Reason: Metaphysics and the Stuff of the Mind
I once again discuss mind and body, this time from the perspective of asking “Is mind stuff that thinks by itself? How does that work?”
“The question ‘what is consciousness?’ makes no coherent sense—because consciousness is not a thing to be known but that without which there is no knowing.”
Author’s Preface
Observational Clues Point to Mind-Brain Correlation, But No Strict Identity Exists
There are some phenomena that are concrete evidence as to the workings of the mind—or perhaps the brain—but it's not a really strict identity. It actually is not. It's a mystery. However, there are some things that are quite observable. We'll start with the basics. Consciousness is the ground for all that we experience—the internal world and the external world. Of course, we call the inner world the “I,” and the outer world the “not-I”, the objective world. That's the best we can do. Nevertheless, anything we know of the world comes through the “I,” the mind, if you will—making no assumptions as to the underlying ontology or metaphysics of the mind. We'll use “mind” as a convenient placeholder for consciousness, awareness, thinking, cognition, reasoning, judgment, sensation, emotion, perception, body motion, memory—you name it.
Rebuttal of Claims That Mind Is Illusory or Merely a Process
Views of the mind that attribute it to being a process—or an illusion, even worse—come up a little bit short, since we don't experience the process. We experience. And for something to be an illusion, there must be someone subject to the illusion—in other words, the mind. So those views, although tossed about by some scholars, don't seem to make much sense of our own experience or common sense, even.
Critique of Theological and Metaphysical Theories of Disembodied Mind or Soul
However, theories of the mind existing in some Platonic realm—some sort of “stuff” of ill-defined character—are hard to understand in themselves. But various claims are made about that “mind stuff,” the soul, if you will. That's one theological tradition. And the notion is that this mind stuff thinks of its own, makes its own choices, accrues moral responsibility, and persists after death—or even reemerges again and again in the wheel of life, according to Hindu tradition. And it's subject to the notion of just deserts or karma—very strange metaphysical and ontological claims. The epistemological views behind that are suspect at best. Some very hard to verify reports of consciousness after near-death, or unverifiable experiences of communicating with the dead, or other very low-grade evidence, are held to be high-grade evidence by those adhering to the theories of the persistence of the mind after death. But yet, they're theological positions—not based upon any firm, objective reasoning or experience. So, I would say that, at the very best, they're very much conjectures that differ from theology to theology, from metaphysics to metaphysics, from individual belief to individual belief—and all are equally problematic. We're not sure just what this mind-stuff could be, or what its characteristics are, or how it can interact with the world. However, with mind and neurology, we can make some sense of it. Not complete sense, but some sense of it.
Direct Bodily Effects on Consciousness Undermine Claims of Mental Independence
Everyday observation connects the mind with the body from observable objective measures and reports from subjects. We can affect the mind through the body in myriad ways—any number of energies or physical mechanisms: chemical, electrical, magnetic, social, voice, visual; through injury, through damage, through drugs, through electrical stimulation, through magnetic stimulation, through surgery. All of these affect the experience of consciousness, either observably or from reports of those affected.
Of course the ultimate effect is that of death, where all activity ceases. We have the idea of brain death, where we use instruments to peer into the brain and we see that the brain has stopped working. And then, ultimately, the microbes take over, and you can be sure that the brain has stopped working.
However, views throughout cultures and throughout time posit that there is some essence—the mind stuff, the soul, the Atman—that persists even after death.
Does Mind Persists After Death? Cultural and Theological Issues
The persistence of mind after death raises any number of issues of coherence and of what actually is being asserted. Where is the mind after death? Presumably it exists in some place and time—or not—but that's ill-defined. Some traditions say you sit on the right hand of God, and others say you're reincarnated as some other creature after some indeterminate length of time—immediate, centuries later. I have no idea what's asserted in Hindu religions, and I'm sure each other religion has similar sorts of views. The existence of the spirit as a demon, as a spirit of the dead—I think those sorts of ideas are endemic in all places, in all cultures, at all times.
Why these beliefs? Some assert it is to give some comfort to people facing the death of loved ones—or their own death. People want to believe that they're not going to just die and stop working. Still, the belief in demons does not seem very comforting.
It is not clear to me as to what is being asserted across cultures. There are very many different beliefs from very many different cultures, each one assuming their beliefs are right. That's just the nature of theology and humanity. Are these cultural beliefs or universal truths? Some iconoclasts do question various cultural and theological beliefs.
Moral Accounting in the Universe as a Deeply Incoherent Cultural Myth: Karma and Just Desserts
There are a lot of views that there is some property of the universe called “just deserts” or “cosmic balance” or “karma,” in any number of traditions. Such views hold that good should be rewarded with good and evil rewarded with evil. Somehow there's this cosmic calculus around behavior. But good is classified differently according to one's culture, and evil according to one's cultural beliefs. Nevertheless, the cosmic balance is common enough in belief systems. And the notion that good should be rewarded with good and evil should be rewarded with evil persists. Yet there's no firm evidence on that. To me they seem incoherent beliefs, subject to infinite regress, asking why, why, why—or how, how, how. It makes no sense to me at all, yet it's commonly believed. Perhaps it is my deficiency.
That is not to say that I don’t have strong values around the treatment of my fellows, but these are idiosyncratic and culturally determined. The golden rule seems to be a pretty good precept to attempt to follow.
I find this notion of an inherent moral calculus in the universe—karma, just deserts, eternal damnation—that's a real hard one to swallow—punishment, not in in proportion to any perceived ill. Reward not in proportion to any perceived good. And yet, as is seen in day-to-day activities, there is no moral calculus beyond what people want it to be. The good suffer, the evil thrive, in any number of circumstances. And that is not to say that we even have a good handle on what we mean by “good” or “evil,” since that is mostly dependent on one's culture. And much that was considered good in other cultures and other times is considered evil now, and vice versa. But yet, the idea that there is some moral calculus that in some incoherent fashion inheres in the universe persists. How is that supposed to work? Well, people invoke a deity to make it work, or they invoke some metaphysical principle called karma, which—when you look at it—is just circular. What's karma? Well, it's that you're going to be rewarded or punished or forced to work off things in some undefined way by being reincarnated. All of it is really quite incomprehensible to me. I have clear no idea of what it is that's being asserted. Although individuals may think they know, it makes no sense to me.
Introduction
The effort to speak meaningfully about the mind begins in a peculiar bind. Any attempt to define consciousness assumes its presence as the very condition for inquiry. One cannot stand outside it, examine it from a vantage point of detachment, or even be entirely clear what sort of thing it would be to define. The question “What is consciousness?” may not admit an answer because it may not admit a coherent formulation. The problem is not merely one of current ignorance, as if we simply lack sufficient evidence or better instruments. Rather, it may be that the conceptual structure of the question is itself flawed: it treats the ground of knowing as if it were an object of knowledge. This essay explores that tension. Without taking any final stance on what the mind is or how it relates to the body, the discussion examines various claims that have been made—scientific, theological, metaphysical, cultural—about mind, soul, consciousness, and their fates. The focus is less on refuting than on observing the assumptions embedded in such claims and on probing their intelligibility in light of lived experience.
What can be said with some confidence, even without final knowledge, is that the mind—whatever else it may be—does not behave like an isolated substance, sealed off from the physical world. Its character appears to shift under the influence of bodily changes. Yet the notion that it is nothing but body does not account for the inwardness of experience. Nor do traditional metaphysical or theological accounts resolve the puzzle. They often rest on ideas whose coherence is not immediately evident: disembodied minds, moral economies embedded in the universe, afterlife realms with persistent identity. These concepts may carry emotional weight and cultural authority, but they present interpretive challenges. This essay proceeds by examining what is commonly said, without assuming that saying something about the mind amounts to knowing what it is.
Discussion
Observable Mind-Body Connections Without Ontological Certainty
The most immediate and seemingly reliable observations show that changes in the body—especially the brain—are accompanied by changes in the subjective field of consciousness. Anesthetic drugs obliterate awareness. Psychedelics alter perception. Traumatic injury may produce amnesia, confusion, or cessation of coherent thought. Brain lesions, degenerative disease, electrical stimulation—all these affect what it is like to be. From such observations, one might infer that the brain produces the mind. But even this remains an inference, not a directly observable identity. The consistent correlation of physical intervention and altered experience strongly suggests a dependence, but does not settle the metaphysical status of consciousness.
These connections are undeniable in a practical sense. And yet, the picture remains incomplete. No final story links neuronal configurations with the felt texture of a thought or the presence of a memory. Consciousness remains the background in which correlations are noticed, but not something directly explained by them. The analogy might be to a musical instrument and its player: changing the strings or tuning alters the music, but the music is not simply identical to the instrument. Whether that analogy holds or misleads is unclear. What matters is the asymmetry: changes to brain change mind, but the reverse remains less traceable—at least by instruments. Yet we know it from within.
Doubts About Mind as Mere Process or Illusion
Some argue that consciousness is not a thing at all, but a process—like digestion, circulation, or respiration. Others go further and claim that it is an illusion altogether, a trick played by the nervous system upon itself. These claims often arise in the context of cognitive science or computational models of the brain. They aim to demystify experience, to place it within known frameworks. But they face a peculiar problem: if consciousness is a trick, it must be a trick for someone. If it is a process, what is it that experiences the process? The analogy breaks down when applied to phenomena that seem to carry their own immediacy.
The difficulty lies not in offering a scientific account but in whether these accounts preserve what they purport to explain. A theory that eliminates the very thing it set out to describe may not be solving a problem, but sidestepping it. If we are asked to accept that consciousness is an illusion, we must ask who is being deceived. If the answer is no one, then the concept dissolves. If the answer is the organism, then experience returns through the back door. The metaphors may help organize data, but they leave the question of consciousness unresolved. This is not to say the theories are useless—only that they operate at some remove from the phenomenon they are meant to address.
Speculations on Mind Beyond Death
Across human cultures, there are widespread assertions that mind—or something akin to it—persists beyond bodily death. These claims appear in religious systems, mythic narratives, and metaphysical doctrines. Sometimes the soul is said to travel to a realm of judgment. Sometimes it is thought to reincarnate in a new body. Sometimes it is absorbed into a divine totality. These views differ not only in detail but in what they take the self to be. Is it a stable essence? A stream of consciousness? A moral ledger? The diversity of accounts is striking. They are not all saying the same thing in different words. They propose different models, different timelines, different metaphysical structures.
The idea of survival after death may respond to emotional needs, existential hopes, or deep intuitions about justice. But whether it describes an actual condition or functions as a kind of narrative reassurance is difficult to determine. There are reports—near-death experiences, recollections of past lives, communications with the departed—but their status is ambiguous. They are interpreted in radically different ways depending on the framework in which they are received. For some, they constitute decisive proof; for others, they are artifacts of culture, trauma, or physiology. No external arbiter exists to resolve the dispute. The experiences are real in some sense; what they signify is less clear.
The Idea of Moral Order Beyond the World
Closely linked to these traditions is the belief that the universe contains some form of moral reckoning—a balancing of good and evil that transcends immediate consequences. This appears in many guises: karma, divine justice, ancestral reward, spiritual evolution. These ideas suggest that behavior in this life carries weight beyond its visible effects. That view holds intuitive appeal. It aligns with a desire to see the world as orderly, meaningful, and responsive to intention. But the structure of such beliefs is often difficult to articulate. What counts as good varies by culture. What constitutes a just outcome is interpreted differently across traditions. Even within a single system, it is not always clear what mechanisms enforce this cosmic balance, or how long its calculus is meant to take.
These systems often resist close examination. Their terms are internally coherent only within a given metaphysical or theological framework. They are not easily subjected to cross-comparison, and their central claims cannot be tested or observed in the ordinary sense. They may function more as expressions of human longing than as empirical hypotheses. That is not to say they are false. It is to say that what they propose may be difficult to affirm or deny from any neutral standpoint.
Consciousness as the Ground of Inquiry
All such discussions must return, ultimately, to the condition that makes them possible: consciousness itself. It is not merely one phenomenon among others. It is the condition under which anything else can be taken as phenomenon at all. Without consciousness, there is no experience of body or brain, no tradition or belief, no theory or observation. Attempts to treat it as a thing—produced, composed, or explained—may be attempts to step outside of it, to place it within a frame it alone makes available. But if that is the case, such attempts may be bound to circularity or paradox. One cannot escape experience in order to examine experience from without.
This does not foreclose all inquiry. But it does suggest a shift in attitude—from seeking to define or capture consciousness to attending to the limits of such efforts. Language itself operates within the field of mind, and it may never be fully adequate to express what mind is. This is not a mystical claim, but a structural observation. The subject of experience cannot easily be made into its own object. It is that from which all objects are known.
Summary
The inquiry into mind and consciousness remains open, not for lack of effort but perhaps because the structure of the question resists closure. Observable correlations between brain and mind offer compelling evidence of interdependence, but they do not exhaust the issue. Claims that mind is process or illusion raise more questions than they resolve. Beliefs in disembodied mind or posthumous persistence vary widely and often evade criteria of assessment. Notions of moral order in the universe may reflect deep needs or traditions rather than demonstrable facts. And all such reflections unfold within the medium of consciousness itself, which is not something we look at, but that through which we look. That condition does not permit easy definition. It may be that what can be said about mind will always fall short of what it is like to think, to feel, to be.
Readings
Chalmers, D. J. (1996). The conscious mind: In search of a fundamental theory. Oxford University Press.
—Explores the possibility that consciousness is a fundamental feature of reality, irreducible to physical explanation.
James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology (Vol. 1). Henry Holt.
—Classic treatment of consciousness as a stream, resisting mechanistic reduction.
Nagel, T. (1974). What is it like to be a bat? The Philosophical Review, 83(4), 435–450.
—Argues that conscious experience cannot be fully captured by objective accounts.
Searle, J. R. (1992). The rediscovery of the mind. MIT Press.
—Critiques materialist accounts of mind and emphasizes the irreducibility of consciousness.
Varela, F. J., Thompson, E., & Rosch, E. (1991). The embodied mind: Cognitive science and human experience. MIT Press.
—Combines insights from cognitive science and Buddhist thought to explore the structure of lived experience.
Long, A. A. (1986). Hellenistic philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics. University of California Press.
—Provides a foundation for understanding ancient philosophical attitudes toward the soul, knowledge, and the limits of certainty.
Stroud, B. (1984). The significance of philosophical scepticism. Oxford University Press.
—A careful examination of the enduring challenges posed by skepticism to claims of metaphysical or epistemic closure.