The Nature of the Mind

What is the mind? A tool, survival mechanism or rationalizer of our base instincts? Is reason truly just the slave of passion as David Hume contends? I think not. Surely, the mind is useful for these purposes but accepting such reductionism is to degenerate reason. It effectively negates the purpose of explaining reason in the first place. For those of us who reject physicalism, the beauty of the mind can still dazzle with its supple maneuvers of fancy and its cogent chaining of disparate facts and figures into inexorable trains of truth. The materialist mutilates his own potential for introspection. The glories of twisting labyrinths of discussion become naught but hallways that lead one to satisfy his primal urges.

It is analogous to the Constructivist movement in architecture. They attempted to make construction consistent with their worldview. Buildings should provide shelter and functionality. Therefore, any superfluity should be avoided. Man is an animal with needs to be filled, but the indulgence of the sentimental ornamentation of his lodging should not be humored.

Significantly, the naturalist thinker has been less consistent in worldview application when it comes to the higher pleasures. Philosophy is the hairless ape’s attempt to understand his chaotic surroundings. Does not the embrace of illusory chemical highs distract him from clear explication? Modern man should be a sociopath not merely towards the conventions and feelings of others but also towards his own. He should embrace cold logic and experience only consternation at the internal feelings of meaning or happiness.

The flights of cogitation which carry the composer to heaven and back are mere synapses firing in response to vibrations. Beauty is gone. Light is extinguished. And hope is made into folly. Many a materialist would balk at this picture, but its truth is inescapable. The ability of a naturalist to ignore the banality of reality in the heat of a pleasurable experience cannot fill the place of a higher metaphysics. After leaving the symphony for the comfort of his bed, the truth comes in the deepest, darkest night. Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.

Thankfully, that higher metaphysic does exist. Reason does not have to be a slave. Our minds are not machines. And our hopes for deeper meaning are not wishful thinking.