Poll: Mind Over Matter

[Korolev]

The mind can impact how the body responds, because at the end of the day, your mind is part of your body. Your mind is a function of your brain and your brain is part of the Central Nervous System of your body - so it is no surprise that your brain can and does affect your body.

We know that mental stress impairs the immune system, due to the release of corticosteroids and other hormones. We know that your emotional state has an effect on your heart rate, due to parasympathetic and sympathetic nerve innervation of the heart - this is why "Broken Heart Syndrome" is a real thing: people who have suffered extremely emotional stress develop myocardial stunning, which can damage the heart (albeit not very much - Troponin I levels are detectable, but it's low).

There is no "mind over matter". The mind IS matter - in the form of nerves, neurons, ganglia, astrocytes (supporting cells in the brain), and so on and so forth. In the olden days, people thought there was a "duality" - mind and body being separate. Modern neuroscience teaches us that, no, at the end of the day, mind is matter and your body and mind are part of the same system.

 

[Mistilteinn]

While I'm a firm believer that our minds have far more of an effect on our bodies than we understand (and vice versa), at the same time I'm not going to be jumping up and down saying that our frame of mind is all that matters. As has been said, a dude stabs you in the heart then no amount of thinking "close the wound close the wound close the DEAR GOD THIS HURTS!" will change the fact that you're probably gonna die, assuming you weren't stabbed next to an ambulance or in a hospital.

And, as some of you have been asking for citations, well, technology can only do so much for us at this point in time. A lot of what's being said and studied is from anecdotal evidence, or simply speculation. Oh, sure, we've done brain mappings and seen how our bodies react to certain stimuli or patterns of thought, and have made our theories out of the data gathered. Yet at the same time there are plenty of things we can't explain just yet.

For example, I remember seeing footage of monks in meditation, kneeling in the snow and wearing towels drenched in ice water, and you see clouds of steam coming off of their backs. Is that simply because of a radical temperature difference between their bodies, the towels, and the surrounding air? Could be, but normally when you put something cold on a person's back you'd see their body temp lower rather than rise. So could this phenomenon also due to their minds? Their intense focus on willing their body to be warm? Who knows. Until proven otherwise, both theories are valid, as is the nature of theories. Unless of course, we already know how this was done (clever parlor trick is always an option), in which case I really would love to hear it.

(And for citation purposes, the footage I'm talking about was shown on an episode of Through the Wormhole, covering this very subject. The title might have been the same, but it's been a while since I saw it. Still, it had a few other interesting topics should anyone want to look for it. It might make for some good material to discuss.)

 

[SushiJaguar]

Pretty sure that depression proves this one true.

 

[loc978]

I'm with the camp that says the mind can affect our physical condition negatively through depression leading to inaction. If a person has given up, they'll tend not to take medicine, do exercises, or function normally even though they're perfectly capable of recovery. The other way around, though? No. Some people recover because treatment worked (or they simply recovered naturally), some people die with the same treatment because they didn't do the work required to survive... and some people it just fails to work on due to some other unanticipated factor.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

The brain works in ways we don't entirely understand, but it's not magic. Mind is made of matter.

And yet it is the mind which determines what is and what is not.

No, there are still things in reality, it's just the brain determines what a person percieves.

There would be no things at all if they weren't apprehended as things.

Is this 'if a tree falls in a forest' logic? Because it is poor logic, of course if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it it still makes a sound. Air doesn't stop carrying sound just because there's no one around to hear it.

Not sure why you brought this up, but if you like: you shouldn't assume sound and air vibrations are the same. Sound is not a mere vibration of air, it is obviously much more than that. We recognize sounds as something: the bird's call is recognized as coming from a specific creature, it has a distinct pitch and volume and can be beautiful or annoying. There is no sound without anyone around to hear it, because we humans are the only ones who hear sound as "sound" and have a concept for it.

The tree falling in a forest can't be looked at scientifically. To do so is missing the point. It is meant to make you think about what it means to say something is. What is it that constitutes sound? It is surely not vibration of molecules.

The grounds for what qualifies as a thing in "reality" are prior to experience. For us that ground is the material, substantiality.

I must be confused by the wording here, because I have no idea what you're trying to say.

The "magic" will always be our primary experience

What magic? What?

The opening within felt experience which brings Being to light. It always comes before science, before logic, and is the necessary basis for it. It can't be pinned down as an object of experience so 'magic' is quite appropriate to describe it.

Everything is an object of experience. The brain does what it will, but that will never stop there from being an actual reality, even if the brain does muddle it up for some people who don't use logic and reason.

It's the other way around - the objects of experience are what we think of as "things". Anything which goes beyond experience can still be accessed, by logic and reason. Mathematics does it, metaphysics does it. You are doing it right now where you claim that logic and reason are the only valid basis for truth. You have no empirical observations to back that up.

- it was so before we invented logic and will be so after mankind learns to think better. Note this does not mean "use logic" logically. It might even mean rejecting logic entirely.

I have no idea what you're talking about. What magic? What's wrong with logic?

Nothing, until it becomes the sole determinant of truth.

How else are you meant to determine truth other than through logic and empiricism? Feelings? I certainly hope not.

Kind of a circular question isn't it? The only kind of truth we understand today is based on logic. If it's not logical then it's not truthful. But before logic there was also truth, the Greeks and other ancient people had words for it but I don't know what they knew as truth. We'd probably have to go a lot deeper into what we mean by truth to make any sense of its relationship with logic.

 

[Arakasi]

The brain works in ways we don't entirely understand, but it's not magic. Mind is made of matter.

And yet it is the mind which determines what is and what is not.

No, there are still things in reality, it's just the brain determines what a person percieves.

There would be no things at all if they weren't apprehended as things.

Is this 'if a tree falls in a forest' logic? Because it is poor logic, of course if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it it still makes a sound. Air doesn't stop carrying sound just because there's no one around to hear it.

Not sure why you brought this up, but if you like: you wrongly assume sound and air vibrations are the same. Sound is not a mere vibration of air, it is much more than that. We recognize sounds as something: the bird's call can be loud or beautiful. There is no sound without anyone around to hear it.

sound
/sound/
Noun
- Vibrations that travel through the air or another medium and can be heard when they reach a person's or animal's ear.

The definition of sound is not whether it is heard, but whether it could be, were someone there. And yes, it is a mere vibration of the air, just because we interpret it as a particular sound, or associate it with a particular sound maker, does not change the definition of sound.

The tree falling in a forest can't be looked at scientifically.

Yes, yes it can.

To do so is missing the point. It is meant to make you think about what it means to say something is. What is it that constitutes sound? It is surely not vibration of molecules.

But it is. That's what the definition of sound is. How our brains process it is irrelevant.

The grounds for what qualifies as a thing in "reality" are prior to experience. For us that ground is the material, substantiality.

I must be confused by the wording here, because I have no idea what you're trying to say.

The "magic" will always be our primary experience

What magic? What?

The opening within felt experience which brings Being to light. It always comes before science, before logic, and is the necessary basis for it. It can't be pinned down as an object of experience so 'magic' is quite appropriate to describe it.

Everything is an object of experience. The brain does what it will, but that will never stop there from being an actual reality, even if the brain does muddle it up for some people who don't use logic and reason.

It's the other way around - the objects of experience are what we think of as "things". Anything which goes beyond experience can still be accessed, by logic and reason. Mathematics does it, metaphysics does it. You are doing it right now where you claim that logic and reason are the only valid basis for truth. You have no empirical observations to back that up.

There is a physical world, we interpret that world, anything that is not based on empiricism and interpreted by logic and reason is not valid. Mathematics is just a concept we use to help explain the world.

- it was so before we invented logic and will be so after mankind learns to think better. Note this does not mean "use logic" logically. It might even mean rejecting logic entirely.

I have no idea what you're talking about. What magic? What's wrong with logic?

Nothing, until it becomes the sole determinant of truth.

How else are you meant to determine truth other than through logic and empiricism? Feelings? I certainly hope not.

Kind of a circular question isn't it? The only kind of truth we understand today is based on logic. If it's not logical then it's not truthful. But before logic there was also truth, the Greeks and other ancient people had words for it. We'd probably have to go a lot deeper into what we mean by truth to make any sense of its relationship with logic.[/quote]
Truth is what is. Is there a chair there? If it cannot be percieved by any means, there isn't a chair there. Is it logical to say there is a chair there when it cannot be percieved by any means? No. Is it logical to say there isn't a chair there when you can perceive one? No.

 

[Hagi]

In the scientific community there is a great deal of evidence that the human mind is capable of much more than we use it for. It is capable of storing everything everywhere at once and, when it is needed, that information can be called on at any time. All this space, however, means that there is room for amazing feats of the mind.

If you truly believe that then why don't cut half your brain away?

I mean all the information that's stored there is already stored everywhere else and can be called on at any time. That other half is just sitting there wasting oxygen, terribly inefficient really.

I mean sure, it might potentially somewhat reduce those amazing feats of the mind but seeing as in the half you didn't cut away everything is still stored everywhere and capable of being called on at any time there still should be plenty of room there.

Hell... You could probably cut away everything besides two neurons. One for storing everything and another for the amazing feats of the mind.

 

[Chairman Miaow]

In the scientific community there is a great deal of evidence that the human mind is capable of much more than we use it for. It is capable of storing everything everywhere at once and, when it is needed, that information can be called on at any time. All this space, however, means that there is room for amazing feats of the mind.

Citation needed.

When a person is dangerously ill or badly injured that we say they are fighting for their life. why is it that these people who fight and cling to life in desperate situations are the ones who, usually, survive and come back stronger than ever?

Citation needed.

The human mind has many mysteries but one of the largest is how the Will to Live is more than an idea, it is an actual state of mind.

Citation needed.

While it doesn't seem controversial to suggest that one's mental state can be a factor in health and healing, one can't just claim that this is a "usually" sort of scenario without evidence to back it up. Because that leads to a contemptible fallacy, the assumption that people who die just didn't want to live badly enough.

Pretty much exactly what I was going to say. For every story you hear of a person who "fought to live and came back stronger" there's another of somebody who fought to live and die or fought to live and came back a crippled wreck. Show some figures please.

 

[Guffe]

So if I want it enough I could become a God or even better a Super Sayan??
Now this will be awesome!!

 

[Angie7F]

it is like religion. What you believe is what matters.

 

[GundamSentinel]

That's always what I hate about the phrase "this person beat cancer". Like the people that died from it didn't (or couldn't) fight hard enough. A very rotten thing to say if you ask me.

The way you psychologically approach your illness is some thing that can very positively (or negatively) effect your state of mind, but I doubt it actually improves your chances of recovering. My father works as mental guidance in a hospital and sees the exact same thing: sometimes people with a very positive outlook dying, sometimes not. The exact same for people with a negative outlook. It really doesn't matter.

As someone else said, the mind is not some arcane mechanic. It's just chemistry. And people saying that the mind is capable of so much more: it's not. We use every part of our brain and we need it.

 

[bluegate]

Seriously; look up researches that were done regarding the placebo effect and you'll see that "mind over matter" is very much a real thing.

For example, I remember reading about a study where people were given sugar pills and pills that would normally increase their pain and yet, everyone reported feeling less pain after taking these drugs.