:up: Fabulous post. It's going to take me a while to take all that in.

Thanks! I just returned and finished starting a thread on this. I hope to see you there.

Interesting discussion and topic here. I was always interested to find out clear explanations and opinion about mind-body connection. During my searches, I found a new concept "mind connectivity" that defines the individual mind structure and its link with the brain and body. I encourage you to have a look to see if you find more clarity for yourself here.

Descartes is often misread. It is even debatable whether he endorsed mind-body dualism. Here's some thoughts from an essay by Robert Pepperell - (I cannot find the title right now)

"The uncertain relationship between mind and world has of course generated countless finely nuanced philosophical arguments. But, put starkly, it seems there are three options:

That the mind and world are distinct.

That the mind and world are unified.

That the mind and world are both distinct and unified.

… While there are many powerful arguments in favour of the first two options, it is the third which I explore here, and the one I will suggest is most plausible.

René Descartes (1596-1650) is often credited with formalising the dualistic distinction between thinking substance (res cognitans) and material substance (res extensa); that is, between ideas attributable to the mind on the one hand and the material world of bodies and objects on the other.

… Descartes’ reputation as the prototypical dualist, however, does not fairly convey the complexity, some would say confusion, of his view on the distinction between mind and world. In the synopsis of the Meditations, we read:

… the human mind is shown to be really distinct from the body, and, nevertheless, to be so closely conjoined therewith as together to form, as it were, a unity.

And again in Mediation VI itself:

Nature teaches me … that I am not only lodged in my body as a pilot in a vessel, but that I am besides so intimately conjoined, as it were intermixed with it, that my mind and body compose a certain unity.

Despite the hint of qualification, Descartes is quite explicit: The mind and body are both ‘really distinct’ and united – they are two and one."

This line of Descartes' thought is often missed.

It may also be relevant that the introductory exercise given by Sadhguru, perhaps the most famous living Indian guru right now and a youtube star, is to sit quietly and repeat, as one breaths in an out, 'I am not the body, I am not even the mind'. This suggests that the mind-body distinction is superficial. By reduction all such distinctions are transcended in Unity and Consciousness, as is discovered in meditation.

The problem is that we reify matter and assume it is substantial. Then we have to separate it from mind. But Meister Eckhart is clear. By reduction matter is literally nothing!

Just throwing in some thoughts and sticking up for Descartes, He saw the need for a third term in his theory to unify mind and matter. .

(Found the article title. 'Screen consciousness - cinema, mind and world')

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