.
Unfortunately, this is more than 99% of doctors. Even more unfortunately, we have been conditioned to think that this is normal. Taking direct, personal responsibility for our own health is one of the most radical acts imaginable in 2023.
Fascinating perspective on Descartes. I wonder though, this division between res cogitans and res extensa, is it as hard and fast as we imagine? That the body can heal itself certainly implies an embodied intelligence, which is to say that it also thinks. It's simply that this happens beneath the level of our conscious awareness (although certainly, we can feel it). What I mean is that perhaps the division between the mental and the mechanical is really just a question of perception, what is available directly to the awareness of any given mind. What one mind perceives as self, another mind experiences as mechanical or material. A similar shift in perspective makes all the difference between body and environment: to a white blood cell, the body is the environment. Yet wherever one looks one finds mind within. One's health is then a question of whether these little minds are cooperating with one another, or in conflict ... and this is related to whether one is oneself cooperating or in conflict with the big Mind in which one's body is embedded, with one's own mind serving as an intermediary between the two levels.
Wow! Deep and thoughtful. I am a retired GP with over 30 years of practice.
I can attest to the mind healing. Patients would often come to me suddenly improved after they made their appointment. I would joke that I healed them from afar, but they were actually healing themselves ,I think , with the positive action (and hopefully confidence in me). I always felt explaining what was going on with their bodies was one of my most important jobs , and a sign of good care.
I had not known of Descartes’s writing in the body. His thoughts echo the NYU doctor John E. Sarno who found that type A personalities tended to develop certain chronic physical ailments that distracted them from emotions they could not control. Here is a summary of his insights https://www.thecut.com/2019/07/what-is-healing-back-pain-by-dr-john-e-sarno.html. He came to this conclusion from finding a major discrepancy between patients’ perception of back pain with their actual MRI identified conditions. Those who should be in intense pain from abnormalities reported nothing of the sort, while those who were doubled over in crippling pain often showed no signs of physical damage or structural weakness.
Descartes’ message comes with a critique of those doctors who act too intrusively, thinking they know the patient’s body better than the patient himself.
Unfortunately, this is more than 99% of doctors. Even more unfortunately, we have been conditioned to think that this is normal. Taking direct, personal responsibility for our own health is one of the most radical acts imaginable in 2023.