Self from Within: The Introspective Self 301“9x6” b2726 Self and the Phenomenon of Life: A Biologist Examines Life from Molecules to Humanityabsolutely apart? Can they in no wise be linked together? They have this
in common — we have already recognized it — they are both of them
parts of one mind. They are thus therefore distinguished, but are not
sundered. Nature in evolving us makes them two parts of the knowledge
of one mind and that one mind our own. We are the tie between them.
Perhaps we exist for that.”^5 Bertrand Russell came up with a straight-
forward, witty, and somewhat cynical answer (attributing it to his grand-
mother), “What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind.”
Facing this daunting issue, there is a faction of scientists, neuro-
scientists included, who choose to disengage themselves from the topic
of mind. The main reason is the “unscientific” nature of mind. These
people take reality as something that can be experimentally confirmed.
Some others are neutral but prefer to be mute on the topic. I can recall
one instance in which a prominent neuroscientist publicly proclaimed
the presence of mind but preferred to put it in cold storage since it
is private and there was no way he could deal with it scientifically.^6
I also know of a number of neuroscientists who are attracted to their
field by the mystery of the mind, hoping someday to be able to pry
into its secrets, only to be disillusioned upon realizing that, as their own
research gets deeper and deeper, their perspective of the mind gets
hazier and hazier.
For those philosophically inclined, the mind-body dilemma
continues to irk them. What, then, is the current status of the debate?
Traditionally there are two extreme views: one holds that only mind is
real; the other, only matter exists. With progress in natural science in
the last three hundred years, we have learned to respect nature as an
entity that stays whether or not we are here. After all, the world cannot
be “wished” away. Therefore, with the exception of the very ill informed
and those that are literal adherents of archaic religious dogmas, pure
idealists are almost non-existent. Most respectable thinkers accept the
reality of matter with varied views about the mind. The nagging question
is: how much room is left for the mind, and what is the relation between
mind and matter?