The body-mind duality. I mean the western concept of body being corporeal and hence subject to laws of physics and thus reduced to pure mathematics and mind being a realm of 'res cognita' (thinking stuff) remaining outside the purview of physical laws. This view that led to the development of scientific thought in the 17th century was first propounded the famous French philosopher named Rene'Decartes to whom we famously and rightly attribute the quote 'I think, therefore I am'. But, how many of us really understand it in the Cartesian way? how do we now in the real world away from the dusty and usually un-understandable treatises of philosophers relate to this proposition? that is if we ever think on it.
What does the above have to do with my mundane life? Well, I believe everything. What the philosophers talk and deliberate about may be in inexplicable terms and may seem irrelevant to our daily grind, but is it really? don't we time and again come up with this question or this dichotomy ourselves, don't we ever think that is the 'I' that is at this time thinking and writing is different from a 'I' that is kind of an observer to this whole process? Don't I believe, that my true substance is besides this tangible body which can be explained as matter, in terms of quantity and in other ways is different from an I that is thinking all this? where is does the body end? and where does the mind begin? And, if the mind is so different from the body that different rules apply to it then what are the means of understanding it? when we think what is happening and where is it happening?
Am I the only loony who thinks of these things? Well I think they are important, for we must at least begin to find out who we are ( an impossible quest) and how we know what we know, and how we can know what we don't.
Talking of corporeal things, what I do know through my very physical body is the rising temperatures and humidity in this land by the sea. The air is slowly turning heavy as if the god of air, Aeolus is opening the mountains where he keep the winds trapped and is leashing it on us to swelter us in heat for the months to come.
Finally, I get a day off tomorrow, and the morning is mine with no rushing....
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